dejosco

Oh, I certainly wasn't suggesting that relationships are not about compromise; quite the opposite, really. And I probably jumped the gun given that I do not have all the facts. But here we are comparing "does not like location, does not affect career, only lasts two years," versus "dramatically affects career prospects." Seems like a no-brainer to me. If he has an amazing location-specific job, or he has family that needs to be taken care of (not just that he wants to be able to see all the time), then that's a completely different situation.

The way the OP presented it, she has a choice that rises above the others in the worst location. The boyfriend should jump at the chance to get this. In his situation, I'd swallow my opinion about location and never even attempt to convince my SO to go somewhere else for my sake, because her future is infinitely more important than where I live for two years.

You're not gonna like this, but if your boyfriend works from home, has been with you for seven years, and isn't saying with complete sincerity that you should go to the best program you get into even if it's in the middle of freakin' Siberia, you should really be re-evaluating your relationship. That's outrageous.

Hi guys, I hope you don't mind if I rant a bit. I guess this entire cycle has just been really hard. I received my waitlist from BU (where I currently work, got my undergrad and masters degree from AND all of my recommendations were from faculty in the program...), and I'm just... sad I guess. Pretty much rejected from every other program (I am very fortunate to have one interview though). Like it just doesn't seem to make sense to work this hard (already for the institution I work for) and now I'm just sitting at my work desk like K, thanks. 
Sorry to take over and rant, but I just want to say if you're feeling down today I feel you and I know we will make it through but its okay to be a little sad. Virtual hugs all around! ❤️ 

Regardless of how true this is, I think a lot of the people applying will fit at least one of these criteria so the faculty review probably weeds out a lot of people. Lots of grad school have an "average qualification" listed and still wont give you an interview even if you exceed them:/ 

The interviews themselves were much less stressful than I anticipated. I really only got two questions every time: 1) Describe the research project you’re working on right now and 2) What are your career goals/why a PhD? (Several also asked which other schools I was interviewing at, and I decided honesty was the best policy and didn’t dwell on it.) Then they often shared their group’s research with me, and a few even had slides to show (think of good probing questions to ask while they summarize it).
Be prepared to explain your project without the jargon (likely your interviewer is close to but not *in* your exact niche, you know?). I found it helpful to practice a ~1 minute elevator pitch about my work to my roommate, who is also into molecular biology but on the plant side (not microbes like mine is). And you should have a good idea of your career goals by now, so you’ll only need to explain that in a sentence or two if they ask.
I wouldn’t be too stressed about them, but it is definitely fatiguing—it’s hard to be “on” for several 30+ minute interviews versus a normal Zoom class where you’re more passively paying attention. But these are really just conversations with scientists that are genuinely curious about the science you’re interested in!
Hope this was helpful!!

I applied and head back from them on Dec. 23! Interviews are on the week of Feb. 15! 

Not to sound like this person, but I just wrapped up my first virtual interview/recruitment event and I am beyond exhausted. I have six more coming up and many of them are back to back, and I’m starting to wonder if I can actually do it all.
How have people been combating screen fatigue? Does anyone have any advice? This was much more doable than the academic year, not sure why this is so much more taxing...

I got an interview from Berkeley MCB in mid-December. They have already started organizing the interview weekend so unfortunately they may be done sending out invites. I applied to UCI CMB and haven't heard back anything either though!
My friend and I who applied got interview invites earlier this month! They emails weren't sent at the exact same time so it's possible that they're doing rolling invites. Their interview day is on 2/5. 

It depends on the school/ departments. As far as I know, some schools separate international students from local students (especially schools with huge NIH-funded programs) and review two different pools separately. Since international students are not eligible for NIH or NSF fellowships, they only have limited school funding for international students. It may take them more time to decide who and how many of them to invite for interviews. 

To just hop on the UNC Train, I think UNC is a good school with a large number of PIs and a variety of tracks. It wasn't on my initial list but my current PI highly recommended it and was very enthusiastic about Chapel Hill as a location. Upon further research, I found a good number of PIs doing work that aligned with my research interests so it seemed like a good place to apply for a combination of factors (PIs, reputation, location, cost of living etc.). I think its a good median between a reach school and a safety school.
Yes, there are other schools that fall in the same category but what people look in Universities differ. For example, Mayo Clinic or UMinnesota are great but I would never apply there because I know I cant live in Minnesota winter for 5-6 years?‍♀️

After seeing those numbers in @sirtuingirl's post I was just going to say -- seems like maybe people consider UNC more of a "safety". Which of course then turns into a large application pool that inevitably makes it more competitive!
 

My rationale for applying to UNC was exactly what you said....considered it a safety net. I wrote to a PI, he was enthusiastic about my application but when I followed up with him before Christmas asking when I might hear back, he replied that he has no idea because he is not part of the admissions committee. In the same email, he said that he is looking forward to interviewing me. Go figure.....

Hey, sorry for being MIA: had my first interview this week and was swamped!
My two cents: More importantly, I think that UNC is considered a safety net for many, many applicants. It's an "easy" first interview, is a solid umbrella program, and has a reasonable priority deadline. I got my UNC rejection on Friday along with everyone else. I would argue that UMich has a better Neuroscience program than UNC (Huda Akil vs. Tom Kash,) but it depends on your specific research interests within the field. I'm surprised that PIBS only offered 100 interviews... wow! Thanks for providing that insight- I'm also hoping to get a better idea of the applicant pool size vs. interviews offered during my interview weekends.
I think that more students applied this year because a) they had nothing to lose and b) GRE requirements were dropped by more institutions than the last cycle. Plus: there is a higher focus on DEI and recruitment of minorities. That alone spikes the applicant pool a decent amount, especially when you consider first-gen and non-traditional applicants (like myself). I'm still amazed that I got at least one interview. The competition is berserk, and we need to keep uplifting and supporting each other. It's so competitive, I can't wrap my head around it. My interview this week only had 14 students! 

That's good information to know! Yeah, I'm hoping to glean more information regarding application numbers during my interviews. 
Originally, I thought that programs might get less applications this cycle because of people possibly not wanting to start a program during the pandemic, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

That's good information to know! Yeah, I'm hoping to glean more information regarding application numbers during my interviews. 
Originally, I thought that programs might get less applications this cycle because of people possibly not wanting to start a program during the pandemic, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

I don’t have data about UCs but I read that someone who got rejected by UMich PIBS in the last week of December asked for feedback and got a response that giving specific feedback is not possible because the program received over 1300 applicants for the Fall 2021 cycle and has invited approximately 100 to the interviews. 
I also read that UNC received over 2700 applications this year (versus 1900 last year) and have invited 310-320 to the interviews. They expect 85-95 to matriculate, a bit smaller cohort size than last year. I don’t know how many offers they plan to give out. Whether the slightly smaller cohort size estimate is based on a smaller number of offers to begin with or expectations for a higher percentage of students to reject the offer, I have no idea. I hope it’s not the former.
It seems to me that this year, PhD aspirants in biomedical sciences (including neuroscience) have applied to many more universities on average than last year. I think it’s because everyone kept hearing this year that there is a big increase in number of applicants and there are less slots in most programs. Even if the total number of slots is slightly reduced, the increase in number of applications outpaces that by a large margin on a percentage basis, based on my guesstimate. 
If a program typically gets 200 applications, it’s not too difficult to see an increase to 300 or even 400 this year. However, it is a major feat to increase an already large size of applications of 1900 to 2700. I attribute that mostly to excellent marketing and outreach and I saw that first hand.
Moral of the story.....if you receive interviews this year, you should feel damn good. If you haven’t heard back, you should not lose hope because programs have so many more applications to review. Also, I think this year many programs will get their acceptance percentage assumptions wrong and some will get less acceptances than they estimated. Hence, if you got rejected from one of your top choices, it wouldn’t hurt to contact the program in March and let them know that you are still very interested. 
 
 

You make some great points and I don’t disagree at all with you. UNC BBSP is a good graduate biosciences program but it still gets double the number of applicants compared to other comparable public universities such as UMich, UCBerkeley, UCLA etc. You can make the cost of living argument and remove the California schools off the list. But UMich is comparable in every respect.
In my opinion, UNC gets way more applicants because of its excellent use of social media (Twitter), podcasts (Hello PhD) etc to market to prospective students. Back in September, Joshua Hall was marketing that UNC doesn’t require GRE. Kudos to him and the rest of the admissions marketing team of UNC. My point is that their marketing success that translates to a lot of applications allows them to be a lot more selective than they would be otherwise. 
 
Congrats on your success thus far with UNC, hope you get the offer from your top choice.

I don't think it means anything I just had that as my last choice. 

I just interviewed with Brown MCBGP today and leading up to my interview it was pretty sporadic and sparse information. I think the programs are quite small and they don't have the same infrastructure as others do when it comes to planning and organizing these virtual events. For instance, i didn't get the interview schedule until Monday, didn't get the link to the interview website until Wednesday, and still didn't have access to some of the google sheets until Thursday morning, then the interview was today. It all went off smoothly, but it was a bit stressful leading up. I'd try sending an email or call (like you mentioned). They were pretty responsive to email inquiries. 
 
Good luck! 

The two places I interviewed with so far say they meet the week after. So my interviews were on a Friday, and the team meets the following Tuesday to make a decision.

that's an excellent school, you should be proud! you'll do great

I ~think~ it is pretty high for most programs. As my PI told me "As long as they don't have to bail you out over your interview weekend, you're in." ?
I definitely wouldn't go in too over confident though and it also probably depends on if you have a good research fit with the program. If the people there see that your interests don't mesh, or if you're being too arrogant then you may get rejected. 
That's an educated guess though, I don't know the exact numbers.

it's my only interview so far so I am overthinking everything

To piggyback on what the others have said: if you've just finished an interview at a place that is your top choice, I would absolutely send thank you emails (even to the program director). This is advice I received from the chair of a biology department at Northwestern during a mock interview. 

I am not! Most schools just want to make sure you can describe your research well and speak in a scientific manner. My PI at home institution (who is on their admissions committee) said his best interviews he's had feel like conversations! You are interviewing them, just as much as they are interviewing you! Just be yourself and let the conversation flow. That being said, I am not preparing slides or anything regarding my research. I just planned out a "road map" of what I want to say and how it will flow sequentially! Hope this helps. Good luck in all your interviews.