capa_detated

Declined my offers and accepted my top school! Very excited, officially going to start my PhD journey this fall. Good luck to you all! Sending so many good vibes.

Just got an offer from cold spring harbor labs!! 

Rejected from one of two programs I interviewed for. Feeling really down and not very confident about my chances for the other now. I feel like I just got dumped, its so sad.

Anyone knows the acceptances numbers for cold spring harbor lab?

I just got an interview invite from UCLA and it seems really weird because it's so much later than anyone else on the results page. Does anyone know if there was a waitlist or something? I had just assumed that I had gotten rejected

Just contacted MIT BCS and they said if you haven't gotten an invite yet, you're rejected. They will send the official rejection letters in April though. 

Hello folks,
Had used gradcafe a couple of years ago. Currently neuroscience faculty at Scripps, La Jolla. Would be happy to answer questions about the Scripps grad program if any.
Thanks,
Vinny Augustine
https://theaugustinelab.org/

same boat, feeling super down but you know what they say about misery...
fingers and toes crossed that @sirtuingirl is right about waitlists. on the other hand i'd expect even wait-listed folks would be hearing something? or do wait-list interviews happen after an entire round of interview and offer letters? not sure how this works

Hopefully ??? 
I mean I expected this cycle to be difficult but definitely did not see that coming..
I am an American student studying in the us. I applied to Harvard, Stanford, UCSD, and UCI as a safety school (turns out there’s no such thing as safety school lol) 

I reached out to my contact in the UCLA neuroscience graduate department again and asked if the January 18th interview invitation deadline has been extended. I will update here if they reply.

Also, here are the compiled UC Neuro acceptance stats from the last 3 years if anyone is interested and has not seen them yet:

Same here...applied to 12 programs..received 4 rejections and no interviews yet. Really wondering if there's any hope at this point? Especially regarding waitlists and how they work.

same boat, feeling super down but you know what they say about misery...
fingers and toes crossed that @sirtuingirl is right about waitlists. on the other hand i'd expect even wait-listed folks would be hearing something? or do wait-list interviews happen after an entire round of interview and offer letters? not sure how this works

I think there are several on gradcafe who applied to NYU Neuroscience but haven't heard anything. NYU Neuro did send interview invites around Christmas but they are in a dogfight with Columbia, Sinai, UConn, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, UPenn etc. for students and I think they are holding back sending out rejections this year until they are at least past interviews so that they can gauge how many acceptances they will get. Think about it, what do they get by sending out rejections now versus in March? Some universities send out rejections in Dec and early Jan so that the rejected students can apply to other programs that have later deadlines (Jan 15, Feb 1 etc.) but there is no benefit for them other than getting applicant goodwill. 

There are 2 kinds/rounds of wait lists. One is when people reject interviews because they have received too many and some off the wait list will be invited. I don't know how many this year belonged to this kind. The next round where there is movement off the wait lists is when admission offers are declined and those programs cannot fill their slots. Most programs will assume that a certain % of offers will get declined based on past cycles but there is a good chance that those assumptions will prove to be inaccurate due to the unique nature of this cycle. In that case, they might interview and make offers even in March. 

There is hope because most programs have gotten a lot more applicants than last year and hence review of applications in some places is taking longer. Also, people this year have applied to more programs than prior years because they kept hearing that this cycle is more competitive. Hence, more admission offers will be declined and more people will get in off the wait list.
Which programs/universities did you apply to? Are you an American student, International Student studying at a US university or International student studying at international university?

Anyone else did didn’t get any interview invitations at all??? Please tell me I’m not alone ? 
I’m super bummed. I had everything lined up as I’ve I was gonna start grad school next fall, plus I have extensive research experience, first author publications, good gpa, relevant undergrad course work..
Is there still hope at this point ☹️
I don’t know what went wrong. I would really like to work on what I failed to meet to be stronger applicant in the future..
 

I totally did not expect a rejection from all 7 programs!
 
Thank you for sharing and letting me know.

You are not alone! This happened to me 2 years ago, and it really sucked. I’ve spent the last two years working as an RA in a lab I love and developing my research goals. I also applied to a few less competitive schools. This cycle, things are going better. Good luck! You will be okay. 

Is anyone else still holding out for UCLA? 

yes thanks so much! hard to give up on those but as you mentioned in another post in the long run it'll be easier to move on rather than dwell on possible waitlist or late-round interviews. congrats on your interview invites and good luck to you this round! hopefully it'll be the last for us both  

I'm gonna provide a different perspective here and say that it's totally fine if you completely switch your subfield during grad school. I also have a cell & molec background and am interested in systems/computational stuff. I've talked to many computational professors and none care what your background is, as long as you're interested in the work. Some even find it to be a positive that I've had a different background.
What DOES matter for getting into grad school is how you talk about your research, i.e. why did you form your hypotheses? why did you choose your techniques? how did you interpret your data? The point is, don't feel like you have to change labs, unless you're tortured by the work you do now. If you had one more year in your current lab, would you have significantly more to talk about? Adjusting to a new project can be tough and may not give you as much to talk about in next round of applications as seeing your current project to completion. 
Ultimately I can't tell you what to do, but don't feel discourage from pursuing computation in grad school if you weren't already in computation! It frankly doesn't matter as long as you can back up your interest. 
good luck, you seem qualified and sure of yourself, so you'll be fine in the end.

Do you have computational backgrounds? If not, programs like neuromatch specifically train you on comp neuro skills so I’d recommend that over the summer. Some other summer schools also help a lot! 
 
Since you are already at Harvard, you should definitely reach out to some professors there to ask if you could do research w them as an intern. Feel free to message me for specific professors in comp neuro, but they are  also not hard to figure out from their websites. I’d also look at other schools and professors whose websites will say that they are looking for summer interns or just “undergrads/masters” to work with. Even if not, just reach out as long as you are interested in their papers - you have nothing to lose.
 
My field is comp neuro (and I’m also an international student from China!), and this field is still quite small and definitely needs more talent. So it’s great that you want to research in this area!

I'm so sorry to say, but odds are you won't hear invites from most of them, as these programs usually send invites in one go and not in batches. There's a chance with waitlist, but if you see invites being sent out its best to try moving on if you didn't get one. Dwelling on potentially being on the waitlist does more harm than good :/.

What's your profile like? More often than not it comes down to fit and research experience, both of which can be remedied by seeking a research assistant / lab manager position at a top 50 program. Which isn't easy, and takes time, but once you find one you can be financially stable while spending time building your skills and CV, refining your research interests, and reaching out to prospective  labs. Being able to attend conferences and present is a huge way to make connections, too. 

Initially being rejected my first round, I was really disappointed. One of the labs I applied to, though, liked me enough that they helped me find a job as a Lab Manager. Its not what I originally wanted, but it ended being incredibly worth it. Now, even if I'm rejected again, I'll just apply next year knowing I'll have a stronger CV, more publications, more connections, etc. 

Point is, you have got options to pursue, just don't give up!

Hi I'm new to this forum!

Second time applicant, learned a few things the first time around. Got a research position at UC Irvine and am trying again after two years! 

So far I got interview invites to:
UCSD Neuro - Generic email
NYU Cognition & Perception - Personalized email

Rejected from:
UW Neuro
UC Berkeley Neuro

Pending (Not all neuro):
UCSD CogSci, UW Psych, Stanford Psych, Harvard Psych, MIT BCS, BU GPN, BU BBC, UC Berkeley Vision Science
If anyone's heard from these programs, please let me know

Also if anyone has some question's about UC Irvine INP I'm willing to answer any questions! I've been a Lab Manager here for a little over a year in the Neurobiology & Behavior department, and work closely with a few other labs. 

Fellow (second time) Applicant here,
UC Berkeley Neuro sent me a personalized email saying they unfortunately could not offer me an interview, but they recommended I transfer my app to Vision Science as its better fit and my application is strong. Odds are not in anyone's favor at this point to get an interview, sadly

Same goes for UCSD Neuro, I got a generic invite to interview , and then a few days ago a request to fill out a survey for PIs we want to speak with. Given they are also pretty up there, I don't expect anyone to turn down the invite.

As for MIT, I'm in the same boat as you, crossing fingers and anxiously reading emails.
Hope this helps ~