Marius

cold turkey

photo shopper

I would say by now, yes. At least for my field in neuroscience interviews generally ended last week. I think some may extend interviews through mid-March, but if you haven't gotten an invite by now its pretty safe to assume you were rejected. Normally invites go out starting around late December and continue through to maybe late February. This is of course assuming you're applying for programs that require interviews. Go and check their admissions requirements. Not all schools do interviews, so if they don't then you really won't know until you know.

I ran around the neuroscience floor of the psychology building screaming and flailing my arms. Then I the rest of the RAs/grad students from my lab went out for a night on the town.

Like I said in another thread: they don't finalize everything until the very end. If a program expressed interest in you as a candidate (i.e. they invited you to interview) and you haven't heard anything back, you can consider yourself still in the running until the very end. Until things are set in stone you have no idea what may be going on over there. Maybe not the most reassuring thing but there's always some hope.

Generally they only send out rejections when everything is set in stone already. I know some of the schools I applied to sent out rejections if they didn't send you on to the interview phase. However if you got an interview and don't hear anything back and were rejected, you probably aren't going to hear anything back for a while, simply because they won't definitely let your application go until they have everything finalized. Unfortunately that takes a while. Sometimes candidates let offers go for weeks or even months or don't contact the program at all. The PI of the lab I work in now is also on the adcom for the graduate program here and he's told me that sometimes they will send out an offer and the applicant won't contact the program until the very last minute, and then its just to say they won't be attending because they chose another school. This is why they can't send out rejections until so late, because they never know when or who they might have to contact if that first applicant turns the offer down. The other thing is that by that point, most of the candidates on the waitlist have probably accepted an offer somewhere else. He's said they have had years where they meant to accept maybe 4 or 5 candidates, but only gotten maybe 3 accepted offers since candidates on the waitlist had made other plans. I don't think this happens very often, but it certainly gives you an idea of why they're waiting until the last minute to send out rejections.

Don't read into it too much. I know that's hard to do right now, but really that could mean anything or nothing.

The last month was the absolute worst month of my life.

The silence was broken with an acceptance! I was seriously done with this season. I didn't think I had a chance but there you go! To everyone second guessing and doubting themselves: do not give up yet!

I've been told by a lot of people in the field that nobody reapplies to schools they were not admitted to after the interview stage. Not sure of the reason, I was just told that it simply isn't done. In any case, it'd be a bit awkward don't you think?

I don't have any problems about building up my resume and applying for next year. In fact I look forward to it. I have one study that I will be submitting to publish this fall and another abstract for my senior thesis. If I get an RA position in the interim I may have another abstract to include as well. This year I had zero finished research to go on my cv. The only thing really keeping me depressed is that my top choice school this year actually invited me to interview and I didn't get in. My other backup in Philly did the same. That means next time I apply, it looks like I'm going to have to move to get my PhD. I will certainly do it, but it was sort of my dream to get to stay and go to school in my favorite city.

There's always next year anyway!

My signature is about to become my schools for the 2013 season o_o ...

Drexel sent out rejections today and I didn't get one. Good for me... so far. I'm not sure what that means exactly. Hopefully they'll tell me soon. I will get accepted. I will get accepted. I will get accepted.

I was thinking about this today and I came to this conclusion: applying to graduate school is like applying to a job, or anything else. If it were easy to get into it wouldn't be worth it. The only reason I was in a funk was because I felt like I "failed" this round, but thinking of it in rounds is just a product of having to send your applications out for the academic year. If this were like applying to jobs, you would just keep sending applications, maybe dozens of them, until you eventually got that acceptance. Grad school is the same way, you've got to keep going until you find that right one. Sometimes it takes a lot of hunting until you find it.

Finding an RA position in a really good lab somewhere. Getting some more experience and finishing the two studies I have going now so I have two abstracts to attach to my next application. Hopefully getting one of those papers published as a second or third author. Then using all that to apply again. I was initially pretty discouraged but I know that I want science to be my life and I am not going to give up. I was just a little naive the first time applying. I'm going to have to bring more next time around.

I would prefer to have heard nothing. It's better than being insulted.

I'm wondering if its worth emailing the program adviser back asking what effect they feel this has on my application and how they intend to objectively weight my application when I wasn't given the same opportunity to interview with as many faculty as every other applicant.

Actually it looks like I was correct. The interviewers made it painfully clear that one of the candidates was already favored for admission and we were just along for the ride. They even had me leave early because once said candidates interviews were over with certain faculty, those faculty suddenly became "busy" and my interview was cut short since I did not get to meet with them. And omg some of the things they said to this girl. It's like they don't know what subtlety even means. This one guy was commenting on the candidates good looks. Not to mention both I and the other candidate arrived early, but she got to have a half hour discussion with the program adviser while I was asked to sit outside. Yeah. Talk about getting kicked in the gut. This was a great way to end my interviews and confirm that the neuroscience community is apparently very against the idea of me getting a PhD. Honestly the whole experience has soured my desire to pursue a PhD and do research. I'll either get a real job with my bachelors degree or try for my masters in bio and work in industry. Maybe somebody will appreciate me there. Either way this whole thing has proven to be a very costly and stressful mistake.

So a program I have yet to even interview at has already started giving out offers. This sort of kills my motivation for the interview since now I basically feel as though I'm maybe interviewing for a spot on the waitlist at best, and just wasting my time at worst. Why would a school do this? Are they just keeping one or two spots for later interviewers or something? It doesn't really seem fair in any case.

Well it looks like I'm still in the game. The admissions adviser at Drexel just contacted me to say the program director would like to invite me for an interview. I've gotta hit a home run on this one guys. After doing two interviews I think I have an idea what to expect, but what are some tips you guys have for successful interviews. One thing I would like to bring up is my current research. I'll have *hopefully* some preliminary results by the time of the interview. Is it appropriate to talk about results you've gotten before you've actually finished a study?

These things exactly. I need to work on them all. Some of it is just experience I didn't have. I will have two abstracts by next fall that just aren't finished yet. I may have jumped the gun a little on this, but at least now I know what I need.

I believe TJU began sending out acceptances already and I haven't heard anything. I was advised by my PI that if you don't hear back in a week or two after your interview, and they already made offers to other candidates, it means they're probably not interested in you. I'm not sure about Drexel though. I know they sent out interview invitations over a month ago, so I'm not holding my breath. So no formal rejections yet, but all signs point to rejection right now.

Well I'm done for the year now. Thankfully I at least got two interviews, so now I know what to expect and how to prepare for next year. Definitely learned from the experience. Next time I am more carefully picking programs to apply to. Was a little naive this time around...

So it looks like this is not going to be my year. In hindsight I'm not surprised. After going through interviews I realized I was not prepared nor experienced enough compared to other applicants. I wasn't confident enough, and couldn't speak with enough authority even on my own research. Basically, I wasn't ready. My application this year looked like this: Neuroscience B.S. degree GPA: 3.56 GRE: 1330 One year of laboratory experience but no abstracts or publications. I've done work pertaining mainly to neurodegeneration. I have done research with amyloid-beta and also neurotrophin signaling. I was applying for neuroscience PhD programs at these schools: Drexel Thomas Jefferson UPenn Columbia NYU Boston U Rutgers and only got interviews at Rutgers and TJU. Next year I will have two abstracts to add to my application, so I will have some completed research to talk about. I hope to get an research assistant position for some added lab experience as well. Given those two factors: another year of lab experience and the two completed abstracts, how much stronger does my application get? I was also thinking of retaking the GREs, and my GPA should be about the same when I graduate this spring, somewhere between 3.5 and 3.6. I'm also going to be much more selective in what schools I pick so that they match my strengths. Any recommendations for where to apply to next year?