lewin

These are the underlying concerns it raises. Not saying they're true in your case, but this is what people might think, in roughly descending order of importance/likelihood: 1. Academic cultures vary wildly by department. Because you've only been in one department you might not be able to flourish elsewhere. 2. You couldn't get in anywhere else so you were stuck. 3. You are too attached to family (or something) in your home city and aren't dedicated enough to your career to move wherever it takes you.

Not sure why the downvotes, there is data on this, even if people don't like it. GRE is just as predictive as GPA. In-person interviews (which many people think are predictive) are actually the travesty; they are not predictive beyond the paper record. With two BIG caveats for the GRE data I've seen: 1. It was produced by ETS and there could be a conflict of interest. 2. It is very hard to measure "graduate success" in a way that is reliable and convenient. The studies I've seen used first-year GPA, which is only a small component of grad school.

I did the same thing -- took a 60% courseload my last two years so I could RA more (and, you know, pay for my apartment) which stretched it into five years. Worked out fine.

you'll make it easier if you're organized: 1. Give them plenty of notice--like six weeks. 2. Provide a CV, transcript, and copy of your statement of purpose. 3. Give a clear list with something like: School name, program name, application date, and instructions (e.g., some universities want the writer to sign across the flap, others want the writer to mail it directly). You could even write a one-sentence blurb about each school, like why you find it appealing or who you intend to work with. 4. Provide pre-addressed envelopes. 5. If there is a form to fill out in addition to the letter, complete it as much as you can first (e.g., name, address, program info). ...your letter writers will be in a better mood if they know exactly what to do and don't have to write the school's address 14 times. ETA: I applied at 11 places and nobody remarked on it.

You don't say which subfield you're in. In mine, social psych, Toronto, Waterloo, and UBC are top 25 programs, and Western Ontario is in the top 40. Two recent graduates from program got very competitive faculty jobs at American universities. So it can happen. What really matters when you graduate are your CV and your letter writers. All that said, could it be a barrier? Maybe. The Canadian programs just don't have the same cachet as, say, Ivy league universities in the United States. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. just have these awe-inspiring reputations that other places can't match. When assessing the quality of one's degree, people can often rely on this kind of heuristic.

Bayesians are fun to rile up because they take themselves so seriously. Just like libertarians.

I had a used copy of the princeton review or the kaplan (I forget which) and my introductory text. That was plenty. The review book was probably worth it if only for the practice tests.

I took it and scored well. Compared to the general, where I studied for months, I studied pretty diligently for the subject for two weeks. The real drawback is that it's expensive. The school I'm actually attending now doesn't require it, but everybody in my cohort took it. It's odd that more schools don't require it because the data I've read (admittedly, from ETS itself) found that the subject is more predictive than the general test.

here are a few... Advances in the History of Psychology BPS Research Digest Mind Hacks Science of Relationships The Situationist We're only human

Which subdiscipline are you applying to?

If you want a job outside academia you probably don't need a PhD, a masters is probably sufficient. Check with people in your desired field to be sure. Few people get MA's in social psychology, it's more common in I/O. I know some I/O programs that have a really great applied focus too, which is helpful for non-academic jobs.

Hard to say until you know your GRE scores but it looks like you're on a good track. The cognitive stuff you're doing for your thesis could probably still be framed as "social" psych if you do it right.Time perception is a hot thing right now, so applying cognitive methodology to it might be a good way to sell yourself to grad schools. To see an example of what I mean, check out the Pronin and Jacobs paper from 2008; it won the theoretical prize from SPSP, which is a big deal.

Email your Member of Parliament and tell them to stop cutting funding for basic social science research... then SSHRC would have more money for administrative staff.

That's a good point. The article just says that they analyzed all doctoral programs listed in the APA's Graduate Study in Psychology guide, or 495 institutions. Supporting your hypothesis is that they note "the largest difference from the 1970's to 2003 is the acceptance rate to clinical psychology doctoral programs, rising from the 4 to 6% range in the 1970s to 21% in 2003." (There was a general effect of acceptance rates increasing, but it was most pronounced in clinical programs. They also break down by APA accreditation, which I think supports your hypothesis too. APA-accredited clinical programs are more competitive (10% for PhD, 40% for PsyD) than non-accredited (20% for PhD, 60% for PsyD). Interesting! I'm up in Canada and we have very few of those professional programs--only two PsyD programs in the entire country. I hadn't realized the extent of their American proliferation.

I should have said: the stats above are taking from a survey of all U.S. PhD programs in psychology, from 1971-2004. So clinical is competitive, but no more so than social or personality. There are lots of clinical applicants but also significantly more clinical programs (> 200) compared to areas like social (80) or cognitive (88).

I agree with the above posters, but to answer your question, Norcross has a 2005 American Psychologist that looks at these stats. The most competitive subfields are: Personality (M = 19% acceptance rate, N = 15 programs) Social (19%, 80) Clinical (21%, 211) Counselling (21%, 64) Psychobiology (25%, 13) But there are greater differences between programs than between subfields. Top quartile clinical programs, for example, have an acceptance rate of 6%.

In my area a "research fellow" is something akin to a post doc--you have a PhD and are hired as a researcher in somebody's lab. Grad students wouldn't call themselves research fellows even if they had some kind of graduate fellowship. So pay attention to norms in your field

Let's just unpack a little more why it's rare for undergraduates to be coauthors on papers and almost unheard of to be first author. This situation comes out of my background, which is social psychology. Other disciplines may be different. As a rule, only 1/3 of studies actually work and most papers need between three and six successful studies. So to get one paper you might need to run between three and fifteen experiments. Most undergraduates do one experiment, possibly two, for their honours thesis, so already the odds are bad. Even if you get a few studies that work well together, the peer review/publication process can take six months, or more if the initial decision is a "revise and resubmit". Practically speaking, there just isn't enough time as an undergraduate to get the studies run, and the paper written and reviewed. Furthermore, to be published the studies need to have theoretical novelty and practical importance. Bluntly, most undergrads are not up to the task: they just haven't read enough or done enough to get a handle on what makes a good idea and what's a compelling way to test that idea. This is nothing to feel bad about--it's what they teach you in grad school! So if you're lucky enough to be on a novel/exciting project, the odds are that the idea was originally a professor's or a grad student's, and they'll quite likely end up being first author.

P.S., In my department/field, having a first-author publication (in a top journal) is seen as the prerequisite for getting a job, not getting into grad school.

There are several business schools that have strong connections with social psychology: Kellogg/Northwestern, Fuqua/Duke, and Booth/Chicago are three of them (and very competitive). By "connections" I mean many of their faculty are social psychologists by training. Those would be great places to study the intersection of marketing and psychology.

An applicant might have first-author conference posters/presentations but it would be one-in-a-thousand to have a first-author peer-reviewed publication.

The government student program is the Canada Student Loan Program. I don't know whether they have citizenship requirements but it must say so somewhere at that link. If you mean student loans from Canadian banks, the major banks are TD, RBC, CIBC, and BMO. As a non-Canadian they might have extra requirements (e.g., a cosigner) but their websites should state that. They all offer student lines of credit. My own undergraduate student loans were a combination of government loans and a loan from my local credit union. For the government loans, the advantage is that interest is waived while you're in school but the rate after you graduate isn't great (mine is prime + 2.5%). Government student loans also have spending restrictions (e.g., no vacations, don't repay old debts). My credit union student loans are at prime, but I pay interest every month including when I was in school. For the major scholarships (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR, OGS) you need to be a Canadian permanent resident.

Awesome, congrats

Yeah, without putting out too many personal details on the board here, I'm in a social psych phd program but I collaborate with people at two different business schools. So it can work.

As other have pointed out already, there are a few business schools (e.g., Kellogg, Booth, Fuqua) that have strong social psychology connections. Of course, there can be friction too: some social psych professors see going to a business school as "selling out", and some business schools see social psychologists as people with little real-world experience trying to encroach on their territory for the extra cash. Teaching MBA's is also notoriously challenging. You could also consider an industrial-organizational psychology program.