2004 West coast interviews

• Three interviews in a week and a half is too much. By the second day at Caltech, I was well and truly crispy.
• People from the Harvard interview (in late February) recognized each other at other schools, particularly UCSF and UCSD. There's definitely an interview 'circuit'. The Harvard interviewees tended to like each other and cluster together at downstream schools. One of us is starting an email list so we can have some idea of what everyone thought, and where we all end up. It almost feels like we're a graduating class in high school, or something -- an unexpected cohort. And, many of us will be colleagues for the next four or five decades.
• Harvard, because it was so good, and because it was the first school I interviewed at, formed the baseline to which I compared the other schools. There definitely seems to be a first-mover advantage when it comes to getting recruits, and perhaps this is born out in the numbers I heard: whereas about a quarter to a third of students offered admission to UCSF or UCSD neuroscience actually go, about half of those offered admission to Harvard go.
• It's a high-powered bunch interviewing and going to these schools. Some qwik-n-easy anecdotes: one guy I met built his own 2-photon microscope as an undergrad. Another participated in a biotech startup. One student I met apparently ran across the border from Mexico at the age of 14, speaking no English, and is now an M.D./Ph.D. student. Even the laid-back people seem to work pretty hard: my student host at UCSD told me about how he surfs at 7 or 8 AM every Sunday, and it works out well, because he gets back early enough to get some good lab time in.
• Despite the fact that 20,000 people go to the Neuroscience meeting every year, it's a small, highly interconnected field. It seems prudent to stay friendly with everyone as much as possible.
• Gut level impressions are informed by a bunch of random events. Are they valid, or not? Well, they're all you have to go on. For example, students at UCSF did not seem terribly happy, in general, compared to students at UCSD or Harvard. This is important, but is it real? Who knows. But it will inform my decision, for sure.
• At the ripe old age of 29, I was the oldest interviewee everywhere I went.
• I got really high scores on the GRE, and I think they set me apart from the pack. I don't have any publications, and I have an unusual background comparted to a lot of my fellow applicants. I probably have very good recommendations, so maybe it's not all about the GREs -- but they sure didn't hurt.
• It's fun to get a lot of one-on-one time with some very high-powered scientists.
• Caltech is cool because you bounce off a lot of original and good biology that is not neuroscience. I imagine if I went there, this would keep my mind limber, and help me make connections between fields. They also take good care of their students: plenty of housing, $2000/year 'supplies' budget (e.g. you can buy a laptop if you want, or books, or travel to a conference), and a beautiful campus. Unfortunately Caltech is in the middle of what I consider to be a wasteland (the Greater LA basin), and my impressions of both Pasadena and the clubs we went to outside of LA did nothing to improve my opinion. The students also seemed a little overly eager to get the hell off campus -- socially claustrophobic, or something. Again, general impressions -- but that's all I have to work with. I'm glad I applied there, though, it's a very cool place science-wise. I spoke with five people, and three are Hughes investigators, the fourth is a member of the national academy of sciences, and the fifth was Seymour Benzer (a class unto himself). (update: David Anderson responded to this comment here.)
• I love Vermont, it feels like home to me. It was good to get back. It was weird to leave with probably a good foot and a half of snow on the ground, and frigid temperatures, and to come back, and have the sap already running and roads turning into molasses culverts. It's a good place, and I hope it stays that way to some extent.

Headin' on out.

UCSD: Feb 22 - 26
Nick Spitzer
Marla Feller
Bruce Hamilton
Jeffry Isaacson

Caltech: Feb 26 - 29
Scott Fraser
Gilles Laurent
David Anderson
Erin Schuman
Seymour Benzer