2020 Neuroscience PhD Applicants and Admission Results

[Scrappyhappy]

When emailing with said PIs, should one discuss shortcomings in application - such as gre or gpa, to know if that's a deal breaker?

[mcfc2018]

1 hour ago, Scrappyhappy said:

When emailing with said PIs, should one discuss shortcomings in application - such as gre or gpa, to know if that's a deal breaker?

No. Quite frankly, emailing the PI is so that you get to know the PI’s research better. Chances are it will have no impact on your application (the PI probably isn’t even on the adcom).

 

attach a CV so they have a better sense of who you are, but I would focus more on asking about what they do and their research than talking about applications. 

[BabyScientist]

6 hours ago, Scrappyhappy said:

When emailing with said PIs, should one discuss shortcomings in application - such as gre or gpa, to know if that's a deal breaker?

I agree with @mcfc2018.

The goal for you in emailing a PI is getting to know them/their research/their opinions of the program. If it goes well enough, you might build a relationship with them, and they might ask you directly about gpa/shortcomings, but don't bank on it. 

[pipettestan]

11 hours ago, mcfc2018 said:

No. Quite frankly, emailing the PI is so that you get to know the PI’s research better. Chances are it will have no impact on your application (the PI probably isn’t even on the adcom).

 

attach a CV so they have a better sense of who you are, but I would focus more on asking about what they do and their research than talking about applications. 

Side question, what if you know professors who are on the adcom? Or you know that your current PI is good friends with someone on the adcom? I'm wondering how much networking is actually going on when it comes to this...

 

I applied last cycle and got into Pitt's CNUP (I declined and opted for another gap year) and I highly suspect it was because my PI at the time was on the adcom.

[BabyScientist]

7 hours ago, charmingdiary said:

Side question, what if you know professors who are on the adcom? Or you know that your current PI is good friends with someone on the adcom? I'm wondering how much networking is actually going on when it comes to this...

 

I applied last cycle and got into Pitt's CNUP (I declined and opted for another gap year) and I highly suspect it was because my PI at the time was on the adcom.

Knowing someone can help skew things in your favor, but it's still a committee. They have to convince everyone else that you're worth accepting.

Tbh if you declined Pitt after your PI pulled for you, it makes him/her look bad. They essentially wasted a slot on you they could've given someone else. 

[mcfc2018]

8 hours ago, charmingdiary said:

Side question, what if you know professors who are on the adcom? Or you know that your current PI is good friends with someone on the adcom? I'm wondering how much networking is actually going on when it comes to this...

Ultimately what you're trying to accomplish with your application is to have members of the adcom advocate for you to get accepted. This will obviously be easier if there's a member who knows and likes you, but at the end of the day, your application still has to convince most of the committee, so even if you have one advocate, it won't be enough if the rest don't agree.

8 hours ago, charmingdiary said:

I applied last cycle and got into Pitt's CNUP (I declined and opted for another gap year) and I highly suspect it was because my PI at the time was on the adcom.

It's possible. But some programs require PIs to step out of the adcom meeting when discussing their own student/anyone they wrote a rec letter for. 

[pipettestan]

23 hours ago, BabyScientist said:

Knowing someone can help skew things in your favor, but it's still a committee. They have to convince everyone else that you're worth accepting.

Tbh if you declined Pitt after your PI pulled for you, it makes him/her look bad. They essentially wasted a slot on you they could've given someone else. 

Very true!

 

I declined it due to a multitude of reasons I don't want to disclose, but ultimately at that time it was not the right fit and I am positive I would have mastered out/dropped out if I stayed. Thanks though.

[Spad18]

I'll be applying to programs in Neuroscience, Psychology - Cognitive Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science looking to do human based research and neuroimaging. 

UMBC undergrad 

B S Psychology, B A Biology  Biopsychology Concentration 3.27 GPA

-Graduate course in Advanced Biological Psychology where I received an A- (Spring 2019)

-2.5 years of undergraduate research experience in Developmental Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience 

-Independent Research Thesis in Undergrad presented at The MAUPC. (Received an A)

-Presented behavioral neuroscience Research at the Society for Neuroscience in Nov 2017 and attended the conference in Nov 2018.

-Recent Author on a Paper in Behavioral Neuroscience published in July 2019.

-Working on taking Neuro imaging courses through cousera

-Starting second year of my internship  at army base doing molecular neuroscience research will currently be the lead on the main project this Fall.

-GRE scores of 147 verbal 148 quantitative and 4.5 analytical

Applying to: UVA (neuro), Hopkins (cog Sci), Georgetown (neuro, cogsci conc.), George Washington (psych -cogneuro), Drexel (Psych-ABCS), UPitt(neuro), Carnegie Mellon (psych-cogneuro). 

 

What are my chances? TIA!

[AnonNeuroGrad]

On 8/29/2019 at 6:55 PM, charmingdiary said:

Does anyone have any info on the reputation on BU's GPN vs A&N (Anatomy and Neurobiology)? 

Aside from their differences in coursework, I can't tell much of a difference. I take it that GPN has the better reputation?

I'm in BU BBC and I know a fair bit about all three programs (my lab is in A&N and I interviewed with GPN [but didn't get in') but you'll have to PM me if you want info and I'll give you my personal email.

[AnonNeuroGrad]

On 9/3/2019 at 3:13 AM, Allaboutbrain! said:

@HawaiiLee808 
Hi! Thanks a lot for your reply.

I would like to know why you think my profile is a bit odd for a neuroscience PhD program? I have a very good research experience close to 3 years  in electrophysiology, right from designing experimental paradigms to data acquisition to  EEG analysis.
Yes, I have worked in a traditional neuroscience lab, which is a part of a company that manufactures EEG & ERB machines. They do conduct a lot of studies related to sleep, aphasia, ADHD and many more. And I don't think MBBS from India is an alien degree to universities in the US, (I hope not)

Coming to my publications, I have one under review in https://www.journals.elsevier.com/explore and the other in  https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-psychophysiology. 
So it would be great if you tell me why you think I should re-consider my decision? It could save hundreds of dollars for me!:)) 
 

It's because you're a trained physician which I have no idea what to make of especially with you being from India. Also, the cognition of music is a very odd (not bad just uncommon) thing to be interested in and might restrict your options. 

[AnonNeuroGrad]

On 9/3/2019 at 5:41 PM, charmingdiary said:

That's really disheartening to hear. I wonder if that ends up fostering a competitive environment as opposed to a collaborative one. Thank you so much for your input! I still like the school but I'll do more digging to see which program seems the best.

So I actually go to BU and the vibe I got/have is not so much that the departments are competitive but that they just have different philosophies regarding training. Maybe that results in disagreements but I've only been here a week so I probably am not privy to them yet. Again, PM if you want more specific details but broadly,

GPN: This is the main neuro program available and is very heavy into systems neuroscience but seems to be the best funded and supported among the three. It is housed on the main campus with most faculty in either CILSE (the brand new beautiful tower for neuro and some bio) and LSE (life sciences building next door) with some at the medical center (30-45 min shuttle ride away). They seem fairly well-organized and put on programs/events for their 10-15 students a year. Their curriculum is highly programmed which is both good and bad: you get to take a lot of classes with your cohort but you have to take a lot of the classes they want you to take. This program also has access to the computational specialization but doing so will give you only two rotations instead of three (they rotate longer). Admissions for this department is very competitive.

BBC: This program is run through the Psychological and Brain Sciences department and sort of bunches you up with the developmental and clinical psych students. This program is *much* smaller than I think the other two: there are four people in my cohort and they admitted eight last year. Don't think of it so much as a cohort program but as more of a European-style process because you do not rotate and are directly admitted to the lab. Stipend I think is just short of GPN but maybe only a thousand less. There is far less programming put on by the department so I can only recommend this for the student that is able to make friends easily since no one is doing it for you. You also need to have a compelling fit with a PI to get admitted. I know about 10 students interviewed (no idea how many applicants) and 4 ended up joining. This program has a *very* flexible curriculum as only 2 classes are required (Stats for Psych) and the rest is up to you and your PI. I recommend this program for someone really who knows what to do and this comes with the benefit that you get to start researching and publishing earlier without a lot of program requirements. They have grown the department a lot lately with four newish hires (Ben Scott, Marc Howe, Chand Chandrasekaran, and Steve Ramirez) and are hiring another PI. I would also caution that this department has a traditional qualifying exam where you do a literature review and have to answer questions based on those each given to you over a few days (a lot of programs now are just taking an NRSA proposal plus thesis proposal). Not sure what the qualifying exam process is for GPN or A&N.

A&N: This program is much more heavily focused on, eponymously, neuroanatomy and clinical applications. It's based on the medical campus which might be a negative for some but they do seem to have a decent amount of programming (not as much as GPN but more than BBC) for their students and also seem to have far more masters students. I think they emphasize teaching more and their students run the gross anatomy labs for the med students. A lot (all?) of MD/PhD students are through this program. This one is the most foreign to me so I have no idea what the stipend, qualifying exam, or curriculum is like here but it should be easy enough to find. Cohorts are about medium sized and are 4-8 not including a similar number of masters students. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions about these as I can relay them directly to a person in the program. Personally, I think the GPN is the best program for the average student but I liked the independence of the BBC (but really don't like that I essentially don't have a cohort but this isn't the biggest issue because I'm pretty gregarious and have a lot of Boston friends). For whichever professor you'd like to work with, just make sure they are affiliated with the right departments. If you have a lot of specific appeal with one professor, consider the BBC because all they require is for said professor to want you and have the funding available (plus a back-up professor). The GPN you need to appeal to the entire department and need to have three professors step forward and say they want to take you. 

[AnonNeuroGrad]

On 9/5/2019 at 10:48 PM, Spad18 said:

I'll be applying to programs in Neuroscience, Psychology - Cognitive Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science looking to do human based research and neuroimaging. 

UMBC undergrad 

B S Psychology, B A Biology  Biopsychology Concentration 3.27 GPA

-Graduate course in Advanced Biological Psychology where I received an A- (Spring 2019)

-2.5 years of undergraduate research experience in Developmental Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience 

-Independent Research Thesis in Undergrad presented at The MAUPC. (Received an A)

-Presented behavioral neuroscience Research at the Society for Neuroscience in Nov 2017 and attended the conference in Nov 2018.

-Recent Author on a Paper in Behavioral Neuroscience published in July 2019.

-Working on taking Neuro imaging courses through cousera

-Starting second year of my internship  at army base doing molecular neuroscience research will currently be the lead on the main project this Fall.

-GRE scores of 147 verbal 148 quantitative and 4.5 analytical

Applying to: UVA (neuro), Hopkins (cog Sci), Georgetown (neuro, cogsci conc.), George Washington (psych -cogneuro), Drexel (Psych-ABCS), UPitt(neuro), Carnegie Mellon (psych-cogneuro). 

 

What are my chances? TIA!

You're aiming too high and I think would need a few years off working as a research associate if those are the schools you want to go to. Typically, those schools will see students with above a 3.5 GPA, 3 years of research, and a 160 quant score. Especially aiming for psych programs you're gonna see the average student with a 3.75. I interviewed at CMU nad have friends at UVA, Pitt, and JHU for neuro and have around a 3.8 with several years of research experience with good scores. The one (at UVA) that doesn't have  a high GPA (a 3.2) has a masters. I think you should do the same. A first-authorship would help a lot.

[sYsTeMsN]

Hi!

I've been lurking so I thought I'd share my stats/interests

• GPA: 3.0
• Research Experience: 2 years in a systems mouse lab
• 1 publication in a small journal
• GRE: 161V 166Q 4.0W
• Probably Applying to: UMD, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Northwestern, Emory/Georgia Tech, Georgetown
• Thinking about: NYU, Yale, George Washington, U of Rochester, UPenn, Rutgers
• Interests: Systems level/circuit connectivity, connectomics, computation
• Grappling with: getting a 3rd rec letter from a PI I kinda know, or a postdoc I directly work with (2 other letters are PIs)

Wishing everyone good luck!

[episome1996]

10 hours ago, sYsTeMsN said:

Hi!

I've been lurking so I thought I'd share my stats/interests

• GPA: 3.0
• Research Experience: 2 years in a systems mouse lab
• 1 publication in a small journal
• GRE: 161V 166Q 4.0W
• Probably Applying to: UMD, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Northwestern, Emory/Georgia Tech, Georgetown
• Thinking about: NYU, Yale, George Washington, U of Rochester, UPenn, Rutgers
• Interests: Systems level/circuit connectivity, connectomics, computation
• Grappling with: getting a 3rd rec letter from a PI I kinda know, or a postdoc I directly work with (2 other letters are PIs)

Wishing everyone good luck!

Hi,

How are you going about addressing your GPA in applications? You have a pretty high tier school list and I do as well with some mid tiers thrown in and a 3.1 GPA but lots of research experience + awards and a post-bac at the NIH so I'm hoping those will greatly counter my GPA. 

[sYsTeMsN]

7 hours ago, episome1996 said:

Hi,

How are you going about addressing your GPA in applications? You have a pretty high tier school list and I do as well with some mid tiers thrown in and a 3.1 GPA but lots of research experience + awards and a post-bac at the NIH so I'm hoping those will greatly counter my GPA. 

Hey! I'm pretending it's not a big deal because people tell me it's fine. I went to a small, competitive college and I took a lot of hard classes. I'm thinking of writing a lil paragraph about the reason my gpa is low in my app.

I've also been out of school for more than 3 years, so I think it reflects on me less. Also, maybe my GRE will counter it? I think your application sounds solid!

[GliaCells]

On 7/31/2019 at 9:47 PM, BabyScientist said:

Your GPA showing improvement over time should help.

I suggest having people review your SOP, it's hard to judge your own writing about yourself. I'm happy to help with this if you want.

No one can make a list for you - we don't know your interests. What you should do is look for faculty you're interested in working with and apply to the schools that have at least 3 faculty you're excited about. I'm happy to review such a list once you've made one. 

Wondering if you would be willing to review my SoP. Would greatly appreciate that. Finally got everything together and ready to send all the materials out!

[BabyScientist]

41 minutes ago, mmalam294 said:

Wondering if you would be willing to review my SoP. Would greatly appreciate that. Finally got everything together and ready to send all the materials out!

Sure, send it over. 

[glialstar]

On 10/1/2019 at 11:22 PM, sYsTeMsN said:

Hi!

I've been lurking so I thought I'd share my stats/interests

• GPA: 3.0
• Research Experience: 2 years in a systems mouse lab
• 1 publication in a small journal
• GRE: 161V 166Q 4.0W
• Probably Applying to: UMD, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Northwestern, Emory/Georgia Tech, Georgetown
• Thinking about: NYU, Yale, George Washington, U of Rochester, UPenn, Rutgers
• Interests: Systems level/circuit connectivity, connectomics, computation
• Grappling with: getting a 3rd rec letter from a PI I kinda know, or a postdoc I directly work with (2 other letters are PIs)

Wishing everyone good luck!

I’m in the Brown NSGP if you have any questions on that program!

Edited October 8, 2019 by glialstar

[masha18]

Hi!

I'm applying to programs in computational/theoretical neuroscience this fall and could use some advice on my school list given my background.

Undergrad: University of Chicago, BA in neuro and computer science; Spring 2019

GRE: 169 quant, 164 verbal, 4.5 AW

GPA: 3.5 overall; 3.7 in neuro and 3.5 in CS

Research: 2.5 years part-time during undergrad in a somatosensory systems lab + currently working there full-time on an independent project (human psychophysics); 1 second-author published paper in Scientific Reports; working on a first-author paper right now but it might not be ready for submission by the application deadlines

LOR: I should have two very good letters of recommendation (one from my PI and one from an undergrad professor I took a non-STEM class with) and a mediocre one (from an undergrad neuro professor that doesn't know me very well)

Also I'm an international student *sigh*

Right now I'm preparing applications to BU (GPN), Duke (neurobiology), Columbia, Berkeley, and NYU. I'm still planning to add one or two schools to the list, which I'm realizing should probably be lower-ranked since my research background is not very competitive. Any advice on what schools I could apply to that have some good theoretical neuro labs? And do I stand a chance of getting in any of the schools I've already decided on? I know they're all super competitive but they have really exciting computational labs so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Edited October 9, 2019 by masha18

[aurlito]

Hey guys, international student here. Can you help me rank these programs in terms of how difficult they are to get into ? I'm interested in their cognitive neuroscience/psychology ranks, if they are considered top tier, middle or low ranked.

Florida state university

Florida international univrsity

university of Minnesota

university of Oregon

 Suny-Birmingham

Washington university in st. Louis

Edited October 13, 2019 by aurlito

[AnonNeuroGrad]

On 10/2/2019 at 6:11 PM, sYsTeMsN said:

Hey! I'm pretending it's not a big deal because people tell me it's fine. I went to a small, competitive college and I took a lot of hard classes. I'm thinking of writing a lil paragraph about the reason my gpa is low in my app.

I've also been out of school for more than 3 years, so I think it reflects on me less. Also, maybe my GRE will counter it? I think your application sounds solid!

Trying not to be that guy but I'm here to tell you it's "not fine" if you have that GPA and anyone who tells you otherwise has no clue what they are talking about. That length of time will not counter your GPA and your GRE scores are not quite strong enough to offset it either especially considering that many schools are no longer using it. Neuroscience is insanely competitive right now with many/most R1's having admit rates below 5% with many being below 2%. I know people at the schools you listed and got into comparable ones but I had to do a ton to compensate for my similarly low GPA and still I didn't do well. I did end up at Boston University (a good school) but only because I networked with the right PI who pulled me into a direct-admit program because he looked past my GPA. My stats are posted in a block below. The key for you is to network and to get several PI's at schools to fall in love with you so they can pull for you no matter your GPA. I don't believe your GPA is reflective of your abilities and schools know that but the unfortunate truth is that it's hard to look past it when so many other students have higher ones (and no PI wants to knock someone for not having a "hard major") plus incoming class GPAs matter for rankings and when applying for institutional grants like the T32. Furthermore, a low GPA means that you are unlikely to get competitive individual fellowships like the GRFP, NDSEG, CSGFm Ford, and possibly the F31 so the school is less inclined to take you.

I wish you all the best and feel free to message me if you have any questions. I know first-hand how difficult it is to offset a low GPA but I've been somewhat successful so hopefully I can help you out.

 

Undergrad Institution: Top 100 liberal arts university
Major(s): Math and Biochemistry
Minor(s): Neuroscience
GPA in Major: 3.1
Overall GPA: 3.2
Position in Class: Average
Type of Student: Domestic Male

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 164 (88th percentile)
V: 167 (98th percentile)
W: 6.0 (99th percentile)

Graduate Institution: Top 5 Public University
Degree: M.S. Applied Mathematics
GPA: 3.7
Position in Class: ?
Type of Student: Domestic Male

Research Experience: 3 academic years in neuroendocrinology and biophysics (one third-authorship in a small journal). 2 REU's. 1 2nd-authored poster at SfN.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Several awards for travel, summer research grant, academic scholarship (half of tuition), and awards for tutoring/mentorship.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 3.5 years of research at a premier neuroscience research institution. 2-3 posters authored (2 large-authorship and 1 first-authored). 3 publications (all large-authorship) in eLife, eNeuro, Nature with three more in preparation (1 3rd-author, 1 large-authorship, 1 potential first-authorship MS thesis) but probably no more than 1 submitted by application time. Possibly one or two more I'll be included on. Also work as a mentor for underprivileged science students. Several years of serious programming (software development-ish level) in Python with some Matlab.

Special Bonus Points: Completed MS in Applied Math consisting of 36 credits (see above); very well-connected through my current institution 

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Institution is very very well-known in neuroscience and pretty much universally-lauded (you could probably guess it).

Research Interests: Computational neuroscience especially dimensionality reductive approaches to large-scale datasets in mouse with calcium imaging and vision

Edited October 13, 2019 by HawaiiLee808

[AnonNeuroGrad]

On 10/8/2019 at 7:36 PM, masha18 said:

Hi!

I'm applying to programs in computational/theoretical neuroscience this fall and could use some advice on my school list given my background.

Undergrad: University of Chicago, BA in neuro and computer science; Spring 2019

GRE: 169 quant, 164 verbal, 4.5 AW

GPA: 3.5 overall; 3.7 in neuro and 3.5 in CS

Research: 2.5 years part-time during undergrad in a somatosensory systems lab + currently working there full-time on an independent project (human psychophysics); 1 second-author published paper in Scientific Reports; working on a first-author paper right now but it might not be ready for submission by the application deadlines

LOR: I should have two very good letters of recommendation (one from my PI and one from an undergrad professor I took a non-STEM class with) and a mediocre one (from an undergrad neuro professor that doesn't know me very well)

Also I'm an international student *sigh*

Right now I'm preparing applications to BU (GPN), Duke (neurobiology), Columbia, Berkeley, and NYU. I'm still planning to add one or two schools to the list, which I'm realizing should probably be lower-ranked since my research background is not very competitive. Any advice on what schools I could apply to that have some good theoretical neuro labs? And do I stand a chance of getting in any of the schools I've already decided on? I know they're all super competitive but they have really exciting computational labs so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I think you are competitive for a place like BU international student status aside. It really comes down to who is writing your letters: if they're big names, you'll get interviewed; and there are some very big names at Chicago. I'm here and we also had some interview at several other of those schools as well but your stats don't see out-of-line with the G1's I know. BU has a very bimodal (?) set of faculty that they are trying to remedy in that, around the 2000's they were real hard-hitters and top in the theoretical field with people like Eric Swartz, Howard Eichenbaum, and Stephen Grossberg but the former two have now passed away and they lost some of the mid-career faculty to other departments (Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Tim Gardner,  few others). Recently they've hired a bit of rising star set of new faculty though: Ben Scott from Brody and Tank lab doing freely behaving wide field in rats; Chandramouli Chandrasekaran from Shenoy lab doing monkey prefrontal and decision-making with neuropixels (soon); Steve Ramirez from Tonegawa lab who does memory and engram formation/deletion and just won a prestigious NIH Director's Transformative Research grant; Mark Howe from Graybiel lab who does basal ganglia and decision-making/action selection in mice; and Laura Lewis who does sleep and attentional states in fMRI. They also have of course computational folk like Nancy Kopell (legend) and also Mark Kramer and Uri Eden and the math/stats department is hiring 2 more and I think are looking for comp Neuro. The psych and brain sciences is also hiring another systems neuroscientist as well.

As far as who you should email, I think they're all receptive but know for certain that Ramirez and Chandrasekaran have the funding to take on new students in the next year.

If you're aiming high, let me give you some suggestions of schools that are not as highly ranked and yet still very computational.

University of Pittsburgh Neuroscience or Carnegie Mellon Biological Sciences: neither of these is explicitly computational or as competitive as their CNBC PNC but allow you access to the CNBC as an affiliate never the less. CMU Bio is moving into neuroscience with the starting of a new department (but not new degree program) headed by Barbara Shinn-Cunningham.

GeorgiaTech/Emory: These schools are very closely affiliated and are somewhat easier to get into. They boast some good computational people like Eva Dyer, Chethan Padarinath, and Chris Rozell. 

Brown: everyone thinks of this as an Ivy but that label doesn't really matter in terms of grad school. I had a lot of friends get into places you listed and turn down Brown. Either way, they still have a good computational unit there I know of Serre and Sheinberg. They also have some neuroprosthetics there.

USC: A relatively easier school to get into than you listed but they do have a good focus on neuroengineering there. 

Stony Brook: A smaller department but maybe worth applying to as they have some computational people like Giancarlo La Camera, Braden Brinkman, and Alfredo Fontanini

University of Oregon: A department I think everyone should be considering which is, imo, the fastest riser in terms of the up-and-comers. Unfortunately they lost Yashar Ahmadian to Cambridge but they still have Luca Mazzucato and I expect them to fill in another computational neuroscientist. For what it's worth, they have a ton of cash from the Knight family and are doubling in size plus have all the cool tools even a lot of R1's don't have like Neuropixels and a mesoscope. Their specialty is systems Neuro but I can say that their director, David McCormick, and professors like Cris Niell push for and value computational approaches. 

UCSB: A stunning location and they've been growing super quickly. They were able to poach Spencer and Ikuko Smith from UNC-CH and are aggressively hiring more faculty including I think some computational. It's a direct admit program but still worth a look.

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by HawaiiLee808

[masha18]

This is super helpful, thank you! I'm seriously considering Brown for sure, it looks like a very good program.
Re: Pittsburgh, what does the affiliation with CNBC entail? Can I in principle work with any faculty there for my thesis research?

1 hour ago, HawaiiLee808 said:

University of Pittsburgh Neuroscience or Carnegie Mellon Biological Sciences: neither of these is explicitly computational or as competitive as their CNBC PNC but allow you access to the CNBC as an affiliate never the less. CMU Bio is moving into neuroscience with the starting of a new department (but not new degree program) headed by Barbara Shinn-Cunningham

[AnonNeuroGrad]

30 minutes ago, masha18 said:

This is super helpful, thank you! I'm seriously considering Brown for sure, it looks like a very good program.
Re: Pittsburgh, what does the affiliation with CNBC entail? Can I in principle work with any faculty there for my thesis research?

It depends on your department and I'm not sure about Pitt CNUP. In CMU Biological Sciences, you have to rotate twice first within their department and then can look to ones outside possibly even at Pitt. I've heard rumored that it can be harder to join a CMU lab from Pitt but I've also heard to opposite. 

You can become affiliated with the CNBC after your first year I think after filling out a non-competitive application. All the CNBC professors you can work with even if you're not CNBC but that again goes back to how your department works. Of course, they only regulate your primary advisor that's not to say you can't pick up a secondary one or just collaborate anyways. I think the CNBC is good in that they have some institutional support (maybe small fellowships or travel grants) they can offer and regularly meet up in Mellon. Also know that the CNBC has it's own (highly-selective) PhD program called the Program in Neural Computation that has a separate application from either CMU or Pitt but should you be admitted, you would be a student of both institutions. 

[sYsTeMsN]

On 10/13/2019 at 6:02 PM, HawaiiLee808 said:

Trying not to be that guy but I'm here to tell you it's "not fine" if you have that GPA and anyone who tells you otherwise has no clue what they are talking about.

Hey HawaiiLee! Thanks for your feedback, though I think it'll be fine because that's the GPA I have either way. I'm working on reaching out to PIs that I'm really excited about. I'm also excited about my rec letters, as they are from PIs that know me well. 

It's good to see that someone else with a lower GPA got into such a great grad program. We'll see what happens with my apps! 

Edited October 15, 2019 by sYsTeMsN