Frequently Asked Questions About Applying to Grad School
The answers to these questions reflect my attempt to provide helpful advice, and represent my personal opinions. Other faculty might have a different take on some of these issues.
Will I have to pay to go to grad school?
No. Grad students are fully funded for the duration of their PhD. This means that you do not pay tuition, and that you are paid a stipend and get health insurance. Funding comes from a variety of sources but is not the student's responsibility. Students are encouraged to apply for fellowships that help fund their PhD, but need not have done this prior to applying, and you do not have to have a fellowship to be in the program. Funding is also not tied to teaching. In BCS, all students serve as teaching assistants for a couple semesters, independent of how they are funded.
What goes into graduate admissions decisions?
Faculty assess whether an applicant is likely to be successful in the program, and whether the applicant's interests and skills align with their research program or with those of other faculty in the program. We try make sure that admitted students have enough experience to be confident in their committment to pursuing a PhD in the field. Usually at least one faculty member has to be willing to commit to supervising a student in order for them to be admitted.
Am I admitted to work with a particular faculty member?
No. Students are typically not admitted unless there is a good match with at least one faculty member, and sometimes it is pretty clear who a student will end up working with. However, admitted students do not settle on a lab until the end of their first year, after they have completed rotation projects. In BCS, all students must complete three rotations before choosing a lab. The rotations serve to make sure there is a good fit with a faculty advisor. They also have the side benefit of helping students get to know faculty other than their eventual advisor.
How should you approach your personal statement?
The research statement for grad school applications is very different from a college admissions essay. Your audience is faculty who are experts in your field. Your research statement is a chance to convey what you are interested in, and to demonstrate that you are knowledgeable, intellectually mature, and ready for grad school (which means you have some in-depth understanding of research).
My personal opinion is that the best approach to writing your research statement is to approach it like a mini project proposal:
1) Describe an interesting problem that you can see yourself working on. 2) Explain why it is interesting and important and open, and how it relates to what is known. 3) Describe how you would make progress on the problem, noting the potential pitfalls and possible outcomes and what you would learn from them. This is not easy, and perhaps for this reason it is in practice not all that common for applicants to write this type of statement, but if you can pull it off I think it is the best approach. The advantage to this approach is that it demonstrates that you have thought deeply about some topic in our field, while at the same time providing a sense of your interests and taste. No one will hold you to whatever you say you might want to work on, and it is fine if you are also interested in other things, but it is nonetheless useful to provide an example of something in the style of what you can see yourself working on.
It is also fine to include details of your personal background, especially if you have dealt with challenging circumstances that may have impeded your academic career. But it is in your best interest to talk substantively about science. Talking in detail about specific scientific questions or issues you might want to work on is usually more useful than explaining a personal experience that got you interested in the field.
It is a good idea to mention the faculty that you are most interested in working with, as faculty often search for their name and may only look at applications that mention them by name.
Who should you ask for letters of reference?
The most useful references are from people who know you well and who can speak to your potential for grad school. A researcher you have worked with who is active in the field is usually a good choice. Course instructors or academic advisors may also be able to provide useful references provided they know you.
What happens during grad school interviews?
Once the application deadline passes, faculty read through the applications and select a subset of applicants for interviews. The interview event is partly for recruitment and partly for evaluation - both of the programs I am part of make admissions decisions after the interviews. So it is a chance both for you to assess whether the program is a good fit for you, and for you to impress faculty who are making admissions decisions. The interviews themselves consist of a set of short (~25 minute) meetings with faculty. Applicants are typically asked to list faculty they would like to talk to - you should prioritize the faculty that you are interested in working with for your PhD, as they are the most important ones for you to talk to, along with faculty in related areas. There are also more informal meetings with current students that give you the opportunity to ask about what the program is like from their perspective.
How should you prepare for grad school interviews?
Come to the interviews prepared to talk about your past research experiences, and what you would like to work on in grad school. And come prepared to ask potential faculty advisors about their future plans and how you might fit into them. It is usually helpful to be familiar with the recent work of the faculty that you see as potential PhD advisors (e.g. by reading some of their papers). When I talk to applicants I am trying to get a sense of whether they are ready for grad school, and whether their research interests align with mine or with those of other faculty in the program.
How can you get research experience in advance of grad school?
Try to find labs at your undergraduate institution that do interesting research. If your undergraduate institution does not have many research opportunities, consider applying to a summer program at another institution. MIT has an excellent summer research program (MSRP) that I highly recommend. Our lab regularly hosts students in the program, all of whom have gone on to top graduate programs.
Our department also has a fantastic post-baccalaureate program intended to provide students with research experience to help them be competitive for top graduate programs.
How can you get help with your graduate application?
The BCS Application Assistance Program (AAP) is a volunteer-based, student-run initiative which aims to assist applicants from underrepresented groups in STEM. Participants in the AAP will be paired with current BCS grad students, who will provide feedback on application materials and answer questions about the BCS program. More information about the BCS AAP can be found on the BCS admissions web site. For additional resources about the AAP see this document.
What do I look for in students?
I typically look to recruit students with strong quantitative training that have some prior research experience in neuroscience or cognitive science. If you are majoring in neuroscience, psychology, or cognitive science, I recommend supplementing what you will take for your major with a few additional quantitative courses. Linear algebra, multivariable calculus, signal processing, computer programming, and probability are a good place to start. The skills you will learn in these courses will be useful no matter what you do and will greatly expand the set of problems you can tackle in grad school.
If you have a background in some other quantitative field, you will in all likelihood need to get some research experience in neuroscience or cognitive science in order to put together a competitive grad school application. Participating in research will help you determine whether it is in fact what you want to do with your life; research experience will also help you refine your scientific interests. If you have finished college, a full-time RA position in a topically appropriate lab can be a good stepping stone to grad school. Many labs offer paid positions of this sort. If you are looking for such a position, I recommend reaching out to labs you are excited about to see if they have openings.
The answers to these questions reflect my attempt to provide helpful advice, and represent my personal opinions. Other faculty might have a different take on some of these issues.
Will I have to pay to go to grad school?
No. Grad students are fully funded for the duration of their PhD. This means that you do not pay tuition, and that you are paid a stipend and get health insurance. Funding comes from a variety of sources but is not the student's responsibility. Students are encouraged to apply for fellowships that help fund their PhD, but need not have done this prior to applying, and you do not have to have a fellowship to be in the program. Funding is also not tied to teaching. In BCS, all students serve as teaching assistants for a couple semesters, independent of how they are funded.
What goes into graduate admissions decisions?
Faculty assess whether an applicant is likely to be successful in the program, and whether the applicant's interests and skills align with their research program or with those of other faculty in the program. We try make sure that admitted students have enough experience to be confident in their committment to pursuing a PhD in the field. Usually at least one faculty member has to be willing to commit to supervising a student in order for them to be admitted.
Am I admitted to work with a particular faculty member?
No. Students are typically not admitted unless there is a good match with at least one faculty member, and sometimes it is pretty clear who a student will end up working with. However, admitted students do not settle on a lab until the end of their first year, after they have completed rotation projects. In BCS, all students must complete three rotations before choosing a lab. The rotations serve to make sure there is a good fit with a faculty advisor. They also have the side benefit of helping students get to know faculty other than their eventual advisor.
How should you approach your personal statement?
The research statement for grad school applications is very different from a college admissions essay. Your audience is faculty who are experts in your field. Your research statement is a chance to convey what you are interested in, and to demonstrate that you are knowledgeable, intellectually mature, and ready for grad school (which means you have some in-depth understanding of research).
My personal opinion is that the best approach to writing your research statement is to approach it like a mini project proposal:
1) Describe an interesting problem that you can see yourself working on. 2) Explain why it is interesting and important and open, and how it relates to what is known. 3) Describe how you would make progress on the problem, noting the potential pitfalls and possible outcomes and what you would learn from them. This is not easy, and perhaps for this reason it is in practice not all that common for applicants to write this type of statement, but if you can pull it off I think it is the best approach. The advantage to this approach is that it demonstrates that you have thought deeply about some topic in our field, while at the same time providing a sense of your interests and taste. No one will hold you to whatever you say you might want to work on, and it is fine if you are also interested in other things, but it is nonetheless useful to provide an example of something in the style of what you can see yourself working on.
It is also fine to include details of your personal background, especially if you have dealt with challenging circumstances that may have impeded your academic career. But it is in your best interest to talk substantively about science. Talking in detail about specific scientific questions or issues you might want to work on is usually more useful than explaining a personal experience that got you interested in the field.
It is a good idea to mention the faculty that you are most interested in working with, as faculty often search for their name and may only look at applications that mention them by name.
Who should you ask for letters of reference?
The most useful references are from people who know you well and who can speak to your potential for grad school. A researcher you have worked with who is active in the field is usually a good choice. Course instructors or academic advisors may also be able to provide useful references provided they know you.
What happens during grad school interviews?
Once the application deadline passes, faculty read through the applications and select a subset of applicants for interviews. The interview event is partly for recruitment and partly for evaluation - both of the programs I am part of make admissions decisions after the interviews. So it is a chance both for you to assess whether the program is a good fit for you, and for you to impress faculty who are making admissions decisions. The interviews themselves consist of a set of short (~25 minute) meetings with faculty. Applicants are typically asked to list faculty they would like to talk to - you should prioritize the faculty that you are interested in working with for your PhD, as they are the most important ones for you to talk to, along with faculty in related areas. There are also more informal meetings with current students that give you the opportunity to ask about what the program is like from their perspective.
How should you prepare for grad school interviews?
Come to the interviews prepared to talk about your past research experiences, and what you would like to work on in grad school. And come prepared to ask potential faculty advisors about their future plans and how you might fit into them. It is usually helpful to be familiar with the recent work of the faculty that you see as potential PhD advisors (e.g. by reading some of their papers). When I talk to applicants I am trying to get a sense of whether they are ready for grad school, and whether their research interests align with mine or with those of other faculty in the program.
How can you get research experience in advance of grad school?
Try to find labs at your undergraduate institution that do interesting research. If your undergraduate institution does not have many research opportunities, consider applying to a summer program at another institution. MIT has an excellent summer research program (MSRP) that I highly recommend. Our lab regularly hosts students in the program, all of whom have gone on to top graduate programs.
Our department also has a fantastic post-baccalaureate program intended to provide students with research experience to help them be competitive for top graduate programs.
How can you get help with your graduate application?
The BCS Application Assistance Program (AAP) is a volunteer-based, student-run initiative which aims to assist applicants from underrepresented groups in STEM. Participants in the AAP will be paired with current BCS grad students, who will provide feedback on application materials and answer questions about the BCS program. More information about the BCS AAP can be found on the BCS admissions web site. For additional resources about the AAP see this document.
What do I look for in students?
I typically look to recruit students with strong quantitative training that have some prior research experience in neuroscience or cognitive science. If you are majoring in neuroscience, psychology, or cognitive science, I recommend supplementing what you will take for your major with a few additional quantitative courses. Linear algebra, multivariable calculus, signal processing, computer programming, and probability are a good place to start. The skills you will learn in these courses will be useful no matter what you do and will greatly expand the set of problems you can tackle in grad school.
If you have a background in some other quantitative field, you will in all likelihood need to get some research experience in neuroscience or cognitive science in order to put together a competitive grad school application. Participating in research will help you determine whether it is in fact what you want to do with your life; research experience will also help you refine your scientific interests. If you have finished college, a full-time RA position in a topically appropriate lab can be a good stepping stone to grad school. Many labs offer paid positions of this sort. If you are looking for such a position, I recommend reaching out to labs you are excited about to see if they have openings.
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