lewin

^^No, because word gets around. Our big conference is during applicant visit season in Jan/Feb and professors talk about incoming students. I was told about a group of profs from different universities who discovered they had a mutual candidate who had told each of them their university was his "top choice". None were pleased. Lying is bad. (That's probably a rare situation but why take a chance?)

In social psych there is increasing overlap with OB and marketing departments. I have a friend who was recently hired at a top business school after finishing their PhD in a pretty good social program. But this person has an astounding CV, like it brings tears to my eyes. I also know assistant professors who have switched from psych departments to business departments. So it's possible, though these people were all in the top 1% of their field at their level so it's probably not easy. None of them had business experience.

Your comment made me decide to look up the SSHRC award holders guide, which says: "You may not concurrently hold an award from SSHRC and another federal granting agency (CIHR or NSERC). You may, however, accept awards from other sources, regardless of value, e.g., foreign sources, Canadian provinces, private organizations, your university." I received about $16,000 from my university last year (in awards & TA'ships) so it seems that any restrictions are more often on the university side, not SSHRC's side. That is, many claw back their internal funding if a student gets SSHRC, etc. (I think that's what you're saying.) On SSHRC's side, the main restriction is that you cannot work more than 450 hours in 12 months, which works out to about 10 hours per week. So if your fellowship requires 20 hours a week of work that might be a problem.

1. Three years and no pubs is not a good sign. You need an active advisor who knows how to get published. 2. I'm going to head out on a limb here and suggest you're attitude comes off as a little know-it-all (e.g., "cherry picked images" "review the data with me in a comprehensive fashion" "she is so defensive"). It's possible that you know much better than your advisor does, but it's also possible that she's the expert and you, being in training, can't recognize your ignorance in some area. Point #1 suggests that maybe you're right and should get out of her lab. But I just want to throw out #2 as a possibility too in case you feel the need to do some soul searching.

To echo the above, put just enough effort into your coursework so you don't look like an idiot. Too much time on coursework means you're not researching enough. Research gets jobs, grades don't. Same advice for TA work. ETA: Forgot that grades often matter for scholarships. At my university you'd want good grades in the first year or two, until you get a good fellowship. Once you're funded they don't matter and most people take them pass/fail from that point on.

This varies dramatically from field to field. For example, I've heard in computer science that conference presentations are prestigious, journal articles matter less. In my field, social psych, it's relatively trivial to get a poster accepted at the national conferences but very hard to get papers published. (Conference talks, however, are very competitive.)

Yes, assume incompetence first, then maliciousness.

In psychology we cite stuff from the same journal all the time. The best research goes into the same small set of top journals, so that's what you cited. Maybe somebody from English can pop in and say whether it's different in your field. ETA: In psych it would look strange to not cite anything from the journal you're submitting to.

Oh, I agree that it's dumb as a blanket policy because "just missed it because of fit" is different than somebody who had to take the GRE three times and whose first statement of interest was riddled with errors. I just meant that as an example for why someone might have a bias against repeat candidates--they may be trying to weed out the latter but unintentionally getting the former. (Baby out with the bathwater, etc)

It must feel good to be so certain, but a few minutes of googling turned up two exceptions to what you're saying (one, two) and a 2009 report that indicates about 15% of institutions would not consider a three-year degree equivalent to a four-year Bachelor's. And thar report says only 40% of schools would grant 3-year applicants regular admission, many get conditional status. So the odds are that it will be fine, but my point was just that "it is equivalent" is a pretty strident and, it appears, inaccurate thing to say. OP, it might be worth checking with a few of your preferred graduate schools to ensure there won't be problems. If your heart is set on somewhere specific it would be too bad if they're in that 15%.

I don't think the question is so clear-cut. Is a three-year foreign degree "equivalent" to a four-year American degree? They might not think so.

It seems weird as an official policy--if that's the case--but makes some sense psychologically. If a candidate makes a bad first impression that could sour their second attempt, just like any other workplace.

All signs point to no. And if I can get real for a minute, a GPA that low suggests a stunning lack of effort. (Unless there were extenuating circumstances that you don't mention.) My advice is to save your application money and find a job where they won't ask for your grades. I know I'm being harsh, but after four years of not caring about school why would you want to do another year or two?

I use SpiderOak because they seem to have a better privacy policy than others, i.e., encryption is client-side so that they cannot access your files. Other services (like Dropbox) state that they "won't" but they don't say "can't". But the client is definitely less user friendly than dropbox or other drive-mapping solutions. The odds of something happening are infinitesimal but for data and student grades I can't take any chances. If something happened our institutional review board would literally send a brute squad after me.

Let's try again with an example. You apply for a job at a movie store. The manager asks what type of movies you like and you reply, "Movies are okay. But I only watch them when I'm required." The manager points out that, strictly speaking, liking movies isn't a job requirement, but many customers like to talk about movies and there will be movies playing in the store. If you only watch movies begrudgingly then you might find it irritating that they're on all the time and that other people are so chatty about the movies they like. ...and from the manager's perspective, why would they hire you when they could hire somebody who loves movies? ETA: To answer your question directly, it probably varies from program to program. But there's a huge, probably unstated, difference between "not required to apply" and "has a snowball's chance in hell of acceptance without one."

I guess it depends what you mean by "figure out", e.g., whether one is interested in this or that area of social psychology or cognitive psychology. People definitely do that -- I was figuring it out within my subdiscipline all throughout PhD! -- but I don't think it's the place to decide, e.g., whether one wants to be a clinician or a cognitive psychologist. Sometimes that happens unintentionally but (IMO) it shouldn't be a goal that one has going in.

^^This stood out for me too. In addition, honestly, it's probably a bad way to figure out your interests too. Undergrad is for broad exposure, graduate school is for specialization.

ha, on these boards you're going to end up with a lot of outliers on those variables...!

This is terribly unprofessional on their part. You could try emailing the Evil HR Lady. She often has great advice and is well-versed in employment law and etiquette. Usually a contract is a contract and I think you have the right to insist on a year's employment. All that said.... it's important to consider the political/professional angle. Are you depending on your supervisor for references? If so you might want to just suck it up. I know that's terrible because this is completely their fault (and the power imbalance is crappy) but it might be the pragmatic decision.

Lots of profs are halfways on the job market all the time. Maybe you'll be lucky and he won't actually go anywhere. In any case, I wouldn't jump ship to another advisor until you know for sure. You could also ask him whether there is a possibility of moving with him to the new place (if your partner is amenable).

Old comment, but just wanted to address this. In my field this is definitely not true. APA guidelines specifically state that providing funding--in itself--does not qualify one for authorship, and being paid to work does not mean waiving authorship. Professors have the right to publish but not to omit individuals who contributed to the work. And if this were me I would have frank discussions with my advisor, a trusted professor, the department chair, and the dean. In that order. I would limit myself to internal professional action, nothing using the legal system.

Teaching experience barely helps get a tenure-track job too-- overwhelmingly, it's publications that determine whether one gets hired. For teaching during one's PhD, one class is certainly better than none. But two is not necessarily better than one, and three is almost certainly worse. (Too much teaching raises questions about priorities and time management.) At least, that's the party line in my department. ETA: The one-in-a-thousand superstar candidate who can teach multiple classes while amassing a dozen journal articles is excepted.

While acknowledging that you have to pay the bills, teaching experience counts diddly towards your PhD applications. If you can, find something that will boost your PhD stats like more lab work. And I've heard that the recent glut of PhD graduates means that community colleges can often hire PhDs, so it's even hard to get a job there with an MA.

I'm curious whether Americans feel similarly about the SAT's. Anybody want to weigh in? Canadians don't have anything comparable at the high school level.

If 1100 is the cutoff, successful appliants are probably higher. But more optimistically for lower-scorers, the sample of universities that report their scores is probably biased upwards.That is, it's bragging to say, "Our admitted students typically have GRE scores >1200," so universities that can say that advertise it. In contrast, schools whose incoming students have lower GRE scores just don't mention it, so the selection bias gives a false impression that you need an exceptionally high score to get in anywhere.