ManifoldsAreMadeUp

The behavioral neuroscience program is extremely small (I think maybe low single-digit cohort sizes) and a direct admit to professors working with MRI/fMRI. It's not new and BU actually has something like six or seven neuroscience programs (GPN (and Comp Neuro specialization), A&N, BBC, Bio (neurobio), Health Sciences, Behavioral Neuro, and Pharm (they can swing into GPN through this program) it's kind of ridiculous.

I attend an R1 (top 25) program and I can say that your professor is right: you are competitive for many of these schools. I have friends at half of these schools and you are right there up with them and perhaps above most.

I'm a current PhD student at an R1 and I'm just going to head this off before someone else does (it's going to come out very soon) but most programs this year are looking at huge increases in the number of applicants. I was in a friend's defense and the faculty at one Ivy were saying they saw double the number of applicants (possibly an exaggeration) as last year. You might hear this too. DO NOT PANIC. I have also chatted with professors in my department and schools saw this same thing happen in the cycle during the Great Recession and to paraphrase them, "the numbers went way up but the competitiveness stayed the same". In other words, a lot of people right now are applying on a whim in their senior years because the job market seems so bleak but this isn't necessarily more competition since most/all of you have been prepping to go to grad school for a few years already. Individuals who are deciding to apply now because of these circumstances can't make up for the years of research they haven't put in (and presumably you have).

If I recall correctly, the soonest result came in the form of a rejection from UCSF in Dec 17th. The soonest interview requests came in from Harvard PiN on the late afternoon of Dec 18th. Please don’t stress and appreciate this time now as the calm before the storm :). Enjoy being done! Spend time with friends and leave your phone at home! You really have no reason to be on this site until the week of the 15th. BU has the last interview requests and they went out early February. These next two months are going to be a fucking wild ride for a lot of you; I made a lot of friends on last years thread (some of which I later met in person) and about four of which I still keep in touch with!

Had very similar statistics and got into comparable schools. With your very strong research efforts, I think you have made up for your GPA but just make sure you network so that PI's can make sure you don't get filtered out. If you really want to stay in MA (I would suggest applying to other states unless you have a very compelling reason), apply to other programs at those schools like psychology, biology, biomedical sciences etc. I do think you should also consider Brandeis neuroscience as they are excellent. Maybe even Harvard or MIT just to give it a shot.