EMGagne

I'm applying to mostly psych PhD programs with the plan to be in either a cog neuro, integrated neuro, or behavioral neuro track. I applied to the Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience program at American University, and also the Neuroscience and Behavior program at UMass Amherst. All the other neuro programs I came across were way too focused on the cellular/molecular aspects for my interests. I've had a few email exchanges with POI's over the past few months, but it's been silent since the application deadlines. I'm not really sure if you would call the previous email conversations interviews (I don't - I would really only count official interviews as such), but either way I haven't heard anything official from any school. It doesn't look like we're applying to any of the same places, but it seems as though not a ton of psych decisions or official interview offers have gone out yet.

I just went through this - my strongest recommender, asked in September, said he would write a very strong letter, I've done research with this prof., currently work as a research assistant for him (i.e. see him 3+ days per week), well known in the field, etc. I sent him a few reminders between when I sent out the prompts via applications (around Halloween) and the week of my first deadline. He kept saying "don't worry" I'll probably be a day or 2 late submitting them but adcoms don't hold recommenders to the same deadline as applicants and it won't affect your chances. Fast forward to deadline day, no LOR uploaded - sent reminder email, rinse and repeat. End result: he was 2+ weeks late submitting most of my letters (6/8 of my deadlines were 12/1 or before). I know people that got called for interviews before my recommender even uploaded his letter. Even though people will tell you not to worry about it I would stay on top of this, especially because it's a week of holidays and then new years.

I also applied to Pitt and could not have clicked that link fast enough to make sure it wasn't anyone I named in my SOP (it wasn't). Best post on this thread.

If you don't get invited for an interview, is it safe to say you're 100% going to get a rejection letter? Or is no news (sometimes) good news?

Applied to all research programs - focusing on cognition and behavioral neuro (attention and decision making) In no particular order: 1. NYU 2. Carnegie Mellon 3. University of Pittsburgh 4. University of Massachusetts - Amherst 5. American University 6. Princeton 7. University of Michigan 8. U.C. Berkeley

I applied to 8 non-clinical programs (psych, cog neuro, behavior and cognition, all in that ballpark but with various program titles). From what I've heard clinical PhD programs are more competitive than research. If that's true (I hope it is) than it's not crazy to apply to 10+ programs - especially if you need funding. Honestly, I would have applied to 100 programs if there had been faculty that had similar research interests to me, but I just couldn't find many more than the programs I applied to.