sirtuingirl

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.....

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.

Congratulations. Which program did you receive the offer from?

Neural Science

I saw a number of people posting about receiving rejections from UNC BBSP in the results page today. I was one of them. I have a more fundamental question: why do so many students apply to the BBSP PhD program? I get that it’s an umbrella program with many disciplines but I don’t see why they should be getting so many applicants. It seems to be a good broad program but my cursory research indicated that it was not really top notch in any one area. In my case, I knew what my top 4 choices were but wanted to apply to 4 more to feel more secure. I don’t think that provided any extra security because I have received interviews from my top 4 choices but received rejections from 2 of the others, WashU and UNC BBSP and I have yet to hear from the remaining 2, NYU and UPenn (which mean likely rejections) Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on why so many apply to UNC BBSP.

It’s possible that the reason for some of the planning issues is the interview being early on January 15th. I think most universities started the Spring semester only on Jan 11 and coordinating with everyone during the holidays is difficult. That’s probably why most programs have interviews in late Jan and Feb, it gives them more time to plan and execute meticulously. Advantage with early interviews such as this is that the program can make and communicate their acceptance/rejection/waitlist decision to the interviewees before other programs even have their interviews.

I would say getting 2 interviews would give you a good chance of getting at least 1 offer of admission, getting 3 or more interviews will make it excellent.

Has anyone applied to Duke Biology PhD (not the biomedical programs under School of Medicine)

I will join for sure

I hear that Duke Biology (not the biomedical programs under School of Medicine) will be sending out interview invites next week.

In that case, some that have not received an invite from NYU yet are wait listed and the rest will receive the rejection in March or April.

It’s possible but a number of people are reporting that they have not heard anything and no one has posted that he/she got a rejection. From what what I saw, everyone that got an interview applied to the Sackler Institute track. I didn’t see anyone post that they got an interview from the Neural Science track. That makes me think they are not done.

Is there anyone who has not heard back regarding their application from the University of Michigan PIBS PhD program? Until Christmas, I saw a bunch people post interview invites or rejections from PIBS on the results page but it has since stopped. I am trying to figure out if they have a wait list. This will give an idea to those that got the interview invite what their chances are. If there is no wait list, then your chances of receiving offer of admission should be higher.

Duke Neurobiology is admitting 1/3rd the number of students this year (less than 10) compared to last year but got 2.5 times as many applications (230 this year versus around 90 last year). Unless your POI is on the admissions committee, chances are slim this year in all of the Duke Biomedical PhD programs as well as the Biology PhD program, even if you have a 4.0 or close to 4.0 GPA and decent research experience.

Has anyone applied to UCLA’s Molecular, Cellular & Integrative Physiology (MCIP) program and heard back?

I have applied to the Neural Science/CNS and haven't heard anything yet.....

Which track/sub-program did you apply to for Brown MCBGP, UPenn-CAMB and UNC BBSP?

My question is regarding Brown’s MCBGP. I saw on the results that 3 people have posted that they received invites by phone last week. There are different tracks within Brown MCBGP, did anyone who applied to the Biology of Aging track receive an invite?

Yes, I think that is correct. I have applied to the Genetics & Molecular Biology program within BBSP but have not heard back. When I started seeing people posting about receiving interview invites, I emailed the PI I had contacted prior to applying and inquired when I might hear back on my application. He told me that while he is not on the admissions committee, they are reviewing applications throughout December and I may hear back in early Jan. I am speculating that someone at the BBSP level is screening applicants based on metrics such as applicant GPA, whether applicant has research experience or not etc and forwarding those that made the cut to the individual programs (there are 13 or 14 of them) based on which program the applicant chose. Each individual program probably has its own committee and schedule for reviewing and making decisions and some are quicker than others. That’s probably also why they have multiple interview weekends.

PIBS will send your app to MIP only if Neuro rejects. I suspect Neuro has not done that, so MIP doesn't enter the picture.

I applied to Molecular & Integrative Physiology within PIBS. Maybe Neuro is behind them on reviewing applications. Hence, I wouldn't lose hope.

Just received a phone call from UMich PIBS that I should be receiving an email shortly inviting me for the interview. My first interview invite......

Best wishes to you. Can you try to find out if there will be interviews. I am not sure because there is no mention of that in the admissions page. All other programs I have applied to, say something about interview/recruiting visit. Brown Biology & Neuro mention interviews, just not the MCBGP.

Molecular Biology of Aging, what about yours? Do you know if they have interviews? Because the admissions section on the website doesn't say anything about interview or recruiting visit.