lewin

I take some exception to the implication that research related to sexism and gender can't be "hardcore" or OB -- it gets published in top journals too, when done right.

The needs of the department are important but only within reason. I find it hard to believe that the department's scheduling is so restrictive that a single person must be scheduled on campus for 12 hours in a row. She couldn't do 10am and 2pm? Or 3pm and 9pm? I would definitely request accommodation and wouldn't even bother with the rest of the excuses; the 12 hour things should be enough on its own for any reasonable person.

Ten jobs is not enough. My friends on the job market have applied for 50+ jobs each.

Just to pitch in as a counterweight because really all we're doing is trading anecdotes: My PhD advisor hated these emails. His opinion was that it's people trying to game the system and get around the official process. He reads all the applications anyway, and would never even try to form an opinion until he'd seen the whole application package. I get why people send their initial POI emails, if only to save the $75 if their person isn't taking students. But frankly a second email just to say that you applied seems excessive. "Acceptable", sure. Really, I can't imagine it would help or sink you, but that it falls into the category of "mildly annoying".

This is literally supported by research. People tone down their own achievements and hold back with sharing good news to friends when they think those friends have low self-esteem and will be threatened by the achievements.

Yep, but just remember that this is the case for most applicants so it's necessarily so that strengthening your application would move you ahead of others, relatively speaking. Also I think people don't really weight things you will be doing in the future because things can easily go awry.... bird in hand is worth two in the bush and all that.

BTW/ETA: I don't mean to undermine your score or method, I think it's a great guide to studying for the psych GRE, sure to be useful, and I'm glad you posted it.

This has also been my impression too. I thought my GRE score was awesome until I got to grad school and everybody had 95th percentile and above. If psychology is your major, you don't get extra credit for knowing it well, but you get penalized for having anything other than a high-ish score. Myself, I studied a guidebook and an intro text for about two weeks.

Top down and bottom up processes: 1. Find good programs and look through their faculty websites. 2. Find the people who are researching topics you like and see where they work. I would expect it matters for masters programs too, for the good ones anyway.

I don't want to say that finding a one-year terminal funded masters in social psychology where they do great research and have awesome parties is like finding a unicorn, but...

This is a good point--I only gave my cards to academics.

Mine said "PhD Candidate, Social Psychology". I gave out a few at conferences.

I had some, my university prints cheap business cards for students as part of their "see? this university knows how businesses work" mentality.

I got into two, so it happens.

Throwing out some food for thought. I had an interesting conversation with my supervisor this week where she was talking about how it's becoming more difficult to get her preferred type of research assistant. We run many, labour-intensive, in-lab studies. She wants people who can volunteer or work 8-10 hours a week. Lately, however, students don't want to commit to more than 4-5 hours/week because they're often volunteering for or working in 3 or 4 labs. Her attribution for this change is that students think they need more experience for grad school, which might be true, but that they're over-emphasizing "lines on their CV". According to her, what they don't realize is that detailed, enthusiastic reference letters are much more important than CV lines. To get those superior letters, RA's need to have personal contact with their referees so it's better to have one detailed letter than three short ones. Spreading oneself too thin produces thin letters. Any thoughts? I worked in a single lab for three years as an undergraduate, about 10-20/hours week, and got into a great PhD program. Here I sometimes see people saying, "I've worked in three different labs...." etc. and I wonder where they find the time! People who have worked in multiple labs: How many hours did you put in? How long were you there?

Everybody loves someone who's good at stats so, if you were going to devote your time to anything other than research, stats is a good subject to take. Work in this lab over the summer, do well, and have an awesome letter for the fall. What's important is getting an enthusiastic and detailed letter, not the amount of time in the lab or the number of labs. It's really impossible for us to say but I don't think you're hurting yourself as much as you think, and you'll only know for sure after applying to some places and seeing what comes out of it.

The program is still 5-6 years, you probably won't save any time relative to places with separate degrees. And of course everybody still recognizes that you're a first-year grad student and still learning (i.e., nobody expects you to have the knowledge of somebody with an MA). I just mean there isn't a stratified hierarchy distinguishing the two.

Everybody above gave great, serious advice so I'll be brief and a bit facetious. Chill out. Academics are the worst gossips and hearing your advisor dish about other professors or big names in the field is one of the best parts of being a grad student. Don't take it so seriously. And he might be a big sexist asshole, in which case she's doing you a favour. Your orientation actually told everyone not to gossip? Ha. That's like telling professors not to drink coffee or complain about university administration. Just be discreet.

Sorry to be unclear, I think we're probably just using different words for the same thing. I meant that UW is direct-entry PhD like you're saying. I've seen that referred to (e.g., by SSHRC) as "combined MA/PhD programs" or "fast-track" programs. Now we're getting pretty esoteric, but you're also right that people there don't get MA's at UW unless you need one to maximize scholarship eligibility or you want to leave mid-program and it's their way of letting you have something for your time. The more important points for anybody thinking of applying there are: (1) Even though it's a PhD program you don't need a MA to apply and (2) you're treated like a PhD student from day 1 regardless of what they call you on paper--there's no division between masters students and PhD students like there might be at other places.

^^yes, it's a combined program.

CPA has a guide to graduate studies pdf posted on their website somewhere. I have connections to one or two of those programs you listed but prefer not to say it here, so if you want any inside info on it send me a PM and I'll say what's what.

Like Johnny Blaze said, send away! But I'd do a cursory look first to make sure they don't have a website with more specific instructions (e.g., "I don't want volunteers" or "email my assistant at...").

Thanks for coming back with the extra information, sounds like whatever happens you've thought about everything a lot and I'm sure you'll be just fine. I want to emphasize that the things I'm saying are not about research or the degree label but the environment. Grad school is more than just research. Pragmatically, at the grad school stage of one's career, one needs a clear identity too. That is, jobs get posted in social or developmental, not generic research topics so it's important to fit a category. If you're a superstar who can graduate with two JPSP's, a psych science, and three JESP's then being in developmental won't matter. But for everybody else, social psychology has been described as a field that's ideologically liberal but professionally conservative. Leave the experimentation for the tenured.

I think you make great points too and do think that applying and asking a LOT of questions is a viable option if the OP doesn't mind the work of applying. To me the drawbacks would make me not bother applying, but that's just a personal judgment. And actually, I originally phrased my first post as "questions to ask your POI..." but changed it to statements instead Just like you're coloured by being in an interdisciplinary area, I'm biased--to the extent that I can actually introspect accurately--because I can't imagine having developed into the researcher I am today without a full breadth of social psychology professors who research in different areas and have broad perspectives. I've also gotten my best research ideas from talking to other social psych students, not just the ones in my lab. I wouldn't underestimate those 5-6 courses too--it's not just the content, but the discussion and exposure to people who teach you to think like a social psychologist. Some of my research is intergroup. I'm tempted to ask the OP who his POI is to evaluate whether his/her reputation outweighs the program's disadvantages

Just to discuss some of these issues further... Are you interested in social psychology for a specific ideological reason, or just because it tends to be the area where most intergroup violence is studied? Yes, my answer was based on the assumption that the OP wants to get a social psychology job afterwards. If so, it's not just about the conference networking or the relationship with your PI; it's about being surrounded by other current and future social psychologists so that you can absorb things from them and where it's a fertile ground for your development as one yourself. Partly this is the classes you take but it's more than that. I would guess that your PI would attend and submit presentations/publications to relevant conferences and articles. Maybe, maybe not. (Why is why the OP should ask.) I mean, if you want a job as a social psychologist you'll have to publish in JPSP, JESP, or PSPB. Maybe your advisor will want to publish in developmental journals because that's what his area peers value. Lots of research could go to many different journals. I only have 1 professor at my program who studies my area of interest, and people in my lab do just fine networking with other people in our specific subfield across disciplines- from clinical, to health, to social, etc. But you have other clinical students and you're in a clinical program, right? The OP is talking about becoming a social psychologist without receiving any social psychology training other than that which his PI provides. Despite what we often read here, grad school is about more than just research, it's about coursework and training too.