djg05010

I'm in a similar situation, except I'm between Northwestern neuroscience and Columbia neuroscience. Both have a number of faculty that I would be thrilled to work with (although Northwestern has the edge on that one due to the work of one person in particular). For me the choice is again higher ranking vs. (moderately) lower ranking, NYC vs. Chicago (I've lived in the northeast my whole life, I frequent NYC, and honestly on my couple of trips to Chicago I think I would prefer to live in Chicago over NYC), slightly more interesting faculty vs. slightly less. Northwestern has a better curriculum than Columbia (people at Columbia admit their coursework is weak), but again the question is simple: which place is going to give me the best chance to get the post-doc I want / the professorship I want The professors I'm interested in are doing about the same caliber of work (similar number of journal publications in things like Nature, Science, J. Neuroscience, etc.). Rather tempted to just flip a coin lol. good luck on your decision though (and sorry for not having any good input, just figured I'd commiserate with you lol) p.s. which weekend were you at Northwestern? We probably overlapped

I'm a senior at UConn and I'm wondering where I sit in terms of the applicant pool for Fall 2010 Neuroscience programs. I don't really know what would be my "reach" schools (finding it much harder to get an idea of what a good applicant is for grad programs than I had when I was applying for undergrad education). Cumulative GPA: 3.8 Double Major: 4.0 in Psychology, 3.8 in Physiology & Neurobiology Minor: Neuroscience, 4.0 GRE: 1450 (770Q 680V) I've worked in the same behavioral neuroscience lab for the last 2 years (this year will be my third). By the time I graduate I should have 1-2 first authorships, 2-3 second authorships, and 1-2 third/fourth authorships along with 3 second authorship posters at SFN and 1 third authorship poster at SFN. I've been primarily working on parkinson's research and would like stay in that general field but am finding myself having to gravitate more towards molecular neuroscience programs (vs. the behavior neuroscience program I've been working in) simply because that's what most of the labs that I've looked at are doing. This is what my main concern is because I haven't had a whole lot of experience in this particular aspect of the field. So yeah, would places like UC-SD or some of the other top neuroscience programs be a reach for me?

I'm in my senior year and am looking for graduate school, but I'm having a tough time finding what I'm looking for. I've been working in a BNS pharmacology lab on parkinson's research for the last 2 years (looking at the DA/ACh/adenosine systems primarily). By the time I graduate I should have a 1st authorship paper (possibly 2) along with 3-5 second authorship papers and three second authorship posters at SFN. GPA is about 3.8, GREs are 1450. I'm more concerned about sticking with PD research than staying within BNS. Obviously if I could stick with behavior models that's be great b/c that's what I'm most experienced with, but I wouldn't mind doing electrophys or more molecular based stuff (although I'm not interested in genetic research). Unfortunately simply reading the literature and looking up the names of the authors for those papers hasn't been all that fruitful. Many of the research either don't work at a university or are in another country (or both). If anyone has any suggestions about how to go about finding schools I would greatly appreciate it. Deadlines are coming rather quickly and between research / thesis / regular school I don't want to fall behind on applications. thanks all