Yuanyang

From a long letter of interest sent to the PI of a lab participating in a PhD Program I'm applying to, I get this reply : "Hi Y, Thanks for your interest. Yes, I’m accepting students. Please let me know if you have any questions about the program. H " How do I respond? I tried to keep it brief but I already told him my interests, why I'm interested in his lab, and sent my CV. The only question I would have is "what should I put on my application?", but am I allowed to ask that in the first place?

Updating mine with the Institutions I am applying to. Spent the past few weeks e-mailing and talking to PI with labs of interest. Unfortunately all of them replied with very stately answers; adopting the tone of “the application process is tough, but you should do it anyways ... because I sure did!”. I actually have no clue to my chances. I think I might need to cut down the list, I'm making the same mistake I did last time: I applied to programs which cover the research topic I'm most interested in, which is only found in programs which are far out of my reach and I lack the education and training to do well in. Have the LORS ready, still writing out Personal Statements for the final 4 weeks of the cycle. I hope I'm not too late (I probably am but it might not matter).

I didn't know where to post to get advice, I'm hoping at least this is a good place to start. Yes I do realize this is quite late in the application season. Background: Originally after my B.A degree in biology, I took a year to volunteer at OMSI in Portland while applying for research tech. jobs in neuroscience. I was hired for a neuroscience lab at MIT where i worked for 2 years and had a middle-author publication. I then tried applying to Ph.D programs in the fall of 2014, no interviews and no admissions. I then applied for MS programs and then was accepted for a Bioinformatics MS degree at Georgia Tech. I'm finishing a 3-semester professional development degree with no thesis but with research work in a neuroscience & genetics lab - no chance for publications. Question: What is the best way to describe my meager research experience to a Ph.D program in neuroscience? I am concerned that my lack of publications and accomplishments in 5 years since my BA will hurt me and that my MS degree will be disregarded. Should I try a different field? bioinformatics, biology or psychology? I am having alot of issues trying to fit my skills and accomplishments where none seem to exist or are relevant. I feel rather stupid for trying.

I had hired Signet Education to get one of their tutors to help me with the SOPs for 10 of the applications. Cost me I think at least $600 in fees to the tutor. I was certain at that price I would at least get some constructive criticism and I did have to rewrite them several times. If the SOPs were good, then they clearly were not good enough. One of my recommenders was my supervisor whom I was very close and had very good experiences with (I also was a co-author with her). The next one was from PI of the lab at MIT which probably was, though from a very influential scientist, was likely a xerox copy with blanks filled in with my name. The third was a professor from a summer program and was sent late to a few programs. Needless to say, I think that was the weakest of the 3 letters.

@Bioenchilada I actually applied to 14 PhD programs in the fall and after getting rejection letters from each one of them I hastily applied to any program that was still open and landed on Georgia Tech's program. The reasoning was that doing a masters was better than doing nothing for a year (I was also unemployed). I was very desperate at the time, probably just chose all the wrong places to apply to. The MS in Bioinformatics at GT does not have a Thesis component, its course based with an internship component (I fulfilled that by working at the lab I'm in right now). Low GPA is due to SNAFU with credit reporting; I had earned less credit hours for research experience that was graded. I will get this corrected so it should bring me up to a 3.3 GPA which does not help much. Also, I had to return to Singapore because I heard that my father is dying, this was 3 weeks before finals last semester (I regret this decision only because, today, my father is still alive) . I returned right in the middle of reading week jet-lagged and behind in my studies. I would not want to explain all this to an AdCom, this makes me look disorganized and prone to making excuses (both are true). @PlanB Any suggestions in Psychology? I heard from my predecessor in my lab that they're easier, he's currently studying for his PhD at UCSD.

What do you mean "broadly"? as in apply to lots of programs? (think 2 years ago I applied to about 22 schools in total) I'm concerned that the Masters wont help at all since some professors say it doesn't count as research experience. Moreover, i have one more semester left but its likely that whatever grades I make this fall wont be seen in the application.

Posting for the 2nd time. I feel like I'm the only person my age who still wants to be a PhD student, desperately. Undergrad Institution:Reed College Major(s): Biology (B.A.) Overall GPA: 2.6 Current Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology Major(s): Bioinformatics (M.S) Current GPA: 3.14 Position in Class: Average Type of Student: the best type. GRE Scores (revised): Q: 157 V:162 W: 4 Research Experience: 3 years undergraduate REU, 2 years as a Research Techician at MIT, 1 Year Technican/MS student at Georgia Tech Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Betty Liu Undergraduate Research Fellowship, Georgia Tech Graduate Research Award. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Labwork (wet and in silico). Lots of raspberry Pi experience. Lots of experience with Noldus tools and systems. Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: one middle author publication in Frontiers Neuroscience Misc notes but not an accomplishment: I dont know if it matters but I was in contact with Eric Kandel and he said he wanted to talk to me about a student position in his lab. I tried to follow up but I wasn't able to get past his secretary. That was 2 years ago. Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Odd transfer credits from University of Washington (summer neuroethology program), and Harvard Extension School (elective courses and Intro Physics which I did not do at my undergrad) Applying to Where: Columbia University - Department of Neurosciences - Computational Neuroscience University of Washington - Graduate Program in Neurosciences - Computational Neuroscience More to follow; would like suggestions.

Taking all the easy intro classes and requirements for first semester. But also got recruited into doing research for a lab. Mostly behavioral research and programming; both Im familiar with.

It's april and my only admit letter comes from Georga Tech to the "professional MS in Bioinformatics". I dont know if it's the best path to take, but as of now its the only path forward. Unless someone has a better idea (I know you do).

No, i just think that I've gotten as much advice as I can (or as much as you guys want to). But i guess if you really were interested in what i'm doing I could blog about it.

Its a big lab. But really, big help everyone.

You live, learn, and lurk. Still, is it hard to read past the OP? its only 6 pages.

Thank you for reiterating stuff brought up at the very beginning of the thread. Right now, I've started applying to MS programs in Biology and Bioinformatics but I'm still looking for program suggestions (and a real thanks to people who actually did). Correct me if i'm wrong, an MS degree in biological sciences is my best option right now if I want to get to (any sort of, but not top tier) PhD program in neuroscience. Thus, the plan is to apply to as many as possible for Fall 2015, and I'll sort it out if anyone will take me. From what I gather, even if its just coursework, an MS should (but not always will) help improve a really bad undergrad GPA. For everyone who've posted here, while I appreciate this shower of cold hard truth, I think you guys are getting sick of me. So I hope that soon, when the results are in, there will be other people who will come here to get the same great advice on what to do when all your efforts applying to PhD programs goes through the toilet bowl. I'll update when I get my last rejections, when I do find a program, or when you need guys some easy rep on this forum.

Not all of those programs are in neuroscience, but maybe you can answer something else that I'm still unclear on. If I do a Masters in a life science field (there are a lot of names for them) that is not neuroscience/neurobiology and doesn't have that kind of focus, will it matter? Will a 4.0 GPA in that program have any value in a future PhD? is there some flexibly in life sciences? I'm seeing conflicting information from the people I've sent PM.

Correct. You figured out what everyone else in the thread has missed. Now I have to rely on you and apparently the people here who know more about graduate admissions than a Kavali prize winning institute professor. How I hate myself for listening to her instead of the internet people on grad cafe. So can you gauge my chances at those institutions I listed or should I be looking for different programs at other schools?

The very first thing they told me when I got hired was "we have a lot of money coming in". That is to a certain degree true, but its certainty not going to new technicians. The Graybiel lab used to have 6 Technicians on staff, now they only have one and its certainly not me. All the funding was instead used for new equipment and for another post-doc to work there. Everything the techs used to do was outsourced to companies like Transnetyx or is now done under supervision by undergraduates. This seems to be a trend in all the BCS and McGovern Labs; most of my technician co-workers are either leaving for grad school or finding work elsewhere. Understand that it was not the rejection from schools that upsets me the most, it was the fact that I listened to Ann Graybiel when I was encouraged to apply for grad programs, was assured i would get in at least one program, and even with that I got nothing. I am not certain why; either a) I was lied to b)she underestimated the rigor of admissions c) she overestimated my credentials (even with 2.3uGPA) d)the letter of rec was not very positive, e) all of the above. Even worse, I'll have to rely on her letter again if i want to apply to MS programs on time. Brandeis has already been suggested in this thread, I'm looking into it. There are a few Neuroscience MS that are still accepting applications (most without funding) but I'm also considering MS programs in Biomedical science, Bioinformatics, and Psychology. I still don't know about how difficult it would be to get into a PhD program from a different field, the answers in this thread are very unclear about this. This is what I've started so far: Northeastern (MS Bioinformatics, MS Bioengineering) Northwestern (MS Neuro) Georgia Tech (MS Bioinformatics) BU (MS Psych, MS Bioinformatics) Texas A&M Veterinary (MS Neuro) University of Sheffield (MS Neuro) OSHU (MS Bioinformatics) University of Idaho (MS Bioinformatics) U maryland,baltimore (MS Biomedical)

I already have a hard time finding MS programs that haven't passed the deadline yet. Know of any particular PhD programs?

I actually read that article before. It basically told me I need to get one guy to pull alot of strings to get me in to a program. I thought I had that at some of the places I applied to, but obviously not. Hope it will help someone else reading the thread. I'll definitely look into Queen's college, any labs there that you know are taking students?

Minimum requirements are an undergraduate overall GPA greater than 3.00 and at least 15 credits of Undergraduate Psychology, Neuroscience or equivalent courses. Both of which I don't have. I have applied to more than 50 job postings in the Boston area and in the US. I've gotten interviews from HMS, Boston Medical Center, and Transnetyx. I've applied to every Job I can find on Linkedin. No offers. Ever since i got the layoff notice, I've been looking for work. That was almost 10 months ago.

I should mention that the position that I held at MIT no longer exists. I have limited income and no tuition assistance. Some have suggested to find another research job. I have looked for other positions at MIT and else where, got interviews, and no offers. I do not anticipate getting another research position, but I will have to work full-time/part-time to pay for coursework or a MS. Someone also suggested I go to Australia and try to enter grad school there. I'm not sure of the merits.