2024 Neuroscience PhD Applicants and Admissions Results

[mccourt678]

Hey everyone, I saw that there has not been a topic created yet for this year's Neuroscience PhD application cycle so I thought I would start a thread here now. Please feel free to share your qualifications and school list for feedback and admissions information. Also feel free to share any information that could help strengthen applications and just generally improve this stressful application process. Good luck to everyone during this cycle! 

[Civvie466]

Hey! I wanted a review of my application this year for PhD programs and recommendations for potential schools. I have a list of schools I want to apply to, but I'm interested in names of schools I might have a good shot at.

Student Type: Indian Male

Undergrad and Grad school (integrated bachelor's and masters program) :  Govt. College, ranked in the top 25 in India

Major: Biology

GPA: 3.12 (converted from a 10-point scale), 3.42 only counting courses that count towards my major

Research: 2 years of part-time research work in three different labs, plus one year of full-time research in a fourth lab. I changed labs because I wanted to gain a diverse range of research experiences. Author on one preprint (not peer-reviewed).

Other Experience:

Lots of programming experience with Python and MATLAB, plus leadership and team-coordinating experience from organising nation-level events.

Letters of Recommendation:  All three from professors I worked directly under.

I am guessing my GPA is the weakest part of my application. Any help/advice is appreciated.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Civvie466

[notaidan77]

Hello! I was hoping to get a review for my application for PhD program.

Student Type: Canadian Male

Education: Bachelor's Degree in Medical Physics from one of Canada's top 10 universities

GPA: 4.0

Research: 1 year of research (summer + school year) in hyperpolarized MRI. Got an internship position in Germany afterwards in the same field. Continued corresponding with German group after the summer to get the manuscript ready. Did a Bachelor's thesis applying mathematical and physics-based modelling to EEG data. Current research lies in spiking neural networks and biologically plausible learning algorithms. (Overall I have ~2.5 years of sustained research experience)

Awards: Most notable is that I graduated with the highest standing average (calculated in percent) across the entire Faculty of Science at my school (a cohort of ~1000 students) and therefore I led the academic procession at my convocation. Several Canadian research awards and grants. A German research grant. Several international learning awards. Several awards due to academic performance.

Publications: 1 co-first author publication in Nature Communications with the German group. 1 manuscript (also first author) in progress.

Letters of Recommendation: 4 letters. Three of them are from supervisors I've directly worked under, one from a professor I am close with and performed above and beyond the requirements in her course.

Other experience: Fluent in Python and Matlab.

Extra-curriculars: Part of the committee (for 2 years) which ran an annual conference for undergraduates in physics to present their work.

Schools I am applying to: Stanford, MIT, Chicago, UCSF, UT Austin, Duke. I still am looking for supervisors at "safety" schools that I'd be interested in working with. Also may apply to a couple of other top universities (if I find supervisors I find intriguing).

I'm open to any criticism as well as school/supervisor suggestions!

Thank you!

[NeuroscienceTheoretically]

On 8/12/2023 at 5:16 PM, Civvie466 said:

Hey! I wanted a review of my application this year for PhD programs and recommendations for potential schools. I have a list of schools I want to apply to, but I'm interested in names of schools I might have a good shot at.

Student Type: Indian Male

Undergrad and Grad school (integrated bachelor's and masters program) :  Govt. College, ranked in the top 25 in India

Major: Biology

GPA: 3.12 (converted from a 10-point scale), 3.42 only counting courses that count towards my major

Research: 2 years of part-time research work in three different labs, plus one year of full-time research in a fourth lab. I changed labs because I wanted to gain a diverse range of research experiences. Author on one preprint (not peer-reviewed).

Other Experience:

Lots of programming experience with Python and MATLAB, plus leadership and team-coordinating experience from organising nation-level events.

Letters of Recommendation:  All three from professors I worked directly under.

I am guessing my GPA is the weakest part of my application. Any help/advice is appreciated.

I would say you're going to want to look into masters programs in the U.S. or Europe. I know a lot of international students and most of them had to do that before their PhD if they didn't do undergrad in U.S./Europe. Your GPA is unfortunately probably too low for most every PhD program and most programs will want to see that you got a degree from a western institution before giving you a shot. They don't really know how to assess Indian institutions outside of maybe IIT even if you did have like a 4.0 GPA.

[NeuroscienceTheoretically]

On 9/4/2023 at 2:17 PM, notaidan77 said:

Hello! I was hoping to get a review for my application for PhD program.

Student Type: Canadian Male

Education: Bachelor's Degree in Medical Physics from one of Canada's top 10 universities

GPA: 4.0

Research: 1 year of research (summer + school year) in hyperpolarized MRI. Got an internship position in Germany afterwards in the same field. Continued corresponding with German group after the summer to get the manuscript ready. Did a Bachelor's thesis applying mathematical and physics-based modelling to EEG data. Current research lies in spiking neural networks and biologically plausible learning algorithms. (Overall I have ~2.5 years of sustained research experience)

Awards: Most notable is that I graduated with the highest standing average (calculated in percent) across the entire Faculty of Science at my school (a cohort of ~1000 students) and therefore I led the academic procession at my convocation. Several Canadian research awards and grants. A German research grant. Several international learning awards. Several awards due to academic performance.

Publications: 1 co-first author publication in Nature Communications with the German group. 1 manuscript (also first author) in progress.

Letters of Recommendation: 4 letters. Three of them are from supervisors I've directly worked under, one from a professor I am close with and performed above and beyond the requirements in her course.

Other experience: Fluent in Python and Matlab.

Extra-curriculars: Part of the committee (for 2 years) which ran an annual conference for undergraduates in physics to present their work.

Schools I am applying to: Stanford, MIT, Chicago, UCSF, UT Austin, Duke. I still am looking for supervisors at "safety" schools that I'd be interested in working with. Also may apply to a couple of other top universities (if I find supervisors I find intriguing).

I'm open to any criticism as well as school/supervisor suggestions!

Thank you!

I mean, if you have a co-first in Nat. Comms. and a strong GPA with a decent amount of experience, I think you should add more highly-selective schools; you don't need safeties. You should think about adding Harvard (Haim Sompolinsky, Kanaka Rajan, and Cengiz Pehlevan), Columbia (Ashok Litwin-Kumar, Larry Abbott, Ken Miller), NYU (SueYeon Chung, XJ Wang, Eero Simoncelli), and Princeton (Bialek, Brody, Engel, Pillow) etc. 

[mccourt678]

Hey everyone, I want your thoughts on my PhD application for this cycle. Please let me know if you have any suggestions about my school list as I am open to any programs that fit my research interests!

Degree: Cell Biology/Neuroscience (combined degree not double major) at Rutgers University (graduating May 2024)

GPA: 3.482

My GPA is probably my weakest point, but I have a great upward trend over the last couple years (making dean's list for four semesters in a row now) and I had some very legitimate extenuating circumstances that got in the way of my academics early on. I go into detail about these experiences in my personal statement, just doesn't seem necessary to completely flesh out in this post.

Research Experience:

2 full years (including 2 full time summers) in a neuroimmunology laboratory. I am completing a senior thesis in the lab currently. I have started training new undergraduates in molecular biological techniques. I am now also in charge of maintaining our mouse colonies. The project I am currently working on it focused on how flaviviruses impact fetal neuron development. I would love to explain more about it but this neither the time nor the place lol.

Publications and Presentations:

Five total publications. 2 are published and 3 are in prep. I joined an active, newer lab and I got super lucky to get to work on so many projects. I cannot understate how grateful I am for the opportunities and responsibilities my lab has given me. I am a second author on one of the papers that are in prep. I also gave a talk at a symposium and presented a poster. 

Additional Experiences:

I conducted peer review for my university's undergraduate research journal for a year. I also gained research experience in a lab before COVID hit, but was only there for a couple months before the project and my position collapsed (due to COVID). I also worked on a summer research project in 2021 that was online and bioinformatics based. 

Letters of Recommendation:

One from my PI (an incredible mentor btw), one from the Director of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center (the RARC is a massively growing addiction research body), and potentially two from other neuroscience professors who I have had the pleasure of collaborating with while working in my current lab. I am still deciding which professor to ask in for the third letter, but one has already offered. The environment I was trained in has allowed me to collaborate with so many people and really helped me grow as a researcher, again I am very grateful for the people I learned from. 

Areas of Interest:

I want to do research in psychiatric disease and how neurobiological development relates to neuropathologies. I am extremely interested in schizophrenia research along with other psychotic disorders. I have grown a massive liking for neuroimmunology as well and how that relates to neuronal development. I have been looking into schools where I may find a great foundation in these areas of research.

Schools of Interest:

UPenn (top choice), Johns Hopkins, WashU, University of Washington, UCSF (who would've guessed that? lol), UC Davis, Rutgers, Ohio State, UPitt, Duke, Boston University

 

I would really appreciate your input on my competitiveness for these types of programs and whether they seem like good fits to my research interests. Most importantly, I would love recommendations about programs I may have missed while searching for schools with my specific interests. Thank you!

 

[frootloops]

Hello! Have people started hearing from UNC BBSP for the priority deadline?

[annabannanna]

1 hour ago, frootloops said:

Hello! Have people started hearing from UNC BBSP for the priority deadline?

I have! Just got a notification for interview.

 

[frootloops]

3 hours ago, annabannanna said:

I have! Just got a notification for interview.

 

Congrats!! That's amazing

[emb7710]

On 12/5/2023 at 6:22 PM, annabannanna said:

I have! Just got a notification for interview.

 

Congrats! Was this for the neuroscience track or a different one? 

[annabannanna]

On 12/7/2023 at 6:08 AM, emb7710 said:

Congrats! Was this for the neuroscience track or a different one? 

this was for the structural bio track

[dammit_bobby97]

Not precisely neurobio oriented but def interested in protein and sub-cellular research that tends to involve neuro processes

Posted my info elsewhere but I am trying to seek feedback/application insight:

Student Type: US resident hailing from PNW

Undergrad :  Transferred to a state university in PNW from a community college in the same region

Major/minor: BS Biology with molecular biosciences focus minor in Chemistry

GPA: 3.82 at community college and 3.50 at state college

Test scores: Did not take GRE

Research: 

• Published two papers with a physician I shadowed during undergrad relating to clinical biases affecting quality of care.
• Did not mention in applications but volunteered part-time work on pharmacology manuscript for a year and a half with another physician that got rejected twice on moral objections by editors (hard to explain succinctly), so, against the desires of the physician and in agreement with the stance of editors, I abstained from re-submission. Physician could still provide good recommendation for me after all; he's a super considerate mentor. 
  • This work tied together my interest in cell biology underlying opioid pharmacology and my personal trauma related to my mother's long-term opioid abuse. Did mention in applications about how my inspiration to study opioid pharmacokinetics stems from my experiences with my mother's addiction but that I learned along the way that I am even more strongly intrigued by fundamental cell biological/protein biochemistry inquiry.
• Worked in molecular genetics lab for six months during undergrad. Did not get published but my efforts laid the groundwork for subsequent publications. 
• Working in protein biochemistry and cellular biology lab for the past three years on the subject of opioid receptors and their endocytic trafficking. Co-author on two papers (second author on STAR Protocols and third author on Nature Chem Bio). Second author on work in preparation relating to my primary focus in lab.

Other Experience: Volunteered in video and audio production for local music festivals. Canvassed for Universal Healthcare in local government. Worked as tutor during and after undergraduate degree program. Participated in a club at state university pertaining to global health issues-- raising funds to address issues or spending time philosophically engaging headlines.

Letters of Recommendation:  My current PI, a collaborating PI who supervised my current protein characterization work, and my undergraduate PI.

Schools I am applying to: Northeastern, UMass Amherst, Tufts, Rutgers New Brunswick, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburgh, Brown University, and (maybe unrealistic dream) University of Pennsylvania. Really uncertain of my aptitude for admission, so I've been feeling unsure if my school choices are reasonable!

Polishing my applications to Brown, Einstein, and Penn, but all others are completed. Moving away from PNW to branch out in my life experiences and access to biomedical research tools/resources by moving to the Northeast. Eager to hear back, but I will simply plan to seek a new research position in the Northeast if I fail to land in a suitable program.

[jojo1234]

Anyone hear from UCSF about pre-interview?

[lemonsandcitrus]

3 minutes ago, jojo1234 said:

Anyone hear from UCSF about pre-interview?

I just got an email from them today !!

[jojo1234]

2 minutes ago, lemonsandcitrus said:

I just got an email from them today !!

Congrats!!  Do you have any idea if it's rolling or all have been sent?

[lemonsandcitrus]

18 minutes ago, jojo1234 said:

Congrats!!  Do you have any idea if it's rolling or all have been sent?

no idea ! i don't know anyone else who applied lol 

[niceplant]

16 hours ago, jojo1234 said:

Congrats!!  Do you have any idea if it's rolling or all have been sent?

I received an interview inv and submitted my app a few hrs before the deadline, so maybe not rolling? 

[starlight07]

Has anyone heard from UT Dallas, UTSW, SUNY Upstate, Emory, Baylor college of medicine?

[frootloops]

23 hours ago, starlight07 said:

Has anyone heard from UT Dallas, UTSW, SUNY Upstate, Emory, Baylor college of medicine?

I heard from Baylor yesterday, but I think someone on reddit heard last week, so it's probably rolling. Interviews are in Feb.

[bgfnatic]

Has anyone been shortlisted by the U of Pittsburgh CNUP here? I received an email yesterday from a faculty member asking to have a phone call to talk more about their program. I am a little confused about whether this means I am selected for an interview on campus and whether this phone call is routine or not. 

[MinkeHumpback]

Hi, has anyone received interview offer from any of the programs below?

1. Brown 
2. Harvard 
3. MIT
4. NYU 
5. Yale 

Thanks! 

[LabMouse321]

Hi, I know people keep asking if anyone's heard back from schools, here is the list of schools I applied to (mainly neuro programs, but some are biomedical science. Also don't judge how many, I went a little crazy haha). I can confirm that I haven't heard back from any yet (good or bad), if that is any comfort to those in the same boat as me🫠 

University of Washington, Uchicago, University of Rochester, UPenn, University of Pittsburgh, Northwestern, University of Illinois, Vanderbilt, MIT, University of Cincinnati, Medical University of South Carolina, Penn State, Boston U

 

 

[neutralnutwerk]

Has anyone heard from Princeton or Harvard?

[datdude]

On 12/11/2023 at 1:15 PM, jojo1234 said:

Anyone hear from UCSF about pre-interview?

got a rejection from them today :(

[asparo]

Received interview invites frm WUSTL DBBS program and UChicago CNS program.