Bioenchilada

You only have one year of research experience?

I think that you should apply this year, honestly your application cant get any better unless you were to somehow boost your GPA. I don't think it's worth it to keep waiting, after rejection is the worst possible scenario and I think you should get interviews with your credentials. Just write a good SOP that encompasses why you love science and maybe address your GPA

Did you see those stats here? The thing about GPA is that it tells you nothing about your ability to do research, or the amount of connections someone has. So, that person with a 2.67 could be a Stanford legacy with 4 years of experience, or just someone that had letters from 3 Nobel laureates, you'll never know. I'm not by any means discouraging you from applying, but I've seen people with 4.0s and high GREs literally get rejected across the board because their SOP was weakened due to a lack of diverse experience, which also has an impact on LOR "quality". I think you have nothing to lose by applying, so might as well do so to see how it goes. At the same time, I suggest NOT lowering your standards when it comes to picking schools, unless you truly want to go to that particular places. "Safeties" are more of an undergrad thing, and applying to a low tier school you have no interest in could definitely lead to a rejection. I also suggest applying to postbac programs or maybe even lab tech jobs later in the game to increase your chances for next year, if you don't get in. I'm confident that you can, at the very least , land a 1/2-year tech position at a top 5 school.

I think you quoted the wrong person lol Where will you be doing your PhD now? I thought you were applying this cycle

I don't know about you, but rarely did any of my interviewers bring anything up from my SOP. I feel like most of them didn't even read it thoroughly, if at all, which is understanding due to their workload. They just told me to talk about my research and then they told me about theirs, after all, interviews only last like 30 min lol

I don't think you should word it like that. Grad school will be much more difficult and longer than undergrad, you don't want to sound like you'll need a break while getting your PhD. It's true, a lot of people take gap years before grad school, but most of the ones I know were doing full time research during that time. If you were unemployed, I'd suggest not mentioning it, or looking for a way in which it doesn't sound weird or bad.

Did your lab work closely with any other labs whose PI might vouche for you?

Yeah, the fact that you did research full time for half a year will definitely be beneficial. I might have to retract my statement about you not having enough experience. However, letters are still an issue, which is the problem with only working in one lab. DO NOT ASK A PHD STUDENT FOR A LETTER. It's really not okay lol

Hmm, okay. I think your GPA will hurt you a lot in this round of applications, especially considering the schools you are applying to. Although you don't really have a lot of research experience, you published a lot in your lab, so I really don't know how that'll impact your application. Lots of applicants don't have publications, so maybe positively? You're already retaking the GRE, so I'm not really commenting in that, though this is one of the least important parts of your app. I'm concerned about your letters since only one of them comes from a PI. There's a limit to how much a person that didn't mentor you can talk about your performance in a lab, even if they have a PhD. I think you have too many reach schools in you list based on your credentials. I'm not by any means saying that you shouldn't apply to them, but you could benefit from diversifying your list.

Why are you asking a veterinarian for a letter?...

UPenn has their averages posted on their website, and Cornell has their minimums posted. Also, for the sciences in general, the quant tends to be more important; however, GRE averages (and scores for that matter) are not good ways to gauge chances of admission.

We can agree to disagree, though I think we're (almost) on the same page. Where you do your postdoc is incredibly important for academia, but I think that it'll most likely be easier to get there if you already go to a top school due to the amount of interaction that occurs between them. Of course, I also agree with that the work you do will dictate where you go. A brand name cant save a slackie.

I don't think you need a postdoc for government positions, maybe if it's a research branch (?). They are mainly needed for academic positions. And yeah, research and personal fit with the institution trumps everything. I'm just answering the question shortly. Does name matter for job prospects? Yes, especially for academia. I'm not saying anything about the amount of networking you can do at your school, I'm saying that at top institutions, GENERALLY, you'll be exposed to a LOT of people that are very well known and might be able to give you an advantage when it's your turn to look for a job, including a post doc. Coming from a school that was not regarded as a top school for my field for undergrad, I can feel a REALLY BIG difference in the opportunities that I had there vs. my current institution. Even if I were a master at networking, the inevitable fact is that it is easier to be exposed to people that are regarded as brilliant scientists at my current institution. Also, I don't know about you, but when I talk about my particular field when I address my school's reputation, not it's overall prestige. Field specific rankings are a thing that exist, and that's what people should use if they wanted to gauge their school's reputation. Rankings tend to be very subject and variable so they should only be taken as a grain of salt, and many sources should be used before reaching a consensus. Again, I am by no means saying that a decision to go to grad school should be based on name alone, fit and prospective happiness are key when determining where to attend and are more important than prestige.

Most top programs are extremely dedicated to their student's training and success, so I think that most graduates will be rather productive and well-prepared. Wouldn't you agree that the network you make at top schools gives you an advantage in terms of landing a postdoc position at another top school, or a big name lab? I feel that completely disregarding the effect of name in terms of job prospects, especially in academia, is rather unwise. HOWEVER, as I previously stated, name does not grant you happiness, and you should attend the program where you think you not only will get the best training, but will also be happy for the next 5+ years of your life.

It depends on what you want to do within academia. If I look at the universities the professors here graduates from, they're mainly prestigious schools. So, I'd say that school prestige will most likely make it easier for you to get a job, along with your PI's reputation. HOWEVER, you shouldn't go someplace you're not going to be happy at just for the name, it'll affect your performance and what you get out of your PHD.

Lol the average class size for the UPenn Pharmacology group is like 10 people, so I really don't know what you mean by "larger program". In my opinion, there's no much benefit to going to a smaller program since that sometimes translates to fewer faculty, which might in fact end up increasing the amount of overlap between students in terms of rotation. Also, it might also be risky if, for some reason, a PI can't take students for X/Y/Z reason. I think you should aim for large umbrella programs since you have more freedom with respect to the fields you can explore (i.e you can rotate with anyone within the Biomedical Graduate Studies department regardless of your program affiliation) and you have WAY more faculty to choose from within and outside your field, which decreases the amount of stress with respect to a faculty member not being able to take students. For example, I REALLY wanted to rotate with a PI this semester but they couldn't take students since they were still setting people into their lab. Tried another PI and also wasn't able to rotate there; however, though it still sucked that I wasn't able to rotate with my "top choices", there are plenty of labs here to choose from. I don't know about the Dartmouth Experimental and Molecular Medicine program since I decided to apply to MCB due to more people doing what I wanted but, again, I felt like I was very limited due to the amount of professors in the department. This made choosing who to interview with VERY difficult, but this might have been because I applied to the wrong kind of program. (Same thing happened with UChicago, so make sure you choose your programs very well. It kinda sucks to interview at a place where you already know you don't fit in well, or feel very constrained.)

I feel like your GPA and GRE might affect your application a bit given the caliber of the schools you're applying to, and because your quant score is the lower one. Is there a reason you're applying to more than half of the Ivy league? It's really easy to get lost in the name game, so just make sure that you ACTUALLY have good reason to go to the schools you listed. With your credentials, you're going to need an incredibly well crafted SOP that really tells the adcom that you're an amazing fit. You have really good research experience so I'm confident that you'll have good LORS. However, the competition at the schools you listed will be intense and there will be a LOT of people with higher GRE scores and GPAs. Note: If it helps, the average scores at UPenn were 159 for quant and ~157 for verbal with a 3.73 avg GPA for the Neuroscience graduate group. The Cell and Molecular Biology group has an avg GPA of 3.5 and 157Q/156V (probably slightly lower due to much higher amount of students 45 v. 6). What big name schools did you apply to? Also, I mainly agree with what you're saying. However, you can't fully disregard the relevance of name and it's effect on prospective careers, especially if you want to go into academia. This is not because of the name itself, but because of the networking and opportunities you'll be exposed to at schools with "brand name" and lots of resources.

What field do you want to got into? And who's writing your letters?

Based on your credentials, I'd be surprised if you didn't get an interview invite from almost all the schools you applied to. You have ample research experience and really good numbers. You really cant go wrong with the schools in your list since I feel they all have amazing neurobiology programs-- not really sure about memory and learning faculty being abundant though . Maybe you could benefit from dropping one since a lot of schools have conflicting interview weekends. I only applied to two schools on your list, but if you'd like help with your SOP, I can provide assistance of some kind. Or if you'd like me to tell you more about Penn lol (Note: My comments are constructed under the assumption that you'll have really good rec letters from your PIs and that your SOP-writing skills are good)

Though they are both incredibly hard to get into, I think BBS has a higher acceptance rate since it is an umbrella program. (It's also very hard to say without seeing your credentials lol )

You don't have to look for 10, but the more the merrier.

With such a great profile, why aren't you applying to more competitive psych programs? Also, why are you not applying to UPenn? It's likely that your best shot would be to go to the school you already work for, especially since the caliber of their Psychology program seems to be amazing.

I second this.

I think @ballwera is saying that you should discuss your letters with your PIs to try to assess their strength. Was your relationship with both PIs good? Like, do you interact with them and are productive in lab? If so, then I'd say your SOP needs some reworking.

I don't really know what to say then. It is unlikely that you had an unlucky draw twice, especially with your amount of research experience. I'd suggest rewriting your SOP using a different strategy or something.