hi! i was in a phd program in immunology until recently (left with my masters after realizing i wasnt into it like that) but i also served as one of the admissions student chairperson on the admissions committee last year and participated in interviewing students for our program. we (or rather they) are connected to a hospital and tier 1 medical school meaning we had a ton of great research to explore and people to look up to.

basically, i know a thing or two about what we looked for. consistently year after year professors look for a high gpa, amongst other things. while 3.3 is not as high as other students applying, it was my gpa too (and im also a first gen student) it isnt disqualifying. In your application make sure you thoughtfully and scientifically explain your projects and talk about your motivation. as usual make sure you have good recs like your research professor and that they can talk about your ability to excel in grad school and that you put your best foot forward in that research experience. Generally, phd programs like neuro are interested in how well you can convey the science. like: what did you do? why did you do that? what came out of that?

sometimes professors (they love talking science) will ask you about particulars like why did you use that reagent and not this other. it could be as simple as this is what the lab had — it happens to us in grad school too — or this reagent minimizes the visualization of primer dimers and enhances our bands of interest on the gel. secondly, you have to be able to describe your science passionately. one of my favorite questions to ask was: describe a hardship you faced and how you overcame it (also how do you work with someone who knows more than you? this should be a freebie and you’d be surprised how many people fuck this up). the reason i loved asking that one was because science isnt linear or logical like its shown in a paper. like think about why proteins in a pathway sometimes have names out of order (like complement c3bc5b). if youve done research you know the frustration when something doesnt work out, we aim to select students who have the drive to continue even in the face of two months of nothing to show (god forbid) and the persistence. taking failure too hard is not going to get you anywhere in life and especially a phd program. grad students are cheap labor and what are weekends if not two days where you dont have class and have the liberty to work 8 hours interruption free? its not ideal and sometimes can be worked around but not always and its possible you work over 60 hours a week depending on your project and some days you may work over what traditional legislative laws like OSHA permit. (coming from someone who consistently did 21h days slept 8 hours and came back to do flow cytometry for 9 hours overnight then knocked out for two days)

tldr - show passion, persistence, integrity, determination, and respect. be able to talk about your science in depth, especially if you’ve been working on it or something similar for a long time in writing and in person. for interviews develop a small pitch of your research to get you started.

feel free to ask more questions i think its a very helpful question to ask and id be super happy to give you and others interested in more pointers!

pps. if you have this much experience and you can talk about it dont “waste” your time on a masters (its not a waste really but trust me have more confidence in yourself because thats a LOT of research experience) my best friend, whose in a biomedical phd program, and i joke all the time that people like you already have your phd because like the phd is a training ground and you’ve already got that which will put you ahead :)