lewin

Yeah, sorry I worded that poorly. Spot on. With my fellowship (from the Canadian government) I do a yearly report but I get the impression that unless I go really far afield from their funding mandate they don't care. For example, I have a social sciences grant but report that I am analyzing genes in a bio lab. That said, I don't know anything about the American fellowships.

Check with your advisor about social norms here, but (1) you could just submit whatever you're already working on and (2) most fellowships never follow up to see whether you actually conducted the research. It's not like a research grant--which is for a specific project--but rather an investment in you as a young researcher. So propose whatever gets you funded, and try to work on something that's still defensibly within that topic.

To elaborate a bit on this (because I agree with the sentiment if not the format), every job is hard. My grad school colleagues have spouses with "real" jobs who find the grad school complaining really tiresome because their jobs are hard too: unrealistic bosses' expectations, keeping up with ratebusters, long hours, irritating coworkers, competing for raises and promotions, etc. "There is nothing new under the sun..." as the good book says. To succeed in any field requires hard work, ability, and some luck. Your friends might not seem sympathetic because they have the same problems to worry about but with less job security and flexibility. At some point you need to learn how to self-soothe on the day-to-day stuff, and only look for support with the big problems. Me, I drink.* *Kidding.

Sounds like you've received good advice from your profs. I took the psych because some of my program required it. You should find it much easier than the general GRE, I think everyone in my year of grad school had 98th or 99th percentile.

I would point out that you can't receive academic credit twice for the same work. So if you already worked on this for grades last summer you probably can't use it again. At the very least, be upfront about this with your advisor. A general statement like that is probably fine for a first meeting. Usually the advisor and student shape the research question together.

There are some professor jobs in Canada too, but they're no less competitive. So applying here can improve your odds because you're applying to more places, but don't think it will be easier than a comparable American university. The market is tight right now, this season I've only seen two Canadian jobs in my subdiscipline.

This would be your statement of interests, which should be perfect. ^^lol <3 Ditto et al. 2003

"Why couldn't you have at least made a B" would be a pretty harsh judgement for them to make. A straightforward statement can explain things without being a sob story, e.g.,"I experienced a severe health incident in 200X that has since been resolved but it detrimentally affected my grades at college X. After my recovery I attended university Y and my grades there are more reflective of my academic performance." Or you could just leave it. Your GPA seems decent, they'll see the improvement, and your other experience is outstanding.

A bad score--not that four is necessarily a bad score--raises the concern that you can't write. A well-written statement allays all fears; a poorly written one confirms them.

Sorry to hear about your health issues and congratulations on getting through and finishing in spite of them. Many places have a spot where you can explain extenuating circumstances like yours. Here are some concerns I would have as an admitting faculty member so that maybe you can address them with your application. 1. If your grades are non-diagnostic because of health problems, I might not have enough to judge whether you're a good candidate. Maybe you aren't bad, but I can't tell whether you're good either. 2. Even if the poor grades were due to surgeries not a lack of ability, you still may have missed out on a bunch of knowledge. That is, more than just demonstrating ability, grades demonstrate that you acquired the body of knowledge required for graduate study. 3. Are the health problems resolved? If not, I would be concerned about admitting somebody who might end up being absent a lot, whatever the reason. 4. I might wonder about your ability to prioritize. If the surgeries were interfering university so dramatically, it might have been better to drop out, get well, and then go back so that you could focus on your studies. These things might not be true or fair, but they're the criticisms that one could make. Consider doing the psych GRE. It would show that you know psychology well, even if your grades don't reflect that.

^^ This advice is good. Send another email after your application is in with something like, "When we spoke on the phone you asked me to email you when my application is in to arrange a possible campus visit....." Also, I would wait to email until within a day or two of the application deadline. They won't start organizing visits until ALL the applications are in and you don't want to be smothering.

It's great to be passionate about one's career, I'm driven by intrinsic interest too. Same boat as you! But passion doesn't put food on one's plate. "Bad job prospects" is something people should be worried about and I think sometimes academics don't think about this enough. For example, a professor I know advised students that their priority should be to get the best grad training and post doc position possible, even if it means significant debt. When tenure-track jobs were relatively guaranteed (20-30 years ago) that strategy made sense. But now, who would take on $20 or $50 thousand in loans when they might not get a job afterwards? Much too risky. If more people realistically considered their job prospects and decided not to attend graduate school it would be better for everybody. In the end, it's a hard truth that if you can't get paid for your work then you need to find something else to do. Otherwise that's a hobby, not a job. I'm giving myself two years applying for academic jobs. If it doesn't happen in that time I'm going elsewhere. And I'd rather stab myself than be an adjunct instructor with a 3-2 teaching load and no job security making $25,000 a year. (BTW it's good your flexible on location, that's almost mandatory nowadays.)

The topic doesn't interest you? Or doing a PhD at all? The former is probably worse than the latter, in terms of getting out gracefully. If you'll never do a PhD then something brief is probably fine, "I have some unfortunate news that I'm sorry to have to share. I have reconsidered my career choices and have decided not to pursue a PhD, therefore I will not be attending your program in September. I deeply apologize for the inconvenience that I know this will cause you, please know that it was not a decision that I made lightly." Don't go into details about family, girlfriend, etc It's unfortunate but people change their minds and, if you're not going into academia, you don't need them to like you anyway. But be sure about the decision because you're definitely burning bridges and academia is a small community. And at this point you might owe them some tuition, that would depend on the university's policies. If it's just the topic that you don't like then use "I have reconsidered my decision to attend graduate school at this time, therefore I will not be attending...." in place of the second sentence. Honestly in this case it's probably impossible to avoid looking like a flake, but rip that band aid off and move on. You can be impeccably polite but you're still leaving them in a shitty situation. But do what's right for you!

In my opinion this is worse than the profs who don't like being contacted. Universities have standard application procedures for a reason and--unless they encourage making email contact--then applying should be enough to get full consideration. There shouldn't be extra, unwritten requirements. (I'm not blaming you for this, ILuvPsych, I'm sure it happens. But it's a shitty thing for a prof to do.) It might be curmudgenly, but my prof who doesn't like emails from potential students is right. It has become tolerated because everybody does it, but let's not kid ourselves about what the emailers are trying to accomplish: They are trying to get an advantage over other appilcants. I did it too! So avoid any whiff of this in your emails if you can. Caveat: Emailing to ask whether a prof is taking students, unless that's posted somewhere, should always be acceptable.

I have to say, I've heard mixed opinions about contacting POI's. These are a few: 1. It's probably okay to contact POI's via email to introduce yourself and draw attention to your application. Keep it simple: "Hi, I am so-and-so. I liked your work on X and am considering applying with you to graduate school beginning Y. Are you taking students? I am interested in working on Z." Study design sounds way too presumptuous. 2. Some profs dislike students contacting them because they think it's circumventing the application process. 3. I would discourage phone calls and in-person visits. Phone calls are intrusive and they'll invite people they want to visit. Email is a better way of initiating contact. 4. In all cases, if the prof has instructions on his/her website, follow those. ETA: The person I ended up working with--he and I talked on the phone once, after he made the offer, to arrange a visit. Before that one email like point (1) above.

I think it will be hard to answer your question without more information. I know graduate students who were put on probation--though not asked to withdraw--before comps. In that case it seemed fair. What makes you think the circumstances are unjust? Please explain.

Go for it. "Dear Dr. So-and-so. I am starting as a graduate student in the fall and I am interested in possibly taking your course. If you have a course outline already, would you mind please sending it to me? I am curious about what material might be covered. Best regards, raise cain."

Pro tip: If presenting similar data at multiple conferences, change the title enough so it looks distinct on your CV.

That'll probably depend on the quality of the end product

The ISPP stuff is nice, there are a lot of good social psychologists involved with that. (I went to the political psych preconference at the society for personality and social psychology meeting last year.) You mentioned the job prospects of social psych over other related disciplines, but the differences are more than just window dressing, it's often a completely different way of tackling the research questions. The task for most social psychology graduate students is to design and run experiments. Do you have things in your background that show you know how to think experimentally? Or it might be worth putting out feelers to potential advisors to see whether they're willing to consider somebody who likes their research questions but comes with an atypical background. Your political and policy work could be very attractive to those profs. Unrelated personal question. If you have an masters and steady employment, why do you want a PhD?

I don't list anything in prep because I don't want to get scooped. But that's just my personal paranoia. Under review, yes.

I looked after my advisor's cat for five months while he was on sabbatical. He emailed our whole lab and I volunteered. Pay hadn't been discussed up front, but he ended up giving me a gift card for a significant amount as a thank you. This is just a shot in the dark, but in other threads you've mentioned behaviours by your advisor that led me to believe he might be a bit (unintentionally?) sexist. There's research that young female professors do a disproportionate amount of service and committee work because of stereotypes that women are supposed to be more communal and interdependent. It might be worth some thinking about whether other (male) students in your lab are also asked for personal favours. I can't see how house sitting would take away from your research time--so it might not be that big a deal--but just raising the possibility.

To add to the chorus, I also find that wine makes the marking go down easier; course reading too. Anything that's mindless. Writing and lab work, however, take coffee.

The rejection is putting me in literal physical pain right now (MacDonald & Leary, 2005).

That makes complete sense. I had forgotten that many programs have that "expermental/clinical" divide in labelling, in the sense that everything non-clinical is "experimental".