sdt13

I have been in contact with the POI at one of my top programs throughout the past semester (we had a running dialogue going from about August - last week). I will be meeting with two of his graduate students next week at a conference. The deadline was Dec. 15 but other than my status changing to "ready for review", I haven't heard anything official. For another program, I emailed the professor about two weeks before the Dec. 1st deadline with a question. He said he thought my research interests would fit really well with his lab and he would contact me after the deadline. However, I still haven't heard anything and my application status only says "Forwarded to department for review." He'll be at the conference next week as well and is actually in the same symposium as one of my professors...I wonder how that will turn out.

This was my understanding. In my SOP I mentioned each of the projects and how I play a hugely significant role, I just never mentioned the manuscript. Same with my CV, except this was more of the technical stuff where my SOP focused more on how it related to the program in question.

Thinking about it now, I wonder what the general consensus is on putting future papers on your CV. I am going to be a co-author on at least 4 papers in the coming year, but I left them out given that the studies are wrapping up or just need to be written up. I know it doesn't make sense to add such papers to a publication section, but would you mention this in your research experience or even your SOP? I left this out in the hopes (and expectation) that my advisor would mention it in his letter and so I wouldn't seem too presumptuous.

If you don't mind me asking, who did you apply to work with? You can PM me if you don't want to make it public.

With my experience, R, SAS, and JMP are almost useless for me (SPSS's user interface is the easiest by far). The only thing I like better is JMP's graph building feature. Honestly, I only took that class because one professor (who seems to dislike SPSS) said that R is up and coming in psychology, but I have yet to see that anywhere. The only other package I know some of the grad students at my school are picking up is STATA.

I can also recommend some texts if you're interested in learning a specific program. In addition to SPSS, I just took a class where I learned R, SAS, and JMP.

Bren2014: Yeah, that book was recommended to me by my advisor the summer after I took basic statistics for psychology majors. After I took the basic classes I started studying more specific techniques, so I don't know about a general text that would extend beyond that (I've used this for an ANOVA class, but for me it wasn't really novel: http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Methods-Psychology-David-Howell/dp/0495597848). The cohen book is a nice text for regression, but otherwise I am starting to play with SEM, HLM, and moderated mediation (via Andrew Hayes' webpage).

I'm curious as to why you don't have a research experience section. Given I have an overwhelming number of experiences myself, I was told to pack everything into my CV and then just highlight certain aspects in my SOP, pending the program I was writing for. Although, this has resulted in a 6-page CV and a 2-page SOP. Here is a link to mine: http://rochester.academia.edu/KaitlynWerner/CurriculumVitae

This is the book used in the first year regression course at my school. It is dense, but really helpful if used properly along with a course. I believe this one is very helpful as well, although it is no longer in print (I've pretty much been holding the library copy hostage lol): http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Behavioral-Research-Methods-Analysis/dp/0073531960 Otherwise, I would suggest this, as it's a lot easier to read and understand (especially if you only have basic undergrad stats under your belt). http://www.amazon.com/Research-Design-Statistical-Analysis-Edition/dp/0805864318/ref=pd_ys_iyr7

I have been attending SPSP since my sophomore year, and so this will be my third year attending (although this will be my second year presenting). This conference is really great to mingle with a variety of researchers, both senior and junior, especially if you plan accordingly to your interests. However, some of the graduate students in my department have warned me about the undergrads who swarm SPSP (particularly those not presenting) to "stalk" (her words, not mine) professors to whom they've applied. This got me really nervous because I have been to several conferences where I have met most of the professors who I have recently applied to and I know I will definitely run into them here (e.g., one of my professors is in the same symposium as one of my top choice PI's). In fact, one even has a poster a couple slots away from mine and I will actually be meeting up with the grad student of my top choice program (the PI wasn't able to make it). I guess you just have to be careful and walk a fine line between being intellectual and interested rather than the annoying undergrad who is trying to brown-nose their way into a program. Although on the upside, I was also told some programs don't even look at applications until after SPSP so it could work in your favor if you happen to bump into your favorite professor :-)