Neuroscience PhD Programs

Graduate School
1

Hi!

I recently graduated from a Top 25 undergrad school with a BA in Neuroscience(a BS wasn’t available at my school when I started it) and am looking to go for a PhD now.
The GRE is no problem but my big issue is that my undergrad GPA is pretty abysmal, something like a 2.9 or so. I did well in the classes that were related to my major and got all B/B+/A in them, but my non-major related courses(history, business etc) weigh me down because I just didn’t care about them, for example D’s in accounting and business which I took as electives(yes, I regret that now).
How big of an issue will this be if I’m looking to get into a competitive neuro program?

Also, I’m a member of mensa, is that something worthwhile to put on an application? I feel like that should prove that I wasn’t tanking the other classes because I’m stupid but rather because I was not interested and otherwise occupied… At the same time I feel like it might tell potential admissions people that I’m ‘lazy’.

I love neuroscience and spend more time reading articles/dissertations etc about it than I did working on my actual classes in college, and while this has given me a pretty nice edge in terms of knowledge, I fear I may not even get my foot in the door because of my grades.

Anyone have any advice? What should I focus on, or how should I try to angle it to show my best sides and try to reduce the weight of my UG GPA? Anyone been in a similar situation or know how much they value different things?

Any help/info would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

2

Don’t put your membership in Mensa. At best it’s irrelevant and at worst it makes you look pretentious. It certainly doesn’t prove anything about the reasons for your performance in non-major courses.

While your neuroscience grades are most important, graduate programs don’t like to see you tank your unrelated classes just because you aren’t interested in them. Graduate school (and academia) is sometimes an exercise in hoop-jumping - you often have to do things you aren’t interested in or don’t want to do in order to get to the things you do want, and grad professors do like to see students who can play the game. Plus, you’ll be competing with students who have top grades in neuroscience classes AND who have decent grades in their GE courses. How big an issue it will be really depends on

  1. How outstanding you are a student - if you have excellent research experience, a well-defined area of interest, some presentations, maybe even a publication, and those Ds occurred in freshman year or something, your potential PIs may be willing to overlook them in order to get a top-notch researcher in their lab.

  2. How much the PIs care. Some PIs may completely overlook early grades and/or non-major grades and others might care more. It really depends.

My advice would be to apply to a few really good fit neuroscience PhD programs (“dream” schools, maybe 4-5) and then also apply to a few MS programs. If you get into a PhD program, great! If not, you can spend two years in an MS program proving that you can handle the work and then apply to a PhD program after that.