Efinkel

Anyone know if UCLA is done sending out invites?

Anyone receive a UCLA interdepartmental neuro invite? One was posted on the results page

Sorry I guess I wasnt clear. I meant backdooring into the top tier neuroscience program at the school in which this researchers lab is based by first working with him as an RA. My worry is that im getting my hopes up and almost expecting that I will be accepted as a grad student into the lab of this researcher after working in his lab as an RA even though it is by no means guaranteed, especially given the fact that my stats are relatively low when compared to those posted by others who have been accepted by this school's neuroscience program. So my question is whether people with stats similar to mine have been accepted to top tier neuroscience programs such as Duke, WashU, MIT ect. using this backdoor method of first RAing in a lab associated with those programs.

Sorry if this post seems a little gradcafe-naive. I am pretty new and so far have done little forum lurking. I was just wondering what people thought of my chances of "backdooring" into a Phd program at a very prestigious neuroscience/psyc program given my following situation: Stats: -McGill University undergrad -Major: Psyc -Minor: Bio -CGPA: 3.75 -Psych GPA: Closer to 3.9 -graduated with "Distinction" -Accepted into the two year honors psyc program starting my junior year and graduated from it with "first class honors" -Worked for two years in a behavioral neuroscience lab studying learning and memory and wrote a junior and senior thesis -Volunteer RA in another behavioral neuroscience lab for one semester -havent taken the GRE yet (worried because I'm not a phenomenal standardized test taker) -Two letters of rec that I think are pretty solid I applied for a research technician position at a very prestigious school in the lab of a researcher who many consider (including my former supervisors) as the best of the best in the field of learning and memory. Much to my delight and surprise the lab is inviting me for an interview and are even offering to pay for the flight. The researcher even asked me if I was interested in pursuing graduate school in his lab, which he followed by saying that it was fine with him as long as I was willing to dedicate two years to the job. I dont know if this matters or not but they also invited me to their lab's "summer social" event after the interview (which I hope means that I have all but been officially offered the job). However, after looking at some of the stats of people who got into the Phd neuroscience and psych programs at this school, they are more often than not significantly better than mine. So I was wondering if I should keep my fast growing expectation of acceptance into the phd program in check or not (especially since I might not get a stellar GRE score ). Also has anyone with stats similar to mine managed to either be directly accepted to a top tier psyc or neuroscience program (say at UCSD, JHU, Yale, MIT, Duke, ect) or be accepted through this type of backdoor method? Thanks in advance