Frequently asked questions for graduate applicants

At this time of the year, we receive a lot of email inquiries about PhD applications. Here’s some answers to common questions.

Q. Please find attached my application to study for a PhD with you.
A. Just to be clear, you can’t directly apply for a PhD by emailing me. Admission to our Ph.D. programs is to the program, not the lab, and is by a formal, centralized application process to the department. You can find up-to-date information about procedures and deadlines on the departmental web sites. While I accordingly don’t review application materials received by email, if you apply through the formal process and list my name as a potential advisor, I will see them at the appropriate time. Good luck!

Q. Are you accepting graduate students in the 2024-25 application cycle?
A. Yes; I will consider new Ph.D. students this year.

However while I know everyone tells you to email and ask this, in my view this isn’t really the right question. That’s because admissions to the PNI are to the program, not the lab. Students only join a lab after a cycle of several rotations. Thus, once you get here (if you are admitted), you can find the best match or matches.

Moreover, almost all of my students are jointly advised. The best thing about Princeton, in my opinion, is that it is an immensely collaborative place. We have a large set of labs working on related topics, and we often collaborate in many different projects that span larger groups, beyond the formal advisor-student pairs.

So depending which interests you share with me, you probably also share them with many of Cohen, Niv, Griffiths, Norman, Pillow, Witten, Brody, Buschman, Tank, Taylor, Crockett, Tamir, and Graziano — and these are just the faculty with whom I currently or recently have co-advised trainees. (I’m always open to new collaborations too!) Thus, whichever of us is taking on advisees in a particular cycle, we often all end up working together in some fashion or another. In short — even in cycles when my own lab is full — if you’d be interested to work with me, you’d likely also be a good fit to the broader program and I encourage you to apply.

Q. Can we schedule a zoom meeting to discuss my application? Can you look over my CV and materials and predict my chances or suggest readings or preparation work?
A. Sorry, no. Our program has lots of PhD applications (and even more pre-application inquiries) and it wouldn’t be feasible or fair to have individual meetings or consultations at this stage. Our admissions process includes a standardized review of applications followed by a formal visit weekend in the spring for shortlisted candidates, which is where we have these types of conversations.

But please do say hi if we cross paths at a conference or colloquium or something!

Q. Am I a good fit for your lab? What kind of background are you looking for in students?
A. What distinguishes our lab is that pretty much everyone in it is engaged in theory and computational modeling at least as one aspect of their research, and has strong quantitative interest and previous quantitative training and skills.

If this is not already your inclination, our lab is probably not the right place for you.

Thus students usually arrive with formal training in some technical field (computer science, economics, etc.), and at minimum have had experience and coursework in this direction. It would be unusual for us to take on a Ph.D. student without such a background. Occasionally, we have worked with trainees who bring exceptional expertise in some complementary area and are highly motivated to extend their training and collaborate on learning to bring computational methods to bear on their area.

Q. Are there openings for international students?
In general, our PhD programs are extremely competitive. We accept students from all over, but due to restrictions on some of our department’s funding sources for students, admissions tend to be even more competitive for students who are not citizens are permanent residents of the US.

Q. Which department should I apply to?
A. I am a member of both the psychology department and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and these have separate graduate programs. Most students interested in working with me would be appropriate for both. Obviously, PNI includes more biological emphasis (e.g. in its coursework), which may or may not be to your taste, but the two programs largely overlap with respect to the main topics of my lab, e.g. human cognitive neuroscience and computation/theory.

One main difference is how admissions work: some of what I said above (rotations, etc.) is true of PNI but not psychology. Admission to psychology is also to the broader department, but to be admitted via psychology, you do need an advisor, in effect, to sponsor you from the point of admission. There are thus not the same benefits of finding the best matches via rotations. For this reason, I tend more often to accept students via PNI, and am more conservative about accepting students via psychology.