ManifoldsAreMadeUp

I would consult with your mentors in Europe but generally the advice that is given to Indian students is to get a degree from a Western school. Almost every Indian PI (including two I've had) had to get a masters in the United States before they were accepted to an American PhD program. I don't know if I've ever met an Indian student who didn't do their undergrad or masters in Australia, Europe, UK, Japan/Singapore/Hong Kong/Korea, U.S., or Canada

Honestly, Twitter was the best resource. I follow PIs whose work I'm interested in to keep up to date but importantly they will retweet when a colleague is starting a lab somewhere. If that lab was interesting to me, I contacted the new PI and expressed interest and asked if they wanted to chat over Skype or in-person at SfN. Out of the PIs (not just new ones) I contacted, roughly half responded and I chatted with most. I chatted with every new PI. I also went to SfN that year and met about 6 or 7 in-person but unfortunately the conference probably won't happen this year (probably virtual). I'm still friendly with a lot of the new PIs I talked to! They really *really* appreciated the earnest interest in them before they even appeared on the department faculty pages. They still come to my posters and retweet papers I've written! DM me and I will send you a link to my blog with a ton of intimate details about my application process.

My profile, background, and interests are extremely similar to yours! I have worse grades however but maybe not by much. I had much more extensive research experience. GPA 3.1 overall (2.9 in math major/3.0 in biochem major), 3.75 last two years (includes masters in math) GRE: 167/163/6.0 Post-bacc (Masters): 9 graduate applied math courses: scientific computing, numerical linear algebra, convex optimization, complex analysis, PDEs, dynamical systems, etc Research experience: 3 years undergrad neuroendocrinology, one third-author IF of 5. 3.5 years post-bacc sys. neuro. unrelated to MS with 5 mid-author papers (IF 5 to 22). Programming: 8 years of experience (6 in Python, else in MATLAB). Some professional experience in software development without the title. 1 year consulting on time series forecasting too. (Told you we had similar profiles!) LoR's: two great and one average. All research advisors. Papers: 1 3rd (IF 5), 1 2nd (IF 3), 6 mid-author (IF 22 to 5). Many posters several first-author at SfN. Here's how I did for schools: Rejections: UW, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, CMU/Pitt (PNC), Columbia, NYU, Princeton, UCSF, UCSD Rejected/Waitlisted after Interview: CMU Bio, BU GPN Accepted with fellowship: UO neuro (bio dept.), SUNY Stony Brook Frankly, I think your grades are on the cusp of okay but will still get you filtered out from many of the top schools (and you're shooting probably too high). Be sure to network early and often especially with new PIs who will appreciate your interest and be more willing to take on a student. They can send the committee a message saying "so and so is perfect for my lab. Please at least bring them to interview." You'll also want to take a look at direct admit programs. UCSB is one of them and on your list.

I think you have good reasons. That's interesting you already have two degrees from there and maybe is a good reason to move to another institution. In fact, a lot of programs will be biased against their own students applying to a PhD there because it means their students don't get to see neuroscience more broadly. Personally, I don't apply the sorts of modeling that depends on a fuller characterization of a model organism's brain but I won't impose my biases on you. Since you're familiar with MIT, my perspective would most closely align with, say, someone from Jazayeri lab. I agree that MIT is very cognitive in their computational approach, perhaps because they are an older program, but there's some new blood there like Robert Yang I think? You know the institution better than I so if you feel you've seen all MIT has to offer, Rockefeller is not a bad idea. Their invertebrate work is legendary: Cori Bargmann comes immediately to mind. Vaziri lab also just posted an interesting paper on imaging whole cortex of the mouse so I think there are options to still try out the more neural data sciencey approach as well. I think you can't go wrong with either school and maybe Rockefeller is the move since you already know MIT well. Boston has a great neuro community with BU/NEU/Tufts/BC/Brandeis/Harvard/MIT but so does NYC with NYU/Columbia/Weill Cornell/Mt. Sinai/Rockefeller/Albert Einstein/CUNY Graduate Center; you can't go wrong with either!

I mean, Rockefeller has less computational folk relative to how much MIT lacks experimentalists. Go by your interests! Who has more PIs whose work you like? I'm both very experimental (10 years of wetlab work) but also very computational (two math degrees and strong programming) but I've always found it harder to successfully grow in a place that is too experimental and without computational people to continue to learn from. Some labs have in-house experts but why take that risk when you don't need to? A lot of experimental labs require *all* students to run experiments. Do you have a compelling reason for Rockefeller over MIT?

It's a friend of mines and it was privately communicated. I saw the offer so I know they're not making things up. I will add that if you and a PI really really hit it off and you want to go to BU above all else but don't receive an offer, inquire with the PI about the BBC program if they are affiliated with PBS. I know of two individuals that were waitlisted for GPN but admitted through BBC as late as March or April (it's psych's direct admit program).

Afaik, comp neuro vs. neuro aren't really differentiated at the admissions level so I'd guess those aren't rolling. The person that I know that was accepted and given a formal offer doesn't use GradCafe. They're also comp. neuro. track. They must've just gotten started with offers so I wouldn't be too worried! It definitely seems like it's on a rolling basis otherwise you would've seen something on the Results page. Lord knows everyone here has applied to BU.

I know that BU has already sent out offers to some early last week. They seem to be rolling them out slowly.

Not sure if this is consolation but you had a solid shot and got an interview at a top program as an international student in the toughest application cycle since the Great Recession. I've seen that UCSD in particular (because they are a state school) will only take 0-2 international students per cohort. You're probably one of less than 1% of international students that were taken to interview! Every candidate is great so I don't think these professors were lying to you but maybe you weren't as good a fit as another student and that's fine; it's not a referendum on your abilities. Take this as an opportunity to learn to work through a rejection because neuroscience is all about rejections whether that's getting into grad school, getting a paper accepted, getting the NRSA, getting a postdoc, getting a K99/R00, getting a faculty position, getting a foundation grant, getting an R01, getting tenure etc etc. I've helped some of my international friends and they have to be twice as good as U.S. citizens and that's not fair to them; I wish it were different (I am a U.S. citizen). However, I will say that by having to work twice as hard, international students end up being twice as good. They end up being the stars of their cohort and star neuroscientists generally speaking. Why do you think international students are only around 10% of PhD students in neuro but end up being maybe 20% of faculty? You might fret not being at a place like UCSD but it's not the school that matters, it's how productive you are and the quality of your research. No matter where you land, if you do good work, you'll be able to postdoc in whatever big name lab you want. At that stage, the advantages of being international vs. citizen disappear because funding opportunities at that level are open to all. The F99/R00 and R01 only require a visa! You'll be that much better at that stage than American citizens because you've had to learn how to work harder and face tough rejections.

Pretty sure interviews have already happened unfortunately

I'm just trying to help! It seemed you were implying that A&N wasn't a neuroscience program which it definitely is. There is no one "neuroscience" program at BU, there are multiple. It would rub students in either department the wrong way if you said *the* neuroscience program at BU was GPN. Just word to the wise if you have an interview with either department. Another tip---and I'm trying to communicate this as gently as possible because this is an incredibly stressful time for you all---but try not to come off with a tone you don't intend on this forum. Graduate students (and research assistants) from BU lurk here; you would not want them sharing unkind details with admissions committees.

well technically they are both neuroscience PhDs but from different departments. GPN is mostly located on the main campus while A&N is mostly on the medical campus. There's also an interdisciplinary PhD called Behavioral Neuro on the medical campus too.

Depends on your goals but definitely whichever has the most number of professors whose research you are interested in and the program is in an area you like. There is something to be said for prestige because that greases the gears for future paths. Also, Boston is the best place in the world for biotech. I think BU is the clear leader in the last two aspects but those facets aren't nearly as important as the first two.

PiN only had one round of interviews sent out last year if I recall correctly but, of course, these are exceptional times. I know it was one round because I had a friend who was hoping I'd interview and was literally in the secretary's office asking if she was done sending all interviews out once the GradCafe posts started appearing. If it's any consolation, we (myself included) were all a wreck after PiN interviews went out because half the thread had applied. I have a lot of friends in PiN who are all excellent scientists but I know many, also excellent, scientists who didn't get into PiN; try not to take it as a referendum on yourself. Everyone wants to go to Harvard!

PiN only had one round of interviews sent out last year if I recall correctly but, of course, these are exceptional times. I know it was one round because I had a friend who was hoping I'd interview and was literally in the secretary's office asking if she was done sending all interviews out once the GradCafe posts started appearing. If it's any consolation, we (myself included) were all a wreck after PiN interviews went out because half the thread had applied. I have a lot of friends in PiN who are all excellent scientists but I know many, also excellent, scientists who didn't get into PiN; try not to take it as a referendum on yourself. Everyone wants to go to Harvard!

PiN only had one round of interviews sent out last year if I recall correctly but, of course, these are exceptional times. If it's any consolation, we (myself included) were all a wreck after PiN interviews went out because half the thread had applied. I have a lot of friends in PiN who are all excellent scientists but I know many, also excellent, scientists who didn't get into PiN; try not to take it as a referendum on yourself. Everyone wants to go to Harvard!

You're not going to get many responses this time of year as people are in the thick of application/interview season. You might do okay with applying but that GPA is low for most neuroscience programs and your research is too. Typically, students admitted to my program (top-25 neuro) have GPA's averaging about a 3.6 with about 3 years of neuroscience research. The business school recommendation won't do you any favors: LoR's should come from professors who advised you in relevant classes or in a research advisor capacity. You certainly did well in advanced math courses so that might erase some earlier stumbles and your GRE shows you clearly are intelligent. If your LoR is as good as you say, you could get a few interviews (LoR is the most important especially if research experience/GPA are weak) but I'd say keep looking at research assistant positions as well to up your research experience. If I had to place you, I'd say you about match the profiles of students getting into the top-50 of schools but your focus on psych, less training in neuro proper (no specifically neuroscience courses), and lower GPA might keep you out of, say, the top-25. Not unreasonable to see you getting interviews there too though. I think you should start researching schools now and applying to any/all but definitely consider getting more research experience in neuroscience proper (*not* psych).

Sometimes they go out at the same time as interview invites, sometimes just after. Most often they go out either once interviewees have confirmed they will interview (February to March) or as acceptances are sent out (March to April). I got very few rejections in december (just UCSF if I remember a week after I applied). I found my rejection emails with their time stamps and have attached it. You can see the schools and dates (UCSF is the december one).

I would definitely caution against this! It highly varies by school. I know some where the acceptance rate is 100% if you don't tremendously mess up and at several places I interviewed, it was around 30-40%. All were neuroscience schools in the top-25.

Some of them are extremely early. I heard back when I applied to UCSF in just a few days (less than a week) with a rejection. Harvard got back to us in about 10 days I think about interviews (I didn't get one). Some schools like BU took I think until maybe late January or February. Most schools will get back to you just before the holidays or a week or two after.

This is par for the course for good clinical psych programs. Mines (top-20 U.S.) had >1,000 applicants for 10 spots pre-COVID. FWIW I'm a neuroscience PhD student in a psych department but our field is seeing similar increases. I will however state that I've been talking to professors and the last time such an increase happened was during the Great Recession. Professors have told me that although there were huge increases in the number of applicants, there wasn't necessarily an increase in the competitiveness of those applicants. This is because most of these students deciding to apply are staring down the dire job market and applying to grad school as an alternative. Unfortunately for them, deciding to try for grad school on whim in Senior Year does not compensate for the years of experience that most of you presumably have been getting. I would not worry too much.

I actually think this is a typo on their page. Schools absolutely will not send you official transcripts afaik because they can be doctored. I think Harvard meant "unofficial transcripts" or else they just meant that official transcripts should be sent in by email. If I remember correctly, you attach unofficial transcripts to your application but send in official ones through your undergraduate institution's system.

I don't know how it's possible that you need to upload official transcripts. By definition, you the applicant *cannot* view these transcripts and have access to them. I applied to Harvard (different program) and I sent my official transcripts in. You have to both upload your unofficial and send in your official for almost every school.

I know both the applied math and neuroscience programs at UW well. It's always UW because they don't want to be confused with WashU. The applied math and neuro programs have very different approaches to who they choose and both are extremely selective so I'd be very careful. The applied math programs looks for A's in upper-division math courses like intro to analysis or abstract algebra and also that you took graduate level courses and did well. The neuroscience program is like any top neuro program in that they highly value grades but especially research experience and good LoR's. UW is highly highly interdisciplinary when it comes to applied math and neuro: it seems like almost half the AMATH faculty there are affiliated with neuroscience. Big names here are Eric Shea-Brown, Raj Rao, Bing Brunton, J. Nathan Kutz, and Adrienne Fairhall among many others. They also have a comp neuro training grant and very active collaborations with the Allen Institute for Brain Science which is every theoreticians dream given the amount of high-quality data they produce.

you attach your unofficial and send in your official. There is no way to attach official transcripts because you cannot access them (they are securely send to schools). You did the correct thing.