sirtuingirl

Do you have an idea when Brown will send out decisions to those that interviewed on Friday?

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. 
 
 

Remember, UNC gets $150-$200K from application fees.....I am not saying they are blindly encouraging everyone to apply but more the merrier. It can fund administrative positions.

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. 
 
 

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. 

Hear ye, hear ye!
https://discord.gg/NMPVh9rf
The ISMMS Discord server is now alive- let the panicking commence!

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 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.
 
 
 

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.

After 2/3 interviews I received my first admissions offer today! Huge sigh of relief knowing I will be able to go into a PhD program this fall, I was worried about coming straight form undergraduate. Ah! Exciting day!
 
Good luck to you all!

Minnesota, Michigan, Oregon, UT schools, Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State, Dartmouth, most importantly find a PI that is doing research you like!

It seems like a lot of people on here just searched "US News and Report top Neuroscience PhDs" and applied to the first ten schools they saw ? very few people get into these programs, I would suggest applying to some lesser known schools that still have great research programs as well!

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

Hope we all get some good news this week!

WE NEED IT.

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.

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.

I'm curious about this, too. As it stands, I have 2 interviews out of 6. My background is predominantly Biology, but I am making the transition into Neuro (have been managing & tech'ing in a systems lab for almost a year). I'm going to have to put my everything into the interviews...

I got one from Cornell BMCB today.

Hi, I also recieved a vandy interview invite yesterday!
I was surprised to see that they are squishing everything into one day. On the Hello PhD podcast about virtual interviews, Beth Bowman (vandy biomed grad director) talked a lot about zoom fatigue, so I expected them to break it up into at least a couple days...guess not!

For UPenn CAMB, I did MVP (Microbiology, Virology, and Parasitology)
For UNC BBSP, I did (in order): immunology, DNA Repair and Genome Stability, Cell Biology, Translational Medicine, and Systems Biology
For Brown...I can't find it in the portal, but I would've selected Response to Pathogens, then Cell Signaling. I was not one of the people interested in the biology of aging.