thallters

Thanks again for so much good info. My plan at the moment is as follows: Reread Cohen, West and Aiken MRC for the behavioral sciences, familiarize myself with R and brush up on SAS. I'll be doing all of this while also prepping for GRE (will obviously need to crush the quant section) and participating in research with a professor in hopes of presenting a poster in summer '15. One last question, assuming I apply to several quant programs, would you recommend applying to some other areas of interest (ie clinical, social, dev) as backup?

Really great info, spunky, I appreciate it. Seeing as how stat is what really propelled my interest in research, I think I just may love it enough. My lack of programming experience stresses me out though. I suppose I should start learning R. Is it feasible to become fairly proficient with this language in about a years time? Any recommendations for learning resources?

Spunky, Thanks for the reply. Part of what is intimidating is the programming. I have some experience with SAS from that graduate Regression course, but knowledge of it is intermediate at best. I am interested in psychometrics, but I guess I lack confidence in my ability to contribute new knowledge and methods to the field. Also, I only reached calculus in my undergrad. Do you think w/ my limited programming and math experience I would have the chance to make it at that level?

I'm somewhat torn as far as what I should be pursuing for my grad work. I'm in the process of strengthening my overall application profile for the 2016 season. Right now, I'm struggling between Quant and Clinical. While I find Quant fascinating, I am slightly intimidated by the field. I did take a graduate level regression course as an undergrad (with Leona Aiken) and did well. The issue is that I've never considered myself a "math guy". I've always done well in math and stat courses, but I always have identifies myself as more of a verbal-oriented person. For clinical, my interests are in the domains of addictions and health. I'm about to start work with an addictions researcher in hopes of contributing to a conference presentation. All in all, I'm just looking for some insight from current quant phd students. Any advice would be great!