helpert

I've lived in Boston for 2 years. It's true that 9/1 is a HUGE moving day, since, well, all of the students (it's also called "Allston Christmas" because so many people moving out leave their furniture out on the sidewalk for taking). Apartments.com, zillow, and trulia can all be good sources to find apartments that are completely turning over tenants if you're looking to live by yourself or with a roommate you already picked. If you are looking to move into a place with existing roommate(s), there are many Facebook groups for Boston/Camberville housing where people looking to replace roommates will advertise (you would also have better chances of finding a non-9/1 move-in date there, if you wanted that).
Also, check out this page which outlines your rights as a renter in Boston: https://www.boston.gov/departments/neighborhood-development/know-your-rights-when-you-rent-boston
There are certain things that landlords and brokers CANNOT charge you for (like an application fee or credit check). It's good to know this when getting into an apartment hunt to make sure you're not bamboozled into paying fees you legally shouldn't pay.

I've lived in Boston for 2 years. It's true that 9/1 is a HUGE moving day, since, well, all of the students (it's also called "Allston Christmas" because so many people moving out leave their furniture out on the sidewalk for taking). Apartments.com, zillow, and trulia can all be good sources to find apartments that are completely turning over tenants if you're looking to live by yourself or with a roommate you already picked. If you are looking to move into a place with existing roommate(s), there are many Facebook groups for Boston/Camberville housing where people looking to replace roommates will advertise (you would also have better chances of finding a non-9/1 move-in date there, if you wanted that).
Also, check out this page which outlines your rights as a renter in Boston: https://www.boston.gov/departments/neighborhood-development/know-your-rights-when-you-rent-boston
There are certain things that landlords and brokers CANNOT charge you for (like an application fee or credit check). It's good to know this when getting into an apartment hunt to make sure you're not bamboozled into paying fees you legally shouldn't pay.

I got accepted to NYU Vilcek!!!! It was the only school that gave me an interview and literally all other schools rejected me but I don't care anymore because I am getting my PhD!!!!

I received my official Yale BBS rejection on the 18th. (Email to check app portal for decision) nothing from Harvard yet..probably soon

Yeah I interviewed last week. It was good I guess, 1 intro session, 2 faculty interviews, lunch,2 more interviews and a closing session. Theres also discussions with grad students and faculty during lunch and the gaps. Its a long day of Zoom but the faculty are casual and friendly. They should send you a proper schedule with faculty the week of the Interview, I think I got mine on that Monday/Tuesday. 

This varies by program, but I think that most adcoms will meet in the week following the interview. There would be three options for decisions about the applicants they interviewed - accept, reject, or wait to make a decision until they have done more interviews.
In my experience, I had one interview on a Thursday and received an admissions offer the following Wednesday, and with another interview on a Thursday/Friday I received the offer the following Friday. Also, during each of these interviews someone in the program admin said something along the lines of “we expect to make decisions by the end of next week”

Agreed, and try to stay away from screens (like your phone or tv) during those breaks/downtime!

I think a lot of umbrella programs actually have smaller committees for different specific programs or research interests. This makes it easier for the program and also better for you to have your application reviewed by people familiar with your specific interests! However, most programs will say that these choices are not binding and you can absolutely choose to join a different program at the end of the first year (and they probably actually expect this will happen in many cases). My understanding is it’s all about making their application review process smoother, since umbrella programs will attract a large number of applicants with a wide range of research experiences and interests. When this is the case, it’s not uncommon for the different programs/research areas to send out interview invites on different timelines.

I will also chime in to say that it’s better to be over prepared than underprepared! I had a couple interviewers ask me about my strengths and weaknesses and one who asked me if when I first started in research there was anything about lab/research that surprised me. so I would definitely recommend thinking about the common “behavioral” type interview questions and potential answers. Not all interviewers will ask these but it’s definitely a possibility (and like I said better to be over prepared!)
 
additionally, 30 mins might sound like a long time but actually it goes by very quickly! Especially if you ask the faculty about their research, because they love to talk about their science ?

Agreed, and try to stay away from screens (like your phone or tv) during those breaks/downtime!

I think so. Jan 14/15 interviews are among the earliest across programs. Jan28/29 are more “average” in terms of timeframe. Therefore, programs that have 2 interview dates in January can afford to look at applicants of both groups before they extend any offers. Not sure programs that have their first interview on Jan 28/29 or in Feb will wait to complete multiple rounds of interviews before extending any offers. Unless you are an extremely highly regarded program or very small (~ 10 slots), you cannot gain mindshare amongst the top candidates unless you make offers to them by 1st week in Feb.

I will also chime in to say that it’s better to be over prepared than underprepared! I had a couple interviewers ask me about my strengths and weaknesses and one who asked me if when I first started in research there was anything about lab/research that surprised me. so I would definitely recommend thinking about the common “behavioral” type interview questions and potential answers. Not all interviewers will ask these but it’s definitely a possibility (and like I said better to be over prepared!)
 
additionally, 30 mins might sound like a long time but actually it goes by very quickly! Especially if you ask the faculty about their research, because they love to talk about their science ?

I will also chime in to say that it’s better to be over prepared than underprepared! I had a couple interviewers ask me about my strengths and weaknesses and one who asked me if when I first started in research there was anything about lab/research that surprised me. so I would definitely recommend thinking about the common “behavioral” type interview questions and potential answers. Not all interviewers will ask these but it’s definitely a possibility (and like I said better to be over prepared!)
 
additionally, 30 mins might sound like a long time but actually it goes by very quickly! Especially if you ask the faculty about their research, because they love to talk about their science ?

Agreed, and try to stay away from screens (like your phone or tv) during those breaks/downtime!

Only 1 out 4 of the places I have interviews with had actual social events, but it was super laid back. There was a break out both days with student hosts that we had been assigned to. The first one was just to ask questions with current students (what's life like in x city, how was the transition, do I need a car, etc) and the second was to destress after our actual interviews and go over any questions or issues we had with what had just transpired. After that, we had the opportunity to join a Zoom break-out groups to play either Codenames or a Pictionary-like game, where more faculty jumped in and out of so we could "meet" more people than who we had interviewed with. Definitely meant to be a relaxing time, and not something you have to really prepare for. I will note, though, that after being on Zoom interviews for 5 hours, it was quite tiring to continue on with the social events and seem just as enthusiastic. But that was a 9-hour Zoom day for me. Hopefully yours will be more spread out. 

Prepare for those classic questions - why do you want a PhD/what are your career goals, why are you interested in this program, and what research questions are you most interested in exploring. Also know your own research experience front and back, know the “why” of it and prepare to be asked questions about it.
The actual interviews will definitely vary in style/structure.. for instance, I’ve had a faculty member ask me very specific questions about a particular technology I’ve used in lab. On the other hand, I had one interviewer start out the interview with essentially telling me that I’ll likely be offered admission unless I just don’t want to talk to him, and then we proceeded (after I gave my quick spiel about my own research/goals/interests) to just talk about the city the school is in for the entire interview.

Prepare for those classic questions - why do you want a PhD/what are your career goals, why are you interested in this program, and what research questions are you most interested in exploring. Also know your own research experience front and back, know the “why” of it and prepare to be asked questions about it.
The actual interviews will definitely vary in style/structure.. for instance, I’ve had a faculty member ask me very specific questions about a particular technology I’ve used in lab. On the other hand, I had one interviewer start out the interview with essentially telling me that I’ll likely be offered admission unless I just don’t want to talk to him, and then we proceeded (after I gave my quick spiel about my own research/goals/interests) to just talk about the city the school is in for the entire interview.

To just hop on the UNC Train, I think UNC is a good school with a large number of PIs and a variety of tracks. It wasn't on my initial list but my current PI highly recommended it and was very enthusiastic about Chapel Hill as a location. Upon further research, I found a good number of PIs doing work that aligned with my research interests so it seemed like a good place to apply for a combination of factors (PIs, reputation, location, cost of living etc.). I think its a good median between a reach school and a safety school.
Yes, there are other schools that fall in the same category but what people look in Universities differ. For example, Mayo Clinic or UMinnesota are great but I would never apply there because I know I cant live in Minnesota winter for 5-6 years?‍♀️

After seeing those numbers in @sirtuingirl's post I was just going to say -- seems like maybe people consider UNC more of a "safety". Which of course then turns into a large application pool that inevitably makes it more competitive!
 

I think mine will be delivered this week - at least I'm assuming the package on my USPS dashboard that shipped from Ann Arbor is the PIBS package

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. 
 
 

Hmm, that’s an interesting take on the marketing/advertising. Just curious, how do you know they are getting twice the applicants than UCs and Michigan? At least the UC part is surprising

UNC is actually a very good school. It consistently ranks among the top public US universities and is considered by many a "public ivy" (along with some UCs, UMich, UVA). UNC is also in the top ~20 institutions in terms of NIH funding. I am not surprised by how competitive BBSP admissions is.
I applied to BBSP and it is one of my top choices. some of my reasons (in addition to the high rankings): broad umbrella program, affiliated with an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center (important to me since I am interested in translational cancer research), wide T32 training program opportunities (including one in translational research), great professional development opportunities/support, very competitive stipend with a relatively low cost-of-living (their website states the stipend in Chapel Hill is comparable to almost 90k/year in NYC..for reference, NYU stipend is only ~40k/year).
Most of those things are not necessarily even special to UNC but apply to many similar umbrella programs. Therefore, the only major reasons I see not to apply to BBSP are: 1) there are no labs (or very few) that excite you; or 2) you don't like the location.

Hi all. I'm feeling a bit nervous for my interviews but mostly excited!
I found this great videocast from the NIH all about grad school interviews:https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=35325
Some of it will be less relevant with interviews being virtual this year (eg tips on traveling or how to act when out to dinner or at the bars with current students), but the advice relating to faculty one-on-one interviews should still hold true. There's good examples of what kinds of questions faculty (or even students) might ask us, and examples of what kind of questions might be good for us to ask the faculty and students.

Most of what I've heard advises against doing this. It could come off implying that you don't know your research well enough to talk about it without relying on something to guide you.
Also, the actual interviews go by really quickly!! 20-30 minutes is really not a lot of time..and in the interviews I've had so far I would say that really only 5-10 minutes was spent talking about my own research.
 
Good luck!!