windypoplars

the first row needs to be "frozen" but seems like someone changed it at a some point. it should be ok now

wow USC is generous

If you have a dinner scheduled on the previous day of the interview, is it ok to just wear casual clothes (instead of business attire) for the dinner? Is jeans ok?

I bet a lot of people are interested in NYU Social lol

Anyone from NYU social psychology? Please PM me your PI

No I'm not sure.. but the invitation reads to rsvp by jan 21 and doesn't mention anything about multiple dates.

Yes - I was actually invited to both Newark and New Brunswick. I am surprised about the timeline though as well.

NB is on the 28th, Newark is on the 7th.

Thanks! Very helpful!!!

Same here!

I just received Rutgers invitation for Feb 28. However, I am eagerly waiting to hear from NYU social psych, and have a feeling that they might have their interviews on Feb 28 as well, since looking at last year's interview schedule, it seems like NYU social psych dept do their interviews in late Feb or early March. And as you can tell from my line of thoughts, my first choice is NYU. Rutgers invitation didn't indicate how soon I should RSVP by. How long can I wait to RSVP? Is a week too long to wait?

It seems like in the past, UCLA's Cognitive psych program skipped the interviews, but on their website it says their interviews are scheduled on Jan 31/Feb1. Does anyone know if the Cog psych department changed the procedures this year?

Yeah the title is

Same here! Columbia (POI) for the person who received an interview on Jan 1. Thanks!

Can the person who got an interview from Columbia let me know who the PI was? Since the school is so selective, and that person had an interview contact on Jan 1, I have a hunch that I've been rejected…

Hi, I'm an international applicant as well, and I just received an interview email from Rutgers. So I don't think that status matters. However, I'm not sure about the math skills that you are concerned about. A lot of cognitive experiments deal with statistical knowledge so I can see how it may be considered important though…

I had a phone interview with UT Austin for Cognitive Psych program. They will have their interview weekend on Feb 6-9.

Thanks! This was very helpful!!

I see. Framing it that way makes sense for me to sell this topic.

Embarrassingly I was stumped during my phone interview on this question - why is the research topic you're interested important? I didn't have an answer to this, and I better be prepared to answer this for forthcoming interviews now… How would you answer this? I'm struggling with this, in that I don't see how this can be important other than that it is something that excites me to learn about. Should I be answering as if I'm writing for a grant? - in how it might contribute to society? I struggle with this question because honestly the reason for my interest is not to make the world better. It's just something I viscerally have an excitement for….So should I just try to articulate why this topic excites me?

I sent you a message on this

I have a phone interview scheduled in a few days and I am wondering if it'll be alright to ask the PI if we could talk on FaceTime. Would that be weird? I just think seeing the person is less awkward…

Apart from the obvious questions - "tell me about the XYZ research you worked on" "tell me what you learned from A class" "what do you want to do in research"…. what else are there that I should anticipate?

I was initially drawn to psychology because of Carl Jung, and I wanted to learn more about the symbols and myths and dreams and how these drive one's life behaviors and decisions. But it seems like this topic is almost considered voodoo or just a nice fairy tale mentioned in the intro psych class. I haven't found anyone working in academia examining this topic that's not in clinical (and I'm not interested in becoming a clinician) And I understand it's a topic that probably has no tangible value and it's hard to scientifically research… In any case, still wanting to pursue this field, while being funded by an academic institution, I compromised by choosing my research focus as decision-making. But as I am writing my 9th school's personal statement, I notice my research focus (on paper) is neuroeconomics on how rewards and punishments are reflected in the brain. I guess this trajectory of research focus was intentional at my end, but I also wonder if I'm being untruthful to myself. People often make fun of people who work for money and glorify those scientists who pursue the truth with little financial incentive. I thought I was the latter, but at this point, I'm not sure which one I am. Well, I guess it's prob neither or both… :-/ Anyone going through a similar dilemma?

Thanks for the reply. Your strong suggestion dispelled me from having second thoughts. Sigh... I guess I should just plough through and persevere.