lucere

I'm in grad school for cog neuro, and this is my take, which may or may not be applicable since you didn't say much of what you actually want to research. It sounds like you're building a case more for biological neuroscience than cognitive neuroscience. While biology is good to have a basic grasp of, for actual research purposes, I think you could be better served by taking cognitive psychology, psychophysiology (ie, a course on cognitive neuroscience methods like EEG/fMRI), some kind of psychology lab (which is actually an explicit requirement on some cog neuro apps), basic neuroanatomy (or, better, "systems neuroscience"). I know "psychology" can feel like a fluffy word for someone applying to cognitive neuroscience, but it's generally the case that cog neuro doesn't require much cell bio unless you're studying animal models (in which case, you'd be better off in an animal lab than the fMRI labs you're working in!). As for computer science courses, I would strongly recommend MATLAB over the more traditional courses like C++. It has a much kinder learning curve, can accomplish the same tasks (occassionally in roundabout ways), and it is used by everyone I know - grad school engineers, psychologists, and neuroscientists alike. Most cog neuro software uses it or is compatible with it. Let me know if you have any Qs!

Those look like competitive/good-enough scores to be admitted, but what really sets applicants apart is their experience/background and match with POI. Schools and professors vary a lot in what they're looking for, so it's not really possible to form a sweeping generalization about your qualifications.

I feel bad for your lack of replies, but am quite uninformed about that program of the school. I actually grew up near Dominican, so I know people who went to it. It's real, but most locals don't think it's particularly impressive...or maybe we're just snobs. One thing to consider is that it's in a VERY expensive location, especially if you are coming from outside California. (Native Californians probably wouldn't think it's that bad...but even by CA standards, Marin County is not a student-friendly location).

There was one school I applied to (Pittsburgh, I believe) that had a statement on each prof's profile about whether or not they were taking students. Wish every school had that...definitely would have saved $$!

As the person above said, your SoP will change as a reflection of what you do during the time off. My thoughts about multiple applications to the same school are that you should definitely do it if your interests/future research closely match people at those particular schools. However, to dip lower on the prestige pool without sacrificing your interests, you can do some detective work by checking up on your current POI's collaborators and former students. Most fields, there are good people at top schools and then similarly good people at mid/lower-tier schools who are just as involved in the line of work, but for whatever reason didn't have as much luck (or even this is sometimes a two-body problem, where they deliberately choose to be at a lesser name school for its location) when they were on the job market.

There are definitely multiple aspects... They are more likely to reply, but less likely to remember you. Also, it so far from when they actually make admissions decisions that they're unlikely to know how many students they're taking. This is also influenced by funding--they might be waiting on a bunch of grant apps, and those decisions (outside of their control) could/would impact their interest/enthusiasm in taking students. I would go for it anyway after doing careful review of their site and their current pubs/CV (might not be listed on their site--look on pubmed or similar sites).

It sounds like you're on a good path. I'm not sure what the major conferences are for your field, but your current advisor would know. It costs $ to register and travel, but you could try seeing which ones exist and submit an abstract. These are usually sent in six months before the actual meeting, but at least it could go on your resume/pubs section as something you submitted & have upcoming. It'll make you look like an active member of the research community (because you are!). Also, you can include the paper you're sending out whereever applicable on apps listed as "(submitted)". They will understand that turnaround is slow, and even tenured profs have "submitted" papers on their CVs. It demonstrates that you've completed serious work. If it has a publication date, even better, but that's out of your power. I'm not sure what your statistics is like, but you could try taking a class as an extension student or at a community college, not for a degree, but to show that you're continuing to grow your skill set.

Orchard Downs is much more of a journey; more like 45 minutes' walk than 15 minutes. Goodwin-Green is undergrad territory still; you'd be right next to "ISR", which is where tons of them live. This is a serious party school...I don't think living near all that is desirable. You seem kind of determined...maybe it's not that bad? Is this because you're trying to go with official housing? Very few people I know of do that because they find cheaper, better accommodation through the private agencies. It sounds like you want to live in Urbana near downtown. If that's the case, you're much better off looking at apartments between Washington St (to the south) and Main St (to the north), critically east of Lincoln and probably west of Vine St. It's very quiet and safe there, although a lot of the apartments are older units and would require some investigation (ie, ask for pics and specifics). Also, the bus system is free and convenient in that area: the Green and Silver lines are extremely reliable in bringing people to campus from Urbana. I lived one street east of Vine last year (on Urbana Ave., amusingly enough for writing my address...) and it was very easy to get to campus. Carless people living near West Side Park in Champaign also have a lot of success in getting to campus; apartments are not too expensive there and it's a pretty cute neighborhood, near nightlife and cafes in downtown Champaign. Grad students frequently go to Royse & Brinkmeyer for renting units in that area...signing with them site-unseen would be a fairly safe bet. A word of warning to anyone who comes by this: Do not trust Green Street Realty. They are NUTS. They promised that my unit would be ready when I arrived, and it was not in livable condition. The wall was crumbling in the bedroom, the ceiling was bulging because of water damage, there was no separation between my unit and my neighbor (!?), the doorknob fell off in my hand, and the toilet leaked mysteriously if you sat on it. AND they took all my security deposit even though they had given it to be in a crazy state to begin with. Just saying: there is a reason they have a lot of listings on craigslist, and that reason is that they are unreliable thieves. I walked to Roland Realty and got a unit from them the same day I arrived to campus, about a week before classes started, and they were very good to me.

Assuming you are going for a pHD, research experience in the topic of interest with someone who is actively publishing in the field (and thus will be able to write you a good rec letter) will be most helpful. It will help you clarify your interests and provide support for your statement of purpose -- "I'm interested in ... To that end, I have been working with..." The type of volunteer work (because I assume social psych labs don't have the budget to pay for lab managers, which is a common route in my field of cognitive neuro psych) would depend on what would be most akin to what you actually want to do in grad school. Most likely, this means you'll want to try to get experience working with participants and running experiments. Ideally you'd aim to get a publication (really strengthens apps), but that's unlikely given your time frame, so even just a poster presentation would be a helpful demonstration of your ability to get things done. Also, with contacting POIs, I'd hold off until closer to the next application cycle just because I don't like coming across like a pest...also, come application season, you'd be a distant memory.

It might be that no one in this thread would know what a BBA even is...and you didn't provide us with much info about your interests (I/O psych, for instance, would not be as much of a stretch as cog neuro). Successful applicants typically have research experience in their relevant subfield...see above comment, which I agree with. What you are proposing is doable, but will require careful research on your part about what your specific aims are. You might be better off trying for a masters first, for instance.

I assumed that was the new scoring system, which is why what looks like a ridiculously low 165 is actually in the mid-90s percentile.

The GPA is going to be a problem for schools that employ a ranking of applicants by a combo score of GPA/GRE. They won't even look at your application if you don't pass an initial hurdle, unfortunately. You can attempt to save yourself from this trap by emailing POIs and asking if they are taking students -- getting yourself on their radar could be critical if you fail to pass an unspecified criterion. Can you take additional courses somewhere and demonstrate that you are capable of getting As? My thought is that for the most competitive schools, your GPA might be prohibitively low (esp. depending on the other applicants). One way of getting around this is to get a masters and demonstrate smarts in that program. (Then nobody cares about undergrad.)

There is a distinction to be made between "on campus" housing and University housing itself (I think Campus Property Management and the University Group are the ones giving the bad reputation) that might not be evident. There are plenty of good places to live that are essentially "on campus" (or a 15 minute walk to campus - IMO, from a big city, this means you are on campus...) but are privately managed. It really has to do with management company, and not necessarily the location (although there is little a company can do to prevent huge amounts of noise from parties- a situation you would definitely encounter closer to central campus). The two that I trust the most are Roland Realty (I got my entire security deposit back on move-out, and got to move into an upgraded unit mid-lease with no rent change, but others don't like them) and Bankier Apartments (the snootiest/highest quality large-scale agency in my opinion--central air/heat, laundry in-unit, lots of nice models if you stalk their site), but a lot rent from Royse & Brinkmeyer, which are cheaper and in quieter locations. I think the highest density grad school pop (other than the Urbana sprawl) lives around/west of West Side park in Champaign, which is itself west of Neil St (a defining barrier between the madness of 'campus life' and sane, private living accommodations). There are also a lot of R&B apartments in that area. The units you're looking at on campus are likely miniscule in size, also. I mean, coming here as an outsider I assumed there were standards about what could and could not be counted as a sane living arrangement...and then I learned. Undergrads, who want to live on campus like you do, have 0 standards on average. Things that you would normally expect an apartment to have will just be entirely absent. One place I went to had a wall caving in and the doorknob came off in my hand (listed as a "charming" place in Urbana with nice pics).

What you described, and what the commenter from Harvard wrote, also fits generally with my understanding of how admissions works at UIUC's psychology department (at least in the divisions I'm famliar with). Like the previous commenter, I don't know how common it is across schools.

Me too. People can be informal and funny in person, but almost all correspondence I have with academic associates is professional-looking (not counting gchat as "correspondence"). Even my friends in engineering/CS write well.