alwaysNeuro

Seeing people get interview invites to programs I applied to when my inbox is dry makes me feel like crap lol 

Applied to 10 schools, got rejected by 6, interviewed at 1, and still yet to hear back from 3. 
The interview was with Dartmouth PEMM program and was accepted with fellowship award.
The offer letter came roughly 5 days after the interview, which is amazing considering how interview was Fri-Sat, and Monday was a holiday.
91% verbal, 94% quant and 82% writing and not the best GPA (lots of working to put myself through college and help family out with some expenses) from UC Berkeley, but did receive a scholarship that is given to roughly 2% of incoming class and lasts 4 years.
3 papers (none are first author though but they were published in journals that have impact factors of around 9, 13, and 19), basic research lab for last 2 years of college, 2 years post grad at a translational research lab at UCSFand 1.5 (and counting) at what was a biotech start up.
Rec from company director, a post doc I worked with but is now a PI level at a company, and PI of the translational research lab. 

When I was looking for a technician job I used university websites and because I needed a job quick, I emailed the PIs directly with my CV explaining why I was interested to work in their labs and I ended up finding a good position within weeks. It's definitely hard to find positions but not impossible you just have to put yourself out there! 

same as many friends above, BU seemed to be my last hope, and I did not receive an invitation~ I was trying to locate some RA or technician jobs but really have no idea where to start. Should I go to websites like Indeed and Glassdoor or simply just email professors of interest? Thanks in advance:) 

That was me last season! It's not a fun feeling, but everything will work out. PM me if you'd like to talk.

Don't take it personally, there were so many super competitive and experienced applicants this year, and I'm sure you were one of them. Take this time to relax, get more research experience that you're actually passionate about, and find programs that really speak to your heart. When you finally get into a dream program next year and eventually get your PhD you will be extremely relieved that you didn't get in for Fall 2019. I've gotten all rejections before and it just led to me getting lab experience that changed my life and my research goals, as well as making me a super competitive applicant. You got this, believe in yourself and your abilities. 

In preparation for interviews, I'm trying to map out roughly what I want to say for a few of the common interview questions. Any feedback/suggestions would be much appreciated! Feel free to share your answers as well.
 
**Introduce yourself/tell me a bit about yourself.**
Currently I'm a postbac research fellow at the NIH. I earned my B.S. from [University] double majoring in Neuroscience and Molecular Genetics. I'm. interested in basic and translational research related to neurodegenerative diseases.
 
**Tell me about your previous research experience.**
My Honors Thesis project was a genome-wide association study of axon guidance using a fruit fly model. I screened several hundred fly strains and identified any with naturally-occurring defects in axon guidance. Then I used their sequenced genomes to find variants in 16 genes that were associated with these defects. During the later part of my undergrad, my interests began to shift from basic to biomedical research. I wanted to get some experience in biomedical research and see what it was really like. I took a short break from my thesis research to do a summer research internship in Switzerland, where I studied how seizures can alter blood-brain barrier function in Alzheimer's disease mice. I also approached a postdoc at [University] about writing a review together about Alzheimer's. We actually end up writing three reviews together, which focused on the roles that amyloid-beta plays in the innate immune system. The internship and papers really deepened my interest in biomedical research, especially related to neurodegenerative diseases.
 
After I graduated, I decided to further explore biomedical research by joining the NIH. My institute is called the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, which basically combines assay development and high-throughput screening to move discoveries from bench to bedside. My main project involves developing a new high-throughput assay to [redacted--not yet published\]. I programmed our robotic liquid handler to perform all the assay steps, and then analyzed the samples using mass spec. I'm also working on another project related to [disease\], where I'm using CRISPR to attach a nano-luciferase tag to the [redacted\] gene in some patient-derived cell lines. This will allow us to look for compounds that inhibit mutant [redacted\] levels.
 
*[Note: Should I say this in chronological order or reverse chronological? Is this too much info or not enough? Do I mention PI names?]*
 
**What are your research interests for graduate school?**
I'm interested in researching the molecular mechanisms for neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer's is the condition I'm the most experienced with, but I'm also open to exploring others like Huntington's or ALS. Ideally I would like to also be involved with translational research to bring some of these discoveries closer to the clinic.
 
**Why do you want to go to graduate school?**
My dream is to one day run my own lab and spend my career in scientific research. In order to achieve that level of scientific leadership, a PhD is the next logical step. I'm looking forward to becoming a more independent scientist and enhancing my research skills.
 
**Why do you want to join this program specifically?**
[Using one school as an example here.] I really like how strong this program is in translational neuroscience. There are a lot of resources here to help researchers translate their discoveries into possible treatments. I also like that it's an umbrella program so I'd have access to a wide variety of different labs and have more options for interdisciplinary research. The clinical certification program for grad students is also really cool and definitely something I would be interested in pursuing.
 
**What are your strengths and weaknesses?**  
I have a good amount of experience with thinking independently and managing my own experiments. I was given a lot of autonomy in my thesis lab, and I had to do a lot of self-teaching and figuring out how to solve problems by myself. Currently at the NIH we function similarly to graduate students, as we're in charge of designing and running our own experiments as well as analyzing data. Another strength is that I know how to program in Python and R, and I'm learning Bash. I think this skill could be very useful in my future research. As far as a weakness, I sometimes can take criticism from my PI too personally. I've gotten better about this by communicating very clearly with my PI and also just getting more used to criticism, and it's something I'd like to continue improving during grad school.

Does anyone have advice (or an email template tbh) for contacting programs to see if all interview invites are out? Would reaching out hurt your chances as an applicant? I don’t think I can handle waiting 3 months for rejections again lol 

Me too. I've applied to 6 schools not a word from any of them . I emailed about ten of my favorite professors discussing my research background, NONE responded. I have just finished Medical School in my home country with above average numbers, so I know I'm not that dumb .....but still......?

Between the neuroscience labs I've worked in, I only know one graduate student who went to grad school directly from undergrad and he's in his 6th year now so that was a very long time ago... from my understanding it's actually recommended to take one or two years in between to get experience and really grow as a scientist. I only took one gap year but that's because I went to a school that offered 6 month full-time internships alternating with class semesters. Even with this experience, I was still encouraged to take two gap years (I didn't listen) but honestly it probably would still have put me in a better position. So I think there is no shame in taking gap years, as long as you're working to strengthen your application and figuring out if it's something you actually want to commit the next 5-6 years of your life to. From what I've heard, schools are looking for students who are pretty much already functioning at the level of graduate students and that have the potential to jump right in to the science.  From personal experience, after my experiences in undergrad I thought I wanted to study solely cell & molecular biology but now I work in a systems neuro lab and my interests have completely shifted. Overall, don't lose hope and don't be discouraged if you need to take a gap year- if that ends up being the case you will be happy you did and you may have better insight into what you actually want to do... Im not trying to preach but just some perspective   Hope thats helpful! 

I am in the same boat. I applied to around 6-7 and so far didn't get any interviews. I believe there are a lot of people like us and it might seem like everyone else is doing great but the only people posting here are the ones getting interviews. The ones not getting anything are silently watching in sadness so don't beat yourself up too much on it. We will come back stronger next year!

Been reading this thread and freaking out so decided to create an account. I applied to 6, been officially rejected from 2 and I think silently rejected from 3 more. Been a tough month. Sounds like everyone else is doing quite well with their apps though so congrats to those of you getting interviews

Does anyone have any idea on when Stanford is coming out?
Also I really think that programs should send rejections at least relatively soon after their interview invites. It’s really not that difficult to automate and would save a lot of anxiety 

congrats!! I applied to UCD as well and haven't heard from them yet. In fact, I only got a few rejections but no interview. Anxious and desperate, but you gave me some hope~

Just got my first interview (wooo!) at UC Davis for IGG. Somewhat annoyed though as I realized the recruitment weekends for IGG and Neuro are the same, so I believe I didn't get a neuro interview as I put my first choice as IGG. Just sad I spent the extra $105  on an application when there was no way I could have gotten an interview for both.

I did. The official interview invite came by email from the graduate program assistant. 

Does anyone know if they send out emails in batches?
Since there's been five individual posts for interviews on GradCafe already, I am just going to assume that I have been rejected.

Northwestern has an excellent post bacc neuroscience program that you qualify for as long as you obtained your bachelor's less than three years ago, http://www.nuin.northwestern.edu/postbac-program/ .  MIT bcs also has a great post bacc program which accepts people with Master degrees as well as long you have a bachelor's in a stem field https://bcs.mit.edu/academic-program/post-baccalaureate-research-scholars-program-brain-and-cognitive-science.  If a post bacc program isn't really what you're looking for I would highly recommend applying for a research assistant position at janelia https://www.janelia.org.  You could also look into janelia's undergraduate scholars program.  It is targeted towards undergrads, but as long as you haven't committed to a PhD program yet; the down side is that this program is extremely competitive and only lasts 10 weeks https://www.janelia.org/you-janelia/students-postdocs/undergraduate-scholars-program.

Hm, well idk. You guys seem to be talking more about the programs/labs I'm interested in, so maybe I'll stay? At least I'll straddle. For now, I'll just review whatever info I can share you guys with the caveat that w/ no exception I'm taking the psych route into neuro labs (ie applying to cog neuro track of psych programs). That probably makes most of what I'm about to review useless for most of you guys, since I'm sure psych applications are often if not always considered separately from neuro apps, even if similar lab memberships are being pursued. Based on my reading, I suspect that the bio-track neuro process might roll out faster simply because a lot of these programs pursue a lab rotation approach to students' first couple of years rather than situating them under one PI immediately. The result is that more people need to vet individual applicants and that takes more time!
So around the same time I sent my apps, I emailed a selection of profs (almost always just 1 per school) expressing interest in their labs and attaching my CV. Some didn't respond (which I told them was ok and understandable from the get-go!), some just said they'd be excited to see my app, others were more enthusiastic. Since then...
- Quick skype chat with a Columbia prof within a couple days, seemed to be an informal courtesy due to her ties w/ my lab and unlikely to lead to an acceptance based on my impression
- Multiple rather warm skype interviews w/ a few profs at Vanderbilt; was invited around the 17th after one call for a 2/7-9 or so for an in-person shindig. They're such friendly people there.
- My most official-feeling skype interview yet was with UVA late last week. Was described as a pre-screening. Something I noticed when reading the thread is that my UVA deadline came a lot later than you guys': it was 12/15! Maybe another sign that everything I'm sharing here is useless to bio-track people, sorry.
- Finally heard from Brown a few days ago, on Friday I think. For a Skype interview in a couple weeks! This seems to match the timings reported by bio-track people, so that's notable.
- Haven't heard from Penn, Boston or Columbia yet aside from what I've mentioned above. Recent news in this thread about Penn is discouraging but I'm hoping maybe they handle Psych apps in a later committee (the prof I emailed suggested as much indirectly), especially since there aren't any signs of Psychy stuff happening in the decisions database and a peek at past years' threads suggests a late decision cycle. There are similarly crickets chirping in the decisions database re:Columbia but again I'm pretty pessimistic.
- Boston was the source of one of the especially enthusiastic initial emails I've gotten (guy even went as so far to say it was likely he'd invite me for an interview!), so I'm honestly still expecting something from them after break. That makes me feel more okay with the idea that other schools might contact me in January, too. Then again, though, my CV didn't mention my GPA, haha.
I'll keep throwing intel here for as long as it feels like it could help. Might mean no more posts!

UMichigan (Neuroscience Direct) finished reviewing their applications last week and extended their invitations by phone last Friday. The few who couldn't be reached by phone will be emailed this week, but otherwise, the admissions coordinator I spoke to said that another round of interview invitations will not be expected...

Hello mate, we are on the same boat. I haven't heard from any school I applied to, except a request of secondary application from UTSW (which can be nothing). 
My situation may be worse. I have no pub, two years research exp. Not so competitive GPA or GRE. My TOEFL was just above the requirement. 
I probably won't feel frustrated if I get all rejected because it is foreseeable. I spent a lot of time reflecting myself lately and am happy to figure out what I truly want. I might go for post-bachelor research, but I do not want to give up upon neuroscience.  
Happy to chat~ It felt released to divulge 

Hi all!
I've been reading this forum for the past hour, so I figured I'd also share my applications and everything. I honestly didn't expect responses to be out so soon. I just discovered this site today after friends and family were bugging me about my applications. Now I'm *stressin out*!! I haven't heard back from anywhere yet, and it's nice to see that others are in the same boat. Most of the interviews people have gotten are for schools I didn't apply to ?
Here's a list of where I applied: University of Washington (Neuroscience), UC Berkeley (Neuroscience), Stanford (Biosciences), UCLA (NSIDP), USC (Neuroscience), USC (Psychology), Caltech (Social & Decision Neuroscience), UCSD (Neurosciences), UCSD (Psychology), Northwestern (NUIN), Columbia (Neurobiology & Behavior), NYU (Neural Science), Duke (CNAP)
I am assuming that since I haven't heard from UW or UCB that I didn't get an interview, but I'm holding out hope!! Please post if you have any info about those schools. 
This is my first time applying to PhD programs. I have pretty strong research experience with a few co-authored pubs (working on my first author manuscript currently), good GREs, strong recs, but my GPA is not competitive. I'm hoping that since I'm 2 years out of undergrad, it won't matter as much.
I'm looking forward to the next week of news (hopefully good) and hearing from people going through the same ordeal! I found this CV of failures on a psych forum, and it helped me put things in perspective. Hope it can help some of you, too!
Good luck to everyone, and lmk if you wanna chat! I clearly need to distract myself from checking my emails.
space8

Lol god damnit I saw either you or someone else post they got an interview from BU and I thought it meant Boston University so I was freaking out for the past hour. This is what I deserve for returning to this god-forsaken place on the weekend

I'm a psychology student without much experience with neuroscience and I just received Duke CNAP interviw invitation. But I don't know the exact interview date as I'm an international student so they said in the email that they'll try to set a few skype interviews for me in January. I found that someone has posted interview invites from MIT, which makes me feel a little freak out. Would you mind sharing what division are you applying to? Cognitive Science or Systems Neuroscience? I'm applying to cognitive science and wish there's still a chance.