firstsight

Trufax: my Pandora thought it was totally acceptable to start playing "My Heart Will Go On" when I clicked over onto this topic. It's a shut-out year for me. I LOST it when I heard back from my last school... (I gave in and emailed all of the graduate coordinators for the different programs I had applied to, 'cause I literally couldn't handle it.) I totally get what you mean about that moment when you go, "Oh, so THIS is why people say they can't go through it twice." I'm teetering hardcore on not reapplying next year... I mean, little over six months until NEXT application season. -.- At least Pandora has now moved into What a Girl Wants. Much more acceptable. xD (And I still have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. I hope you guys have better luck than I did!!)

Oh man, data blitz. If it's anything like the IGNITE session I went to at FABA... though I'll admit I think as a whole, behavior analysts tend to be a little wackier than the rest of the psychology crowd. One IGNITE was done entirely in limerick; another entirely sung. And they were both informative, which was the REAL ridiculous part.

UCSD here... well, implicit rejection, since I wasn't invited out to interview! Area: Social. Rationalization: It's not like I really WANTED to live in California... and that probably showed in my SOP. Word: Mrrrpghgrrrgphf. (PS: totes dig the Kushiel reference/username. Loved that series.)

None of mine are outright CJ or Crim programs, but one advisor I applied to studies deviance fairly heavily. Good luck to everyone!

+1 on SOP... you could literally see an evolution of my SOPs, from my early deadline apps (where I felt the need to justify why I should even be considered), through my later-deadline apps (where things were balanced more or less evenly) to my single last remaining application which will be put in the mail tomorrow, where the SOP is basically a focused proposal of research with justifications woven in. I also ran into the issue of little to no relevant research being offered at my current location. Luckily, we're moving out of this area once my degree is finished (so over the summer), and even if I receive a season of rejections, we'll be moving to an area where I should hopefully be able to volunteer at a lab to get more applicable research experience. I toyed with the idea of going back to school for a second degree in biology (or specifically EEB - some of my research interests are informed by an evolutionary perspective), or focus on picking up a programming language. I also want to expand my stats knowledge. My sister in law is a tenured professor of biostatistics at an Ivy, so if a move heads anywhere towards my brother's physical direction, I may shamelessly trade upon that connection to volunteer with a stats group over the next year. We'll see, I suppose. I may just do the classic dignity-injured cat move and walk away from it all. XD

Tons of sympathy on this. I made the mistake of telling my mom that I had applied to a school close to where she lives (we haven't lived in the same area for quite some time), and now it's like -- "Heard anything about it, yet? Have they accepted you yet? You should come out here and we'll go for a visit! I can't wait for when they accept you!" Notably, it's also one of the reachiest schools I have and possibly the one I want to go to the MOST. >.<

I like pepperoni, bacon and pineapple, either on thin crust or DEEP DISH, like serious deep dish, with tons of cheese. And garlic sauce to dip the crust in.

Yeah, access to information and that whole instant gratification thing makes this whole process /worse/ rather than better, I think. I've managed to wean my checking of the application status pages to maybe once a day... hearing back an informal rejection (interview invites apparently went out for one of my more reach-ier schools, nothing in my mailbox!) I think tempered/soured my desire to check obsessive-compulsively. But before that I was wearing out my mouse clicking 'refresh' on all the assorted browser tabs... >.>

Behavioral stuff is fun, and really simple once you get the hang of all the terms! You can really explain any behavior in conditioning terms. Trust me when I say it's not hard. But it doesn't really tell you the depth of it; it's kind of... cold, I guess. Saying "people stop to look at art because it's reinforcing" may be absolutely correct, but /why/ you may stand there marveling for the seventy-billionth time about how gorgeous a Monet is and how peaceful it makes you feel just looking at it... that's something not quite so easily quantifiable, but just as accurate (and important). I think. I'm a little brain-dead from all these damn apps. XD

Establishing Operation: Anxiety due to low-grade experiential neurosis (we don't know the outcome of something; we can't predict, can't prepare, not really) Stimulus: ... Probably a chain of SR responses, actually, but we'll call the stimulus the existence of these forums/site, just for the sake of argument. Response (class): Logging in, refreshing a page, writing a post, reading a post, watching the results page. Consequence: reading other people talking about things you think about, finding information that relates to your situation, talking to other people, bonding over similar circumstances. Reinforcement happens; positive reinforcement (new, novel, social interaction! UBER-REINFORCER WARNING LABEL GOES HERE) /and/ negative reinforcement (escape aversive stimuli such as... feeling alone in the process [social belongingness = uber-reinforcer too] *and* probably avoidance [who cares about doing those pesky dishes?]). As a consequence of the reinforcement, response rates rise, leading to further reinforcement, leading to higher and higher response rates. So it's basically Facebook... on crack. I'm freakin' surprised an applied bx analyst hasn't taken this as a tremendous opportunity to look at group activity from a behavioral standpoint. A whole group of people with high response rates, all basically on variable ratio schedules of reinforcement? And all pure, timestamped data? At least I know what I can do if my PhD plans don't go through. XD

Tolman, was that UCSD CogSci or UCSD Social?

I too had a dream last night. (Probably, like someone said up there, because of this forum!) ... mine was that my fav POI at my fav school called me to tell me about an interview, heard my VM message... it's a little terse, 'cause I'm one of those people who hate having to wade through a three-minute "Oh hi this is So and So, I'm unavailable to come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave me a detailed life story of everything that I ever needed to know about you, a thirty second vignette on your opinion of me versed entirely in haiku, and every contact number that you ever have (but leave those at the end of the message and speak REALLY FAST so I have to go through all of your message TWICE or THREE TIMES to get all the numbers), and I'll call you back within twenty-four hours of me actually acknowledging the fact that you called! WORLD PEACE GUYS! WORLD PEACE!" ... "after the tone, please leave your message".)... where was I? Oh, so heard my short message (This is firstsight, leave me a message!) and decided instantly against wanting to interview me and left me this really snide voicemail about "being properly collegiate in all communications" and "maturing the nature of contact with the outside world before possibly being considered for admission". So uh... thanks for the nightmares, guys. I'm going to go change my VM message now. >.>

Katerific, I think I may be in love with you... just sayin'. Or maybe just with that bird. It looks super-happy. I could use some super-happiness. Though I'd say that Gangnam Style is totally preferable to -- oh, it could totally be grad-ified: I threw an app in the pool, I know it isn't really cool, I may possibly be a fool, and now I'm losing my mind. I'd trade my soul for "approved" All my fears so disproved, Time so slowly does move, and now I've lost my mind. My adcomms were meetin', Stacks of apps, cheesy greetings On SOPs, my POI's tweeting You think you're getting in, really? Hey, I haven't met you, And this is crazy, But here's my application, So admit me, maybe? (Maybe I need to take a break. This obsessive-compulsive email-checking is rotting my brain.)

Oh man, banana bread. I'm more a pistachio-chocolate chip-cranberry zucchini bread person (I don't like smushing bananas - it weirds me out somehow), but... now I'm hungry. XD And sure! We could.. uh.. say we're really inspired by MLK. I'm sure we could figure out what the honorable Dr. King's fav cookie was. Totes plausible.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who trolls the results search cheering at all of the Chemistry peeps acceptances. I love the ones that are all: "Randomly checked my email/mailbox/application status and saw ACCEPTED staring at me, such a great way to start the day/week/year/REST OF MY LIFE." It makes me smile and SO MUCH MORE NERVOUS all at the same time.

I just want to say that we could totally collaborate on sending UNC cookies. I make a killer triple-chocolate mint fudge chip. >.> Oh, wait, bribery. Right. Damn the man.

Hahahaha. I keep saying I have backup plans. But my backup plans mostly involve a tremendous amount of Ben & Jerry's in addition to a not inconsiderable volume of Jim Beam.

My professor, today: "Oh, well, when you start getting the interview calls, call me so I can prep you with what you need to know." She's so much more confident than I. >.<

Yeah, I'm already seriously considering my backups. None of my apps (save the one that hasn't been submitted yet - Jan 15th deadline) had all 3 LORs submitted in time [1 outstanding on all of them]. While I know sometimes that isn't a problem, well, it still makes me more prone to that whole 'oh man, all of this work for NOTHING' line of thought. That said, last semester was a crazy hell... I've spent the last week doing nothing but knitting and reading Guy Gavriel Kay, and the week before that enjoying Christmas with the family. Monday it's back to the grind, with classes and research and being a senior coordinating TA for an applied research project/class. It's fun dealing with grad (masters) students having a hard time dealing with an undergrad in a position 'over' them, but maybe this cohort won't be as bad as last year's crop in being prickly and hard to deal with. Hopefully dealing with prickly grad students and working 45-50 hours a week (sweet, sweet overtime) + finishing my honors thesis analysis/writeup + taking two other classes will fill my time that would otherwise be spent in a tizzy of crazy worry. >.>

I didn't apply to Stanford (close call, but it didn't make my cut - somewhat due to their outrageous app fee!), but I just wanted to commiserate with you guys. I have like, FOUR apps that show "incomplete" or similar languages, and talk about nerve-wracking-- especially since one is due to an office not having scanned things that were sent before the end of November! I guess volume is up all the way around. ><

You'll likely want to take a GRE option, I'd think. A high GRE score could potentially offset your low ugrad GPA. But I'm not going to lie: that is very low, comparatively, and something that many programs use as an "automatic cut", from what I've learned. Your best bet would be to contact the program directly and ask them directly how they handle GPAs. If they only look at your last two years, for instance, you're in a much better place.

I find that it is terribly inefficient for me to attempt note-taking while reading journal articles. Others that have this skill, my hat is off to you: but I absolutely have to read something through first, comprehend it, absorb it, come to my own conclusions and only then go back for notes. I agree with Darwin up there in one part; I tend to outline things more than highlight in-article (I'll highlight something on a brief pass-through after reading more as a /look here, this needs to be included/ than anything else). What do my outlines look like? Depends on how in-depth the research is. A sentence for purpose, bullet-point methods (# participants, specifics of treatment, operational definition for IV/DV - all with page numbers), a few sentences for results, maybe five or six for discussion. Typically fits in a page If it's for an exam and coming from a textbook (or assigned non-journal reading), I tend to be freer with the highlights. In the end, I think it comes down to what works for you. I remember classmates heckling me for highlighting entire passages for an advanced criminology theory class... but I consistently scored 100+ after curve and extra credit on tests where everyone else seemed to be averaging out around a B-. In my own experience, fields that have a stronger interdisciplinary nature require a broader sense of context. So yeah: it comes down to what works. As long as you aren't needlessly wasting time and you're retaining the salient points, right? (Though it never hurts to try things that are more efficient, I suppose!)

I've been gnawing over this particular question for so long that I'm pretty sure I've given myself an ulcer. No, I really mean it, guys. Persistent stomach pain, right? It doesn't help that LITERALLY only one place will have all three of my LORs by the deadline. >< I can't help but think that I'm already out of the running, before it's even began! begun? began? begun. Right? English majors? addlebrained. Anyhow, if I don't get in anywhere, I think I'm just going to pursue a different career altogether. I seriously don't think I could handle two years of rejections, which is what I could see that easily becoming. Oh car industry, how I loathe you but love the money you bring.... >.>

Belatedly: I would do that and then look for the closest analogues to those experiences. Could be that they would be okay with something like an independent piece of work -- one of the dependent measures for my honors thesis, for instance, is physical attraction. Is that close enough to the field of human sexuality? I obviously don't know, but they would! Most professors are fine with overseeing a DIS as long as you come to them with a good idea of what you want to do. I also have worked 40-50 hours a week throughout the last two years to support my family, so I completely get the hardship element of how stressful it can be to balance! But a self-directed credit may be the best thing available to you-- if independent/overseen work counts as experience!

I'd contact the grad coordinator and ask them directly what would be considered "experience" (ie, what previously admitted students did to fulfill that requirement).