dopamine_machine

For NYU Neuro (for those with interview requests), did you write that you preferred the Doctoral Program in Neural Science (CNS) or the Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Physiology (NI)? I know that the programs are merged now and have a single admissions committee, but applicants are considered for each program independently.

Oh nice, good to know the figures! I bet it will come out tonight or the day after Christmas. I haven't heard about anyone actually getting an interview invite yet from NYU and if there are 55 interview invites, we would definitely see it on the Results page (Penn NGG had ~25 interview invites and they were markedly present on the results page when they came out).

I saw that 1 person posted it, but it seemed atypical so I'm unsure if it was real/a mistake/etc. I'm assuming they haven't started coming out yet

Also yes, like every 2 days there are no updates. Then the next day there are like 30 new messages that are mostly repeats/tests.

I think they must be, I'm just hoping to hear back after Christmas.

I definitely think you're right with this. It would be really weird to only have 1 post on here and have ~20 in the cohort (I'm guessing, but I think this is probably around the size of their yearly Neuro PhD cohort)

Wait I did NYU Neuroscience and Physiology come out already? I thought it was just general Bio. I saw one Neuro submission, but there should be more on gradcafe if that was all of the interviews that they were releasing.

Okay phew! I'm guessing that the person who posted that made a mistake

Hey, I heard it was around 75% but it may be variable. What interview weekend did your email from Weill Cornell say? Someone on the results page says 1/20 - 1/22, but mine said 2/03 - 2/05.

Last year, the invites started coming out on Dec 23rd if this helps!

What program did you apply for? I didn't see any UCSF Neuro invites on Tuesday (I did see for other programs though!).

So sad Harvard PiN and UCSF Neuro were my top two and didn't hear back from either today. Does anyone know if they usually send out all at once, or throughout a week or so? I saw that historically (via gradcafe results), all of Harvard interview posts happen on the same day

/

Haven't heard anything yet!

Wow this is awesome! Thanks for you and your team's help!

I recommend going to the results section of this website and looking up in the past 2-3 years when your program's first interview requests were sent out (this should give you a pretty good idea of when they will come out). This helped me better understand when my programs are most likely to release the first round of interview requests. Just keep in mind it might be a tiny bit delayed this year because of COVID/19. As another commenter said, it depends if the programs you applied to are rolling (if not, it should not make a difference). Good luck with admissions this cycle!

Thanks for your help! Wow, so that's a pretty large percentage of interview-to-acceptance. They said that they invited ~25 people to interview and I saw that average cohort sizes were ~20 people for the last 2 years, so I figured it had to be somewhere in that ballpark. I appreciate your advice! After thinking about it, I'm going to accept my invitation sometime today

I did the same! My school's unofficial transcript is not a transcript at all, so I ordered the official transcript and then uploaded a scan of it as a pdf to the program (some want you to blur/black out the SSN if it's on your transcript, some want black and white, etc).

Invited this morning to interview at Penn NGG! So excited, but unsure on what percentage of interviewed applicants get accepted. Does anyone know when someone should respond to/accept an invitation to interview? I'm still waiting on other schools to get back to me and don't want to jump the gun on confirming a date yet (since I don't know the interview schedules for other schools)

I'm not sure how it is for all undergraduate institutions, but mine allowed me to receive an "official transcript" in the mail, as well as through Parchment (online transcript certification service). Once the envelope containing the transcript is opened, it is deemed "unofficial" by the requirements set by a lot of graduate schools (you cannot generally send this version to graduate schools and have it count as an official transcript). However, it is the exact same thing that they would receive if it were sent to their address instead of to a student's address. Schools that I applied to this year all requested a scan of this document (which they typically call an "unoffical transcript" or "copy of an offical transcript") as opposed to a pdf of an "academic history", etc. This may have changed for this admissions cycle because of COVID-19, or maybe other schools required something different.

@rmg20For this application, I scanned a copy of my official transcript (ordered in the mail) and sent it via pdf. They'll want you to place an order through your university to send official transcripts if you accept an offer. Harvard's website states: "Applicants are required to upload scans or PDFs of official transcripts from each college/university they attended into our online application system: official hard copy/paper transcripts are not required at the time of application." I wouldn't worry about this negatively affecting your application. Transcript errors are common and each school has different pdf qualities that they prefer (I was asked to send a higher quality pdf of my transcript to a program this year).

The Neuro program is through Perelman school of medicine and appears to still be fine for this application season!

Anyone applying to Harvard BBS or PiN this round? Currently trying to debate which is more right for me since I'm kind of a mix between stem cell biology and neuroscience. Anyone heard first-hand what the cultures are for these two programs?

This is actually super helpful! Thanks for the clarification!! I found that 7/10 of the programs I'm applying to needed SOP, but the other 3 required the Personal Statement and/or Diversity statement + Research Statement. Good to know that I can just split it up and maybe go into a tad more detail, but I think I now understand the distinction between the two essays. As a side note, I hope you are enjoying Stanford Biosciences! It's one of the places I am applying and would love to hear your thought on the BioSciences program if you ever have time

Hi all, I know this question has already been addressed in another post, but I can't seem to wrap my head around the distinction between a Statement of Purpose and a Research Statement in the context of a biology PhD application. My SOP currently outlines what led me to the field of interest, my research history, and my aspirations. It overall avoids super technical details and talks about projects in a more limited way. Would a Research Statement bring up these ideas in a more detailed way (talking about specific experiments conducted and what I did exactly? How much stress is dedicated to a Research Statement when an SOP is required, as the research statements for the programs I am applying to seemed to be more supplementary and not like their own tab (whereas the SOPs are always in their own specific page)? I know this varies from program to program, but I wanted to see what everyone though.