Is my application good enough for top-10 Ph.D programs in neuroscience?

juillet
Sat, 08 Sep 2018 00:28:19 +0000

Are you interested in computational neuroscience?

I agree that the most significant gap here is your lack of research experience in neuroscience. Generally, competitive neuroscience PhD applicants have at least 2 years of experience assisting a professor in their lab, or doing neuroscience research in some other capacity (industry, national lab, etc.) You need at least one and preferably two recommendations from professors or PhD-holders who have supervised you in research, as only they can assess your potential to succeed in neuroscientific research at the PhD level. (The other 1-2 should be from professors who had you in class, preferably multiple courses, and in whose courses you earned a high grade.)

You do say that you were elected to membership in Sigma Xi, so if you have research experience, what did that look like?

Your high school achievements (National Merit, Coca-Cola Gold) don’t matter here; also, your non-neuroscience ECs (Princeton business plan competition) won’t matter for your neuroscience application.

Another question is whether your certificate in neuroscience gives you enough coursework to be admissible to a neuroscience program.