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Applying for Neuroscience/Neurobiology Ph.D. programs for Fall 2015


NWFreeheel11

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Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone heard from Boston U GPN program yet? I saw couple of people have already asked the same question, did you hear from Boston U meanwhile? I am kind of thinking they probably rejected me since I didn't get anything from them, and deadline was 15th Dec. Thanks for your help folks, good luck!

 

I haven't heard anything and haven't heard of anyone hearing from them..

 

Based the results page, they don't typically get back to applicants until the end of January - the interview weekend isn't til March after all. 

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Has anyone been asked to provide a picture for internal reference for faculty? If so, what type of pictures are people sending in and what is the attire that people are wearing for the picture (especially attire for girls)? Does it need to be a suit of is semi-professional alright?

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I haven't heard anything and haven't heard of anyone hearing from them..

 

Based the results page, they don't typically get back to applicants until the end of January - the interview weekend isn't til March after all. 

Thank you!  I got worried since I heard from most of the other schools, and I don't know anyone else who applied there. You are right there is still time since the interview weekend is not any time soon

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Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone heard from Boston U GPN program yet? I saw couple of people have already asked the same question, did you hear from Boston U meanwhile? I am kind of thinking they probably rejected me since I didn't get anything from them, and deadline was 15th Dec. Thanks for your help folks, good luck!

I am waiting for BU GPN program as well. I also applied to the Neurobiology program at BU and got an invitation from there.

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Has anyone been asked to provide a picture for internal reference for faculty? If so, what type of pictures are people sending in and what is the attire that people are wearing for the picture (especially attire for girls)? Does it need to be a suit of is semi-professional alright?

I got asked to do this and I'm just sending in a picture of me wearing a UCLA t-shirt. I don't think it matters they said they just want it so that the faculty members can identify you

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Yeah seriously, what's going on there? I haven't heard anything from them or seen anything on the results search.

 

 

I talked to the admissions director for the Behavioral and Social Neuroscience program at Caltech. He said, "BSN does not have interviews, but direct admission offers. Decision letters are mailed sometime in March." 

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Hi all! My first interview session starts tomorrow.. I am a bit of a train wreck! Anyone who has a recent interview, do you have any last minute advice? Or did anything unexpected happened to you in your last interview?? :)

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Hi all! My first interview session starts tomorrow.. I am a bit of a train wreck! Anyone who has a recent interview, do you have any last minute advice? Or did anything unexpected happened to you in your last interview?? :)

Where is the interview? Just curious since I'm going to Harvard tomorrow and wondering if I will see you. I had an interview last week at UVa for their neuroscience program. There were five one-on-one interviews with faculty members of the neuroscience program and then a seven person panel interview. The faculty interviews were more conversations than interviews. I got to ask them what their lab is like, whether or not they are taking on grad students, and other general program questions. The panel interview was a little more stressful. The questions that I was asked throughout the interview were pretty much one of the following:

1. Why our program?

2. Why do you want to pursue a PhD and specifically a neuroscience PhD?

3. Describe your research experiences.

4. There were a few tricky questions that I received during my panel interview regarding my research along the lines of have you considered how the following change would influence your results. These questions are tough to prepare for but as long as you understand your research you should be able to provide a decent response.

 

Overall, the interview weekend was really fun. Mostly just socializing with current grad students and PIs. It really was a friendly atmosphere. In addition, I got the impression that the interview was a bit of a formality (which may or may not be true at the place that you are interviewing with) and that I had already been accepted based on my personal statement and prior research. I interviewed with UVa on Friday and received an offer on Sunday. 

 

Good luck!

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Where is the interview? Just curious since I'm going to Harvard tomorrow and wondering if I will see you. I had an interview last week at UVa for their neuroscience program. There were five one-on-one interviews with faculty members of the neuroscience program and then a seven person panel interview. The faculty interviews were more conversations than interviews. I got to ask them what their lab is like, whether or not they are taking on grad students, and other general program questions. The panel interview was a little more stressful. The questions that I was asked throughout the interview were pretty much one of the following:

1. Why our program?

2. Why do you want to pursue a PhD and specifically a neuroscience PhD?

3. Describe your research experiences.

4. There were a few tricky questions that I received during my panel interview regarding my research along the lines of have you considered how the following change would influence your results. These questions are tough to prepare for but as long as you understand your research you should be able to provide a decent response.

 

Overall, the interview weekend was really fun. Mostly just socializing with current grad students and PIs. It really was a friendly atmosphere. In addition, I got the impression that the interview was a bit of a formality (which may or may not be true at the place that you are interviewing with) and that I had already been accepted based on my personal statement and prior research. I interviewed with UVa on Friday and received an offer on Sunday. 

 

Good luck!

Geez that's great, congratulations on your acceptance! I'm headed to Univ of Michigan tomorrow, not Harvard, so unfortunately it seems like we won't be crossing paths... Thanks for the summary of how it went for you! I am expecting all of these questions but for some reason I am still super nervous...

Hope that once I go through the first interview the rest will go better or more smoothly!

PD: If anyone is interviewing for Univ of Michigan PiBS this weekend feel free to PM me.

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In addition, I got the impression that the interview was a bit of a formality (which may or may not be true at the place that you are interviewing with) and that I had already been accepted based on my personal statement and prior research.

It's a mixed bag, some universities intend to accept everyone that they interview, some plan to reject some number of them. I think the worst I've heard of was wanting to only accept half. Regardless, once you get an interview you're in pretty solid shape.
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Where is the interview? Just curious since I'm going to Harvard tomorrow and wondering if I will see you. I had an interview last week at UVa for their neuroscience program. There were five one-on-one interviews with faculty members of the neuroscience program and then a seven person panel interview. The faculty interviews were more conversations than interviews. I got to ask them what their lab is like, whether or not they are taking on grad students, and other general program questions. The panel interview was a little more stressful. The questions that I was asked throughout the interview were pretty much one of the following:

1. Why our program?

2. Why do you want to pursue a PhD and specifically a neuroscience PhD?

3. Describe your research experiences.

4. There were a few tricky questions that I received during my panel interview regarding my research along the lines of have you considered how the following change would influence your results. These questions are tough to prepare for but as long as you understand your research you should be able to provide a decent response.

 

Overall, the interview weekend was really fun. Mostly just socializing with current grad students and PIs. It really was a friendly atmosphere. In addition, I got the impression that the interview was a bit of a formality (which may or may not be true at the place that you are interviewing with) and that I had already been accepted based on my personal statement and prior research. I interviewed with UVa on Friday and received an offer on Sunday. 

 

Good luck!

I wonder if this panel thing is common in interviews? Can anyone else comment on this?

I would guess -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- that physically being able to schedule a "panel interview" for everybody would require there to be very few interviewees.

 

I've already gotten the feeling that some schools intend to accept (almost) everyone they interview, so I can see where you're coming from. An adcom chair called me to chat about a program and said that they were interviewing 20 people to anticipate a class of 10. Provided that most schools offer admission to twice as many people as they actually want, and the fact that this program -- although a great match for my interests -- is not as "highly ranked" as the similar programs that students apply to, I feel like they might be planning on accepting just about everybody to meet their entering class size goal of 10 students.

 

Is anyone on here going to the Vanderbilt NGP interview a week from now?

Edited by pasteltomato
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For anyone wondering, BU committee meets on Monday and send intivtes on tuesday.

 

Good to know! I wonder if this both Comp Neuro and the normal Neuro (I noticed on the results page these two strands of the GPN program tend to do things slightly differently)

Edited by Gvh
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