All About PhD Applications | lucy lai

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Welcome! You may have ended up here because you came across my popular article, which has been viewed over 30k times (as of December 2023). Thank you to all who reached out to me over the years telling me how helpful of a resource it was to you / how it helped you get into grad school, and it’s been super fun meeting some of you in person at conferences, too! 🙂 Since it has been 4 years since I wrote the article, I am doing a “refresh” in this second edition (written July 2022) with the following improvements and content additions: Now with all that said, let’s get to it! Hello friends! I’ve been meaning to write this post ever since I completed the entire grad school application cycle, and I’ve finally gotten around to it (in time for the beginning of the next cycle, yay!) 🙂 My earnest hope is for this post to shed some light on the application process, especially since it seems a little black box-y when just getting started. It can be hard to know where to even begin…how to decide

All About PhD Applications | lucy lai 赖璐西 All About PhD Applications Written: Jun 2018, Last updated: Dec 2025 Welcome! This popular guide on how to apply to PhD programs in STEM has been visited over 100k times (as of December 2024). All of the insider information in this guide is taken from my 2 years of experience interviewing applicants for Harvard’s PhD Program in Neuroscience and >7 years of conducting mock interviews. I’ve chosen to charge for this guide for now in order to support all the efforts I have put into creating free PhD application guide material (with more coming soon!). Tha

All About PhD Applications | lucy lai

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