SMcrumble

I'm not sure what to make of this, but I was told by one of the staff at UChicago that they are doing interviews the second week in Febuary.

I e-mailed the program administrator for Georgetown IPN, and she said that the admissions comittee is still reviewing applications, but that shes not part of the admissions process so doesnt know anything more.

A lot of the more vocal people on here didn’t apply to Drexel and UChigago, but in case there are any lurkers I figure I would post this. I called each today and asked if all invites have been sent out or not. UC: Said that some have been sent out, but not all. The person who would know best was out today because of an emergency. I was told that they will interview in the second week in February, and that the admissions committee met once before break and have since met once a week. The woman I talked to said that she knows they are not done reviewing applicants and will have more meetings, but didn’t know when the last invites would be sent out. Drexel: Interviews “start next Tuesday” and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis in the order they were completed. Application reviews are not completed but all invites will most likely be sent out within the next week. I’m not exactly sure if the comment about interviews starting next Tuesday means that candidates are interviewed one at a time or if she just meant that the first interview date begins next Tuesday and that they have another later one.

Has anyone heard from neuro programs at University of Chicago, Drexel, or Georgetown. I've seen posts about every other school I applied too, but nothing about any of these three.

@leealex0201 I'm in a similar situation. I even got a "I look forward to meeting you again on our campus", but still haven’t gotten any formal invites yet. I imagine that the profs aren’t saying these things just to be nice, but at the same time I think that individual profs don’t have a ton of pull when it comes to application reviews unless they happen to be on the admissions committee. I was told by one prof recently that after applications are under review the admissions committee takes very little input from faculty members until interviews. All in all I’m guessing that the individuals we have talked to were honest and interested, but that in the end it might not be much of an advantage unless they are in some way part of reviewing applications themselves.

stmwap-would you mind posting your stats? and when your app was completed?

I am also waiting on a UPenn invite. Penn is kind of a reach for me, but I just had a paper accepted to psychopharm on Saturday, and the principal editor is one of the professors I would like to work with at Penn. I’m not sure exactly how the grad app review process works at Penn but does anything think it would be beneficial to send him an e-mail thanking him for the papers acceptance? And if I do send an e-mail would it be appropriate to hint at talking to him if I get an invite?

Yeah, quite a bit of time actually, I graduated in May 2010 and started working for my PI immediately. We had to take about 6 months off of work to move our lab across the city, so all in all I’ve done about 2 years of productive full time work thus far. I have also had a bit of luck in that my PI has generally been correct in his hypotheses, so almost all of my work has produced publishable data.

Undergrad Institution: Small Liberal Arts College (somewhat unknown but received undergrad neuroscience program of the year at SfN this year) Major: Chemistry Minor: Biology Overall GPA: 3.01 Position in Class: ? Type of Student: Domestic White Male GRE Scores: Q: 156 (68%) V: 166 (96%) W: 4.5 (73%) B: - Research Experience: 2 semesters and a summer REU in molecular biology 2 semesters and a summer working on an original thesis project in medicinal chemistry 2.5 years as a full time research associate in neuropharmacology, working completely independent on projects for a reasonably well known PI Publications: 1 first author, 1 first author in late stages of review (both journals with impact factors >3.5), 2 first authors in prog, and a second author in prog. Presentations: Once at an ACS regional meeting, Twice at National neuroscience meetings, several local institutional poster and oral presentations. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Won a small grant for my undergrad thesis project Several schollerships Special Bonus Points: Will have very strong LORs, come from a “disadvantaged background”, took two grad courses and got As in both (trying to make up for my dismal GPA), made contact with several PIs and met with several more at SfN national meeting this year. Applying to Where: Neuroscience or Neurobiology programs at each institution JHU UPenn UTSW Georgetown Emory U Chicago Drexel