Ptow

Hey everyone, moderator here.  There were a lot of complaints about RadNeuro's comments.  They have been hidden and the user will no longer be able to post. For the sake of continuity of the thread and to prevent further derailment, I have deleted replies to his comments as well, even though some of them were very nice.  Please continue about your discussions, and good luck to all of you!

Got an invitation to interview from Weill Cornell neuro last night! Interview dates jan 22- 24th

After 3 weeks of radio silence, finally got my first invite from Weill Cornell!!!!

Committed to Weill Cornell! Anyone matriculating this fall?

So I have some good information for you since I was in your exact position when I graduated (almost exact same stats) and probably would’ve had the same results. I’ll help walk you through what I did to compensate for low grades and what worked/didn’t work and how I did this application season.
i graduated from a regional SLAC with a 3.2 GPA in Biochemistry and Math with a minor in neuroscience. I had three years of undergrad experience but no pubs. I went on to take the GRE and got a 167/164/6.0 I think V/Q/W. I thought deeply about where I needed to compensate and how by following the advice of others and some good blog posts; my weakest areas were going to be my GPA, lack of publications, and letters of rec (no one knows of my recommenders). Thus, number one and two on my list were to enroll in an MS program with good grades and to get some publications. Also to find a job with some big names to write my letters.
I was actually fairly successful at everything: at the time of application, I was a quarter shy of finishing a masters in applied math with a 3.7 at a top-3 public school and I had been working 3.5 years at the premier neuroscience non-profit gaining 3 publications (3rd in Neurotox., mid in eLife, mid in eNeuro), 2 in review (mid in Nature, 2nd in PLOS ONE), and two more in prep (3rd and a 1st). My letter writers were all now former academics (not PIs though, postdocs) that were known in the community. I thought I did everything I could have almost as best as possible and all my mentors had told me that I should shoot very highly in terms of schools.
I applied to the following 14 schools: Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon/Pitt, UCSF, UCSD, Carnegie Mellon (Bio), University of Oregon, Boston University, Stony Brook University, MIT, and NYU. I also networked heavily and emailed 2-3 PIs at every school and corresponded with around a dozen extensively over email, over Skype, or in-person at SfN. I was feeling very confident I’d get interviews from around half my schools.
Now a few months later I was rejected from ten schools and received interviews from Carnegie Mellon (Bio), Stony Brook University, University of Oregon, and Boston University. I was admitted to both University of Oregon and Stony Brook University with fellowships about $5k a year each for three years. I’m still waiting to hear back from Carnegie Mellon (Bio) and am waitlisted for Boston University (GPN).
Some takeaways,
I should’ve asked my letter writers to address my grades and I should’ve talked more at length about why my grades were so low (undiagnosed sleep disorder [DSPD], and trauma with my best friend dying in a car accident). Admissions committees didn’t care that I got a 3.7 in my masters it felt like and this didn’t offset my undergrad grades as far as I could tell The admissions process is tightly controlled at a lot of schools by a single-person or a small committee and even though I was invited to interview (even being rated first in the cohort by a professor), it once again came down to grades and I suppose fit which was disappointing. I had believed that once I interviewed, the schools already wouldn’t care about grades and thought I was a good fit. as far as fit goes, I was a bit too specific and I suppose seemingly inflexible during interviews: I thought being a very good specific fit for two or three professors was the way to go but I’m thinking it’s better to have broad appeal. I wasn’t able to get un-pigeonholed as a “biology” or “computational” guy in different contexts. Some PIs expressed doubt as to whether I would even want to do experiments while others didn’t comment on my 5 years of programming or my masters in math. my publications didn’t matter. I never got a single comment on any of them and a lot of interviewees seemed like they had pulled up my CV in their computer a minute before the interview. I think the only sort of pub that matters is a 2nd or 3rd author in a high-tier journal or a 1st in a mid-tier journal. my work experience didn’t matter per se. I had a lot of friends get admitted to schools I got rejected from when they had only 2 years of experience and I had very nearly 7. The only difference between us was GPA so I think the advice “research experience is more important than grades” is false. it matters tremendously who is writing your letters. I’ve seen students with a 3.4 gpa and mediocre scores/experiences with letters from HHMI or NAS members get into every school in the top10.  If I were to do it all again, 
I would have addressed my grades more directly and had my letter writers do so as well I would have not done the MS (or done a 1-year full-time) and then focused two years on getting one or more first-authorships. In retrospect, I had all the experimental and analytic skills to do so but I was just intimidated by the idea of it. I would have chased after working with big names in the field to get a recommendation from them. It matters more than it should. I wish I knew that everyone who was giving me advice that was last in admissions 5 years ago has outdated information. It's at least twice as competitive now and 1st-authorships are now going from unheard of to uncommon. I should've worked like my life depended on it and that's saying a lot because there were many weeks I was working 60-80 hours with work and homework combined. Neuroscience is the hardest life sciences field right now (except clinical psych PhDs) and possibly all of science save except some fields like ML/CS but, unless you talk to someone who's recently applied or is on admissions, you wouldn't know it. BU got >500 applications for 40 interview spots and 8 spots in their incoming class. I networked a ton but I should've networked even more. Really making sure these PIs were invested in having me. One PI at each Boston and CMU had told me explicitly they "golden buzzered" me into interview which I would've never gotten otherwise. Most of my schools were top-20 so I needed this sort of help for each one but even one isn't a guarantee especially if their admissions process is more committee based. BU's seemed to give more power to individual PI's while others were tightly controlled and voted on by each committee. I had a chat for 30 min in-person with the director at Harvard and he said he liked my skillset and would look for my application but alas I never got in (I should've been upfront about my grades). I should've applied to lower-ranked but still very good schools like Pitt, Northwestern, Rochester, UT Austin, Georgia Tech, etc. Very important: I should have applied to more biology programs. They're easier to get into and the only difference is in curriculum (work with all the same professors). Several neuro interviewees I was with at sort-of mid-level institutions also had interviews at top20/10 biology programs. I'm also going to disagree with the advice that getting an acceptance after interview is "yours to lose" because at several of my interviews the acceptance rate was below 50% and so it came down to fit mostly even if you were a wonderful person. One school told me they wanted to see at least three PI's throw their hat in the ring for you. At several of my interviews, all of us were confident, knowledgeable about our work, skilled, and driven no question but yet more than half of us will not receive an offer. This does vary though as I know of one top school that routinely offers every interviewee that passes the "is this person at least normal" test.
Your grades aren't as bad as mines but I feel like for those with the same grades, the only way out is to have something that makes the reviewers go "holy shit" i.e. one or more glowing recs from big names in the field or having first-authorship. That's all I can think up right now but let me know if you have any questions.

It definitely is not the case for all institutions! It depends on your programs of interest but I had an entirely different interview experience at both of my interviews (one ivy league-waiting on response, another one-got accepted). Professors at both programs were friendly and passionate about their research and wanted to see if you were the same. Of course the general questions, "Why Neuroscience, why graduate school, why now?" all came up in conversation but it came off as a more casual probing because they didn't want you to be nervous. You still needed to give good answers, though. Make sure you channel your nerves into excitement for your research. Have a clear direction of what you want to study and where you want to be. You are not expected to know everything about your field, and be honest but inquisitive when you don't. My personal tip that I think got me my acceptance: read a paper of the professor's in advance and prepare very thoughtful questions that show you can think about the scientific process, see the bigger picture of research, while simultaneously allowing them to talk about themselves. You'll ask other questions as the natural conversation flows along, but have some prepared, with a pen and paper, for each interviewer. Avoid empty silence at all costs. They want someone that they can see themselves interacting with for ~5-6 years. Both interviews I ended up over-preparing, but that's not a bad thing.

When I interviewed 2 weeks ago it was with 4 professors at 30 minutes each and definitely on the relaxed side. It wasn’t very intense, they just want to see that you know what you’ve done and what you want to make sure you will be a good fit. The interview I will be attending this week is 8, 7 with faculty and 1 with a graduate student. So I guess they are all variable, and the specific experience definitely depends on the person you interview with, but they seem more like a conversation than like a job interview or such. The average seems to be around 5 faculty from what I have seen and heard.

When I interviewed 2 weeks ago it was with 4 professors at 30 minutes each and definitely on the relaxed side. It wasn’t very intense, they just want to see that you know what you’ve done and what you want to make sure you will be a good fit. The interview I will be attending this week is 8, 7 with faculty and 1 with a graduate student. So I guess they are all variable, and the specific experience definitely depends on the person you interview with, but they seem more like a conversation than like a job interview or such. The average seems to be around 5 faculty from what I have seen and heard.

I thought I was the only one worried about not getting any confirmation from SurveyMonkey! It is a weird system. 

I would think you could email Weill Cornell now and just explain your concern. You would at least be getting back to them on the deadline day. And/or you could try taking the survey again and see if you are able to submit it. (Also, do what I wish I had done, which is to take a screenshot of each page! I just assumed I would get a copy of what I had submitted.)

They would have emailed you today if they hadn't gotten your confirmation. Source: I filled in the survey last night and got an email from Veronica today reminding me to fill in my application. I'm guessing there was just some sort of processing delay, but if you didn't get anything from her, you're good.

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!

The invites they sent so far have a registration deadline of January 4th. So I would imagine if they are sending more it will be around then so fill remaining spots. 

I just got an interview from Weill Cornell neuro (feb 6-8th) which conflicts with the interview weekend for UVA (biology) that I’ve already committed to. Worst part is that the alternative Cornell weekend is the same as umass medical, which I have also already registered for. Any advice or thoughts if Cornell might let me come anytime other than those 2 weekends? Weill is one of my top choices so I need to make it work there. Thanks, and congrats to everyone who has received interviews so far.