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.