2022 Neuroscience PhD Applicants and Admissions Results

[axpresbom]

Undergrad Institution: T20 Private University

Major(s): Psychology & Biology

Overall GPA: 3.86

Type of Student: Domestic, first-generation college student.

GRE Scores:  167V, 168Q, 5AW

Research Experience: 3 years of research experience.

Publications: 5 publications & 3 national presentations.

LoRs:
-One from a major advisor 
-Two from professors I've worked under for a year + summer

Applying to Where:

• Dream: UCSF, WUSTL, JHU, MIT, Northwestern
• Happily accept: Michigan, Melbourne, Toronto, McGill

[BlondeScience]

 

Hi everyone! Happy to be here. First time grad school applicant here, been out of undergrad for four years and finally making the move.

Undergrad Institution: Salem State University '17

Major(s):  B.S. in Biology, Biomedical Science concentration. Chemistry minor. Honors program.

Overall GPA: 3.35

Major GPA: 3.28

Type of Student: White female, first-gen college student, domestic

GRE Scores: Not taken...standardized tests are not a strength of mine 

Research Experience: 

- Bachelor's honors thesis ~8 months of research

- 3 summer internships in industry

- 4.5 years in industry; 2 years in bioanalytical research and 2.5 years in CNS research.

Positions held: Associate Scientist I, Associate Scientist II, Senior Associate Scientist (current)

Publications/Posters: 

- 3 publications (no first author  )

- 6 posters

- 1 poster presentation at Keystone Symposia on Neurodegenerative Diseases

- 1 poster presentation at UMass Amherst Undergraduate Research Symposium

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Graduated Cum Laude, Dean's List 3 semesters

LoRs: 1 from current manager (Principle Scientist in CNS research), 1 from former manager (Sr. Scientist in Bioanalytical research), 1 from CNS senior program director (also former manager)

Applying to Where: Too many because I'm insecure ?

UMass Med, BU, Harvard, Columbia, Icahn SOM, Weill Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Yale, UFL, UNC Chapel Hill, UCSD, UCLA, Scripps, University of Toronto

Might add a couple more before 12/15 deadlines! Not confident about my GPA but hoping my experience makes up for it? I'm also old now so maybe no one will want to take a chance on my success transitioning to academia again hahaha

Nice to see some overlap and looking forward to hearing about interviews!

[QWERTYMNB97]

44 minutes ago, BlondeScience said:

 

Hi everyone! Happy to be here. First time grad school applicant here, been out of undergrad for four years and finally making the move.

Undergrad Institution: Salem State University '17

Major(s):  B.S. in Biology, Biomedical Science concentration. Chemistry minor. Honors program.

Overall GPA: 3.35

Major GPA: 3.28

Type of Student: White female, first-gen college student, domestic

GRE Scores: Not taken...standardized tests are not a strength of mine 

Research Experience: 

- Bachelor's honors thesis ~8 months of research

- 3 summer internships in industry

- 4.5 years in industry; 2 years in bioanalytical research and 2.5 years in CNS research.

Positions held: Associate Scientist I, Associate Scientist II, Senior Associate Scientist (current)

Publications/Posters: 

- 3 publications (no first author  )

- 6 posters

- 1 poster presentation at Keystone Symposia on Neurodegenerative Diseases

- 1 poster presentation at UMass Amherst Undergraduate Research Symposium

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Graduated Cum Laude, Dean's List 3 semesters

LoRs: 1 from current manager (Principle Scientist in CNS research), 1 from former manager (Sr. Scientist in Bioanalytical research), 1 from CNS senior program director (also former manager)

Applying to Where: Too many because I'm insecure ?

UMass Med, BU, Harvard, Columbia, Icahn SOM, Weill Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Yale, UFL, UNC Chapel Hill, UCSD, UCLA, Scripps, University of Toronto

Might add a couple more before 12/15 deadlines! Not confident about my GPA but hoping my experience makes up for it? I'm also old now so maybe no one will want to take a chance on my success transitioning to academia again hahaha

Nice to see some overlap and looking forward to hearing about interviews!

What programs at BU, Harvard, Weill, Hopkins and UNC? I heard Neuro at Weill is good!

[ManifoldsAreMadeUp]

57 minutes ago, BlondeScience said:

 

Hi everyone! Happy to be here. First time grad school applicant here, been out of undergrad for four years and finally making the move.

Undergrad Institution: Salem State University '17

Major(s):  B.S. in Biology, Biomedical Science concentration. Chemistry minor. Honors program.

Overall GPA: 3.35

Major GPA: 3.28

Type of Student: White female, first-gen college student, domestic

GRE Scores: Not taken...standardized tests are not a strength of mine 

Research Experience: 

- Bachelor's honors thesis ~8 months of research

- 3 summer internships in industry

- 4.5 years in industry; 2 years in bioanalytical research and 2.5 years in CNS research.

Positions held: Associate Scientist I, Associate Scientist II, Senior Associate Scientist (current)

Publications/Posters: 

- 3 publications (no first author  )

- 6 posters

- 1 poster presentation at Keystone Symposia on Neurodegenerative Diseases

- 1 poster presentation at UMass Amherst Undergraduate Research Symposium

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Graduated Cum Laude, Dean's List 3 semesters

LoRs: 1 from current manager (Principle Scientist in CNS research), 1 from former manager (Sr. Scientist in Bioanalytical research), 1 from CNS senior program director (also former manager)

Applying to Where: Too many because I'm insecure ?

UMass Med, BU, Harvard, Columbia, Icahn SOM, Weill Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Yale, UFL, UNC Chapel Hill, UCSD, UCLA, Scripps, University of Toronto

Might add a couple more before 12/15 deadlines! Not confident about my GPA but hoping my experience makes up for it? I'm also old now so maybe no one will want to take a chance on my success transitioning to academia again hahaha

Nice to see some overlap and looking forward to hearing about interviews!

You have a lot of schools on your list but it's not unheard of to have that number or even more by international students. However, make sure you really are a good fit and you're not just adding schools to add schools. I would also comment that your list is extremely top-heavy. If I were you, I'd swap out 3-5 highly competitive programs that are your worst fits for some that are less competitive. Unfortunately, your GPA could get you filtered out from most highly competitive schools especially without an exceptional GRE to compensate. Industry experience is also less beneficial compared to academic research with one reason being that your LoR's won't be coming from colleagues of the admissions committee members. One constant I've seen in people at highly competitive schools is that most of the time their LoR writers are well-known to the ad comms. I've seen individuals who applied with a similar profile as you and a very top-heavy list of schools not end up with any interviews. Your age isn't a problem by the way but the amount of time you've spent away from academic research might be. If you are more explicit about your interests, I can give you suggestions of schools and programs you might want to consider.

If you really really like the schools you've listed, get creative with what programs you apply to. You don't need to be in each school's flagship neuro program, you just need to get into an affiliated one; usually these are far less competitive. Examples of this are Harvard's SHBT or BU's A&N which are lesser known but still give you similar access to labs (although some programs are subfield focused).

Edited December 6, 2021 by ManifoldsAreMadeUp

[BlondeScience]

16 minutes ago, QWERTYMNB97 said:

What programs at BU, Harvard, Weill, Hopkins and UNC? I heard Neuro at Weill is good!

Hey! Thanks for asking:

BU: PiBS and Neuro, Harvard: Neuro, Weill: Neuro, Hopkins: Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Neuro, UNC: Neuro

What about you?

[BlondeScience]

11 minutes ago, ManifoldsAreMadeUp said:

You have a lot of schools on your list but it's not unheard of to have that number or even more by international students. However, make sure you really are a good fit and you're not just adding schools to add schools. I would also comment that your list is extremely top-heavy. If I were you, I'd swap out 3-5 highly competitive programs that are your worst fits for some that are less competitive. Unfortunately, your GPA could get you filtered out from most highly competitive schools especially without an exceptional GRE to compensate. Industry experience is also less beneficial compared to academic research with one reason being that your LoR's won't be coming from colleagues of the admissions committee members. One constant I've seen in people at highly competitive schools is that most of the time their LoR writers are well-known to the ad comms. I've seen individuals who applied with a similar profile as you and a very top-heavy list of schools not end up with any interviews. Your age isn't a problem by the way but the amount of time you've spent away from academic research might be. If you are more explicit about your interests, I can give you suggestions of schools and programs you might want to consider.

If you really really like the schools you've listed, get creative with what programs you apply to. You don't need to be in each school's flagship neuro program, you just need to get into an affiliated one; usually these are far less competitive. Examples of this are Harvard's SHBT or BU's A&N which are lesser known but still give you similar access to labs (although some programs are subfield focused).

Thanks for your input!  I agree that it's top heavy, I'm putting a lot of faith into my research experience since my GPA is not competitive. My experience is in neurodegenerative disease research but I'm not tied to it; I'm interested in clinical neuroscience in a number of areas as well as neuropharmacology. I'm super interested in neuropsychiatric research though I may not be as appealing since I'm not as knowledgeable in the space. I'm also interested in translational research and have applied to a couple of programs more specific to that and not neuro. If you have any suggestions send them my way!   

[QWERTYMNB97]

13 minutes ago, BlondeScience said:

Hey! Thanks for asking:

BU: PiBS and Neuro, Harvard: Neuro, Weill: Neuro, Hopkins: Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Neuro, UNC: Neuro

What about you?

I am not Neuro person (tho my background research little bit aligns neuro) - but Biological/Biomed sci.

Harvard BBS, Hopkins CMM, UNC BBSP, Vanderbilt IGP, BU PiBS.

We have some overlaps. And you are the only one other than me (on this platform) who has applied to CMM this year!! Good to see fellow applicants.

Edited December 6, 2021 by QWERTYMNB97

[QWERTYMNB97]

1 hour ago, BlondeScience said:

 

Hi everyone! Happy to be here. First time grad school applicant here, been out of undergrad for four years and finally making the move.

Undergrad Institution: Salem State University '17

Major(s):  B.S. in Biology, Biomedical Science concentration. Chemistry minor. Honors program.

Overall GPA: 3.35

Major GPA: 3.28

Type of Student: White female, first-gen college student, domestic

GRE Scores: Not taken...standardized tests are not a strength of mine 

Research Experience: 

- Bachelor's honors thesis ~8 months of research

- 3 summer internships in industry

- 4.5 years in industry; 2 years in bioanalytical research and 2.5 years in CNS research.

Positions held: Associate Scientist I, Associate Scientist II, Senior Associate Scientist (current)

Publications/Posters: 

- 3 publications (no first author  )

- 6 posters

- 1 poster presentation at Keystone Symposia on Neurodegenerative Diseases

- 1 poster presentation at UMass Amherst Undergraduate Research Symposium

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Graduated Cum Laude, Dean's List 3 semesters

LoRs: 1 from current manager (Principle Scientist in CNS research), 1 from former manager (Sr. Scientist in Bioanalytical research), 1 from CNS senior program director (also former manager)

Applying to Where: Too many because I'm insecure ?

UMass Med, BU, Harvard, Columbia, Icahn SOM, Weill Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Yale, UFL, UNC Chapel Hill, UCSD, UCLA, Scripps, University of Toronto

Might add a couple more before 12/15 deadlines! Not confident about my GPA but hoping my experience makes up for it? I'm also old now so maybe no one will want to take a chance on my success transitioning to academia again hahaha

Nice to see some overlap and looking forward to hearing about interviews!

You do have a good background, actually, compensating the GPA! And the GPA isn't bad either. I have seen people with 3 - 3.2 GPA getting admits in good univs.

[BlondeScience]

6 minutes ago, QWERTYMNB97 said:

I am not Neuro person (tho my background research little bit aligns neuro) - but Biological/Biomed sci.

Harvard BBS, Hopkins CMM, UNC BBSP, Vanderbilt IGP, BU PiBS.

We have some overlaps. And you are the only one other than me (on this platform) who has applied to CMM this year!! Good to see fellow applicants.

No way that's awesome! The CMM program is one of my tops but also one of my highest reaches haha. I would prefer it to the neuro program at JHU though either would make me happy. I just really like the clinical aspect of CMM and haven't seen a lot of programs like it. I think their interviews start pretty early in January so hoping for good news for both of us! 

[QWERTYMNB97]

2 minutes ago, BlondeScience said:

No way that's awesome! The CMM program is one of my tops but also one of my highest reaches haha. I would prefer it to the neuro program at JHU though either would make me happy. I just really like the clinical aspect of CMM and haven't seen a lot of programs like it. I think their interviews start pretty early in January so hoping for good news for both of us! 

Likewise!! Good luck!!

[BlondeScience]

4 minutes ago, QWERTYMNB97 said:

You do have a good background, actually, compensating the GPA! And the GPA isn't bad either. I have seen people with 3 - 3.2 GPA getting admits in good univs.

Thanks a lot! Going to a small state school was challenging because of the lack of research opportunities so unfortunately my academic background is not as strong as a lot of other students. I'm hoping my other strengths help me catch the attention of the ad comms. What's your background?

[QWERTYMNB97]

10 minutes ago, BlondeScience said:

Thanks a lot! Going to a small state school was challenging because of the lack of research opportunities so unfortunately my academic background is not as strong as a lot of other students. I'm hoping my other strengths help me catch the attention of the ad comms. What's your background?

My BG:

UG - Biotech at SASTRA University, India (7.2/10) WES: 3.2/4

PG - MS Biological Sciences at University of Massachusetts Lowell (3.6/4)

International with US degree, Male.

Work experience - 16 months at BIDMC/Harvard, post PG (Research)

Research experience - 1 Year MS Thesis at UMass Amherst, 1 Year UG Thesis, 1.5 years post graduation research at BIDMC/Harvard

Publication - 1st author article (BIDMC/Harvard), 3rd author book chapter (UMass); 2 more in progress

Presentation - 1 International conference (Won best poster)

Some voluntary teaching experiences and seminars

LORs - Chair professor of Medicine at Harvard, Associate Dean and Prof at UMass Lowell, Professor at UMass Amherst

Background Research experience : HIV and Drug abuse pathobiology at BI/Harvard, RNA Biosensors at UMass. Targeting Pathobiology/Virology in all the applied univs.

Edited December 6, 2021 by QWERTYMNB97
typo

[shuaizh117]

4 hours ago, QWERTYMNB97 said:

I am not Neuro person (tho my background research little bit aligns neuro) - but Biological/Biomed sci.

Harvard BBS, Hopkins CMM, UNC BBSP, Vanderbilt IGP, BU PiBS.

We have some overlaps. And you are the only one other than me (on this platform) who has applied to CMM this year!! Good to see fellow applicants.

I applied to CMM this year. International applicants, Bachelor's (Biochem) and Master's degrees (Cell Biology) both in the US, ~ 5 years of post-grad full-time work (research) experience in a research institute. 2 first-author pubs, 3 co-author pubs, and a couple more in preparation. Multiple local and national posters and presentations, etc. Good luck to all of us! 

[QWERTYMNB97]

1 minute ago, shuaizh117 said:

I applied to CMM this year. International applicants, Bachelor's (Biochem) and Master's degrees (Cell Biology) both in the US, ~ 5 years of post-grad full-time work (research) experience in a research institute. 2 first-author pubs, 3 co-author pubs, and a couple more in preparation. Multiple local and national posters and presentations, etc. Good luck to all of us! 

Awesome! Good luck to you too!

[ManifoldsAreMadeUp]

12 hours ago, BlondeScience said:

Thanks for your input!  I agree that it's top heavy, I'm putting a lot of faith into my research experience since my GPA is not competitive. My experience is in neurodegenerative disease research but I'm not tied to it; I'm interested in clinical neuroscience in a number of areas as well as neuropharmacology. I'm super interested in neuropsychiatric research though I may not be as appealing since I'm not as knowledgeable in the space. I'm also interested in translational research and have applied to a couple of programs more specific to that and not neuro. If you have any suggestions send them my way!   

Sorry don't know much if anything about neurodegeneration! I know BU A&N has Ann McKee and several other neurodegeneration folks. As you probably know, she's the biggest name in CTE. If you like glia, UVA has a good unit and if the glymphatic system is interesting, you can try Rochester.

I would've considered pharmacology programs for you but it's probably too late now. I only bring up the GPA because you remind me so much of myself: I similarly had a low GPA (3.1) and had 4 years of industry experience (also a 3.7 in a masters with high GRE scores) but my undergrad GPA hurt me a ton during application time. I similarly applied to around 16 schools and only ended up getting into the 2 least competitive schools neither of which I realized I wanted to be at (you also have two schools that presumably are fairly less selective than the rest). I still ended up at a very good school I was originally rejected from (one on your list) but that was the *only* one I got an interview from among the 14 highly selective schools. I could've extremely easily not gotten into the school I'm at and been left with two options that would've left me unhappy (mostly due to their locations and that I didn't jive with the current students). I similarly had hoped my experience would've carried me through but it did not and in hindsight, I would've applied to more schools that were less selective. I got to where I wanted to be on the slimmest of margins but it could've very easily gone the other way. I don't want you to have the awful awful interview season (or lack thereof) that I did. 

So you know where I'm coming from with the GPA comment, this graph is from SfN's periodic survey of neuroscience graduate programs; here they're showing the distribution of average student undergraduate GPAs entering the programs. You can see the middle 75ish% of programs have average GPAs between 3.5 to 3.7 and this number has been trending higher over time (this was 5 years ago and 5 years before that it was a 3.5 average). You can imagine top programs have averages even higher. Hopefully this will encourage you to expand the types of programs you are applying to. Of course, I'd be extremely happy to be completely wrong on all of this. You do however have a good amount of research experience and some stellar letters of rec. can really overcome a low GPA hurdle.

Edited December 7, 2021 by ManifoldsAreMadeUp

[actionpotential]

On 12/6/2021 at 12:06 PM, BlondeScience said:

Thanks for your input!  I agree that it's top heavy, I'm putting a lot of faith into my research experience since my GPA is not competitive. My experience is in neurodegenerative disease research but I'm not tied to it; I'm interested in clinical neuroscience in a number of areas as well as neuropharmacology. I'm super interested in neuropsychiatric research though I may not be as appealing since I'm not as knowledgeable in the space. I'm also interested in translational research and have applied to a couple of programs more specific to that and not neuro. If you have any suggestions send them my way!   

Hey sorry, I know statement wasn't to me. But Drexel College of Medicine might have some labs you'd be interested in. I'm a first year in their neuroscience PhD program but they also have a pharmacology & physiology program that has a lot of neuro overlap with labs. In fact, next semester I will be rotating in a pharm/phys lab (so you could apply to either program). The deadline for apps is on the 15th so there's still a little bit of time if you decide you like it. My experience at Drexel has been great so far. Very supportive and friendly people. Classes are tough, though! But I'm really learning a lot.

[gawaag]

Hey did anyone hear from Brandeis neuro PhD program for interview invites? I saw from the results that someone has received it. Super nervous now. Please tell me they send out invites multiple times...?

[BlondeScience]

1 hour ago, actionpotential said:

Hey sorry, I know statement wasn't to me. But Drexel College of Medicine might have some labs you'd be interested in. I'm a first year in their neuroscience PhD program but they also have a pharmacology & physiology program that has a lot of neuro overlap with labs. In fact, next semester I will be rotating in a pharm/phys lab (so you could apply to either program). The deadline for apps is on the 15th so there's still a little bit of time if you decide you like it. My experience at Drexel has been great so far. Very supportive and friendly people. Classes are tough, though! But I'm really learning a lot.

Thanks so much for the suggestion! Drexel was actually on my list of schools to look into so it's helpful to hear from someone who's having a positive experience. I will definitely check out their programs!

[abineuro]

Anyone else totally stressing themselves out because a bunch of other schools had already started sending out interview invites by this point last year? I am keep refreshing my email hoping to hear from UPenn ? 

[gawaag]

1 hour ago, abineuro said:

Anyone else totally stressing themselves out because a bunch of other schools had already started sending out interview invites by this point last year? I am keep refreshing my email hoping to hear from UPenn ? 

ME TOOO. I literally refreshed my email and the gradcafe results every 10 minutes. 

[abineuro]

14 hours ago, gawaag said:

ME TOOO. I literally refreshed my email and the gradcafe results every 10 minutes. 

Glad I'm not alone! Praying we get some good news today!!!

[RegenApp]

This may be a silly question, but I just received an invitation to a “recruitment day” on campus. Is this the same an an interview day? (Rutgers Newark CNBP) 

[shuaizh117]

7 minutes ago, RegenApp said:

This may be a silly question, but I just received an invitation to a “recruitment day” on campus. Is this the same an an interview day? (Rutgers Newark CNBP) 

What about emailing the program directly and find it out? 

[RegenApp]

29 minutes ago, shuaizh117 said:

What about emailing the program directly and find it out? 

I could but I didn’t want to look silly in front of admissions and I thought the forum might know 

[medlrf]

Someone applied to IMPRS-TP? I wonder if they have started sending out invitations yet.?