lewin

I have no basis on which to judge other than my personal intuitions but I feel like less than 80th percentile is not competitive for a good program.... but of course it always depends on what kind of programs you're applying to--everyone in my year had 95th percentile or above but it was a pretty good school.

i feel neglecting to include "i was accepted my first application season" as an option in the poll makes the concern look worse than it is

I've never read any of my letters but here are three important characteristics.
 
1. Positive. Especially for American programs, it should use lots of standout words like superb, unique, exceptional (source). It should emphasize your research ability because perceived competence drives hireability (source).
 
2. Detailed and concrete. It should have specific examples, e.g., ran studies, analyzed data, wrote results. As Izs said, more than just what's on the rest of your application or in your transcript. [i get reference letter requests from people in my large lectures and I tell them, "I'll write one, but all it will say was 'So-and-so got an A, which put them at #14 of 170 students.'"
 
3. From somebody important. I also discourage students from having me write them letters because I'm a postdoc. You want a letter from tenured or tenure-track faculty. Ideally, from somebody who knows your future advisor(s) because academia is small and personal connections matter. One of my undergrad letter-writers went to the same conference as a few of my POIs and talked me up to them. This helped a lot.

I'm a post doc.
 
 
Benefits in no particular order:
1. One more year for your grad school work to go through the publication pipeline
 
2. A year to do just research and no courses/dissertation
 
3. New connections and letter writer.
 
4. [sometimes] learning new methodology.
 
5. A year to be on the job market.
 
Things to consider: Ask about teaching load and what she expects you to work on. Frankly, teaching is a time suck (especially a new prep). If you're grant funded, you might be very limited in what you can do and not have as much time to do what you want. But I don't think that being assigned specific work is always a bad thing... a post doc can be a good time to get exposed to a new research area with potential, as long as it can be integrated into your past work somehow when you're on the job market later. There's also some opportunity cost of switching labs where it takes a while to get up and running somewhere new.
 
Day-to-day my routine is very similar to when I was a grad student, though different research topics and more admin (e.g., some lab manager work, supervising the grad students). The pay's better too. If I had my choice I'd teach less--I teach two sections a year and one would leave more research time.

Consider Canada? Many universities in smaller cities (100-300k) and there's much less crime than the United States. I don't know cognitive programs though, sorry. 

I think you will have a hard time finding strangers who will volunteer an hour (or 60-90 minutes, as the ICL says).
 
Here's an unsolicited tip from a guy who does a lot of online research: Keep it under 15 minutes. Internet people have short attention spans.

I think you will have a hard time finding strangers who will volunteer an hour (or 60-90 minutes, as the ICL says).
 
Here's an unsolicited tip from a guy who does a lot of online research: Keep it under 15 minutes. Internet people have short attention spans.

If you really kept up with the Chronicle, which you linked, and the past several years discussion on adjuncts, the crisis, etc. You'd realize why porn was used, and exactly where "adjunct disaster porn" as a title comes from. 
 
Adjuncting is not a career. It is not meant to be a career. It is not meant to pay a living wage, it is meant to supplement an existent full time job or career. When people choose to stay in a transparently part-time job instead of using their education and intelligence to move on and find another career, and then say it is the fault of the system, I have a problem with that. 
 
There are many, many available careers out there. Heck, food service will often pay better than adjunction will, as will construction work, roofing, welding, electrical work, plumbing.... Even moving down and teaching K-12 instead of adjunction in higher ed is an option that fits the skill set a graduate degree has developed you for. 
 
Staying in a job that is not intended, and never should be intended, to support someone full time, or someone with a family, is the worst of those options. 
 
It has been an obvious fact for anyone starting a PhD in the last 30-40 years that there is a slim chance of landing a tenure track job, especially in overcrowded fields. The difficulty in job prospects aren't a recent thing. 
 
Going into a career with slim job chances and not developing side skills or planning what you will do to support yourself and your family if the 1 in 100 chance of landing the full time job you want doesn't pan out? It's irresponsible.
 
I realize I may be coming across as overly harsh, but it doesn't seem like a large portion of the people who are thinking about going to grad school, who are in grad school, or who have recently graduated seem to take reality into account with their career plans. They expect that having a PhD should ensure them a good chance at finding employment- and not just employment, but the employment they want in a location they want. 
 
Lots of my friends who have been very happy have gone from a PhD to sales, to finance, and in one case, to working for a roofing company. They're all successful, happy, and are able to support themselves and families. None of them spent years trying to magically turn a part-time job into a full time job- when they didn't get the jobs they hoped for, they went to plan B and moved on. 
 
I'm in a field with solid job prospects, and I'm still keeping things as open as possible- sales, industry, government research, teaching positions, construction companies, offshore welding, mechanic work, alternate academic positions, machining. They all take the time developing skills, and it's worth looking into and keeping all your options open. 

Oh god, not more adjunct disaster porn stories. The old tried and true ones, at that. 
 
Those stories frustrate me so much, because it's always someone who had plenty of other job options, but choose to keep working as an adjunct instead of pursuing them, and then wonders why a full career of part-time work didn't go well for them. 
 
Adjuncting is not meant to be full time. It shouldn't be. It's not a career path, it's something for people who need a few years of part-time work do, or to do on top of a full time career in the field. 
 
People trying to make adjunct work full time is the problem, not adjuncting itself. 
 
Also, how taboo private sector research is strongly depends on the school culture- it's highly encouraged at my university, even in the social sciences, as everyone knows how rare the TT job is. We have regular graduate school seminars on how to get out into non-academic or alternate academic careers, and between our graduate association, the graduate school and career services we keep an institutional subscription to Versatile PhD. 

I came here to make the same comment about the adjunct stories.  Vojtko’s story is missing a lot of information in it, so it’s unclear why she died alone and why she made so little.  She was also 83 years old, but apparently didn’t have Medicare because she “didn’t want charity” and felt that she was owed retirement and benefits - even though she was part-time and it’s usually made clear to adjuncts that they aren’t eligible for benefits.  Besides, the articles linked showed that Duquesne TRIED to reach out to her.  They referred her to protective services; she refused the help.
 
There’s nothing wrong with adjunct positions per se, if they are used as they were originally intended to be used - which is for working professionals to parlay their practical skills into teaching a class or two on the side.  For example, a lot of people at the CDC teach public health classes at nearby Emory and other colleges and universities in Atlanta.  An industrial-organizational psychologist might teach a business psychology class; a successful lawyer may adjunct teach at a law school, etc.
 
But adjuncting was never meant to be strung together to try to create a living wage all on its own, and a lot of adjunct stories I see in outlets like Vitae are short on details.  But from what’s there, it’s usually clear that the person in question has made a choice to continue to teach as an adjunct and not find alternative employment - because they don’t want to leave academia, because they are unwilling to leave a small geographic area (a disproportionate number of these stories occur in very large desirable cities like New York), or because they like being called “professor,” or whatever other reason it is.  I have not yet seen a story where an adjunct says “I tried applying for everything, even non-academic positions, all over the country and nobody will hire me!”
 
Not all the blame falls on faculty, of course; universities are allowing this to happen rather than creating lecturer or teaching-oriented positions with full-time benefits and pay, because it’s cheaper.  But I think it does a disservice to the students; I think that both students and faculty would be much happier if more places created senior lecturer positions where faculty were expected to teach 6-8 classes a year, no research requirements (and therefore no expectation of sabbatical or research leave or time to write grants), with a decent full-time salary and benefits.  They’d get the benefit of dedicated teachers who have the time to plan out innovative classes, the space to meet with students, and the connection and loyalty to the institution.
 
Buuuuut I think as academics we need to stop seeing adjunct work (as in teaching 3-4 classes a semester and doing nothing else) as an alternative, and stop doing it.  If no one is willing to take these crap jobs the universities will have to create better positions in order to get people to teach the classes they need taught.
 
With all that said, I agree - my graduate university highly encouraged non-academics/corporate jobs.  In my department taking non-academic research positions with nonprofits, NGOs, and think tanks was very common and not frowned upon - whatever paid the bills and made you happy, although some individual professors would've preferred you to take academic positions.  And career services had two dedicated counselors for PhDs and focused on non-academic positions - we had PhD-holding alumni in consulting, marketing, and other corporate fields come back and speak about how to get non-academic jobs and my institution also subscribed to Versatile PhD.  Lots of our PhDs went into consulting at the big firms.

^^ Translated: "This sounds fishy, I will take the time to look up their application requirements myself."  
 
love it.

For the clinical program, I found this:
 
STATEMENT OF RESEARCH INTERESTS:  Please append a maximum of one page single-spaced, in which you describe your research interests  and how they relate to the potential thesis supervisors you have listed.

I've heard that the rule is nothing gets a heading (i.e. "Peer-reviewed publications") unless there are two entries. If you only have this pub, I would maybe think to put it with your presentations and call the whole thing "Publications and Presentations" =)

I've never read any of my letters but here are three important characteristics.
 
1. Positive. Especially for American programs, it should use lots of standout words like superb, unique, exceptional (source). It should emphasize your research ability because perceived competence drives hireability (source).
 
2. Detailed and concrete. It should have specific examples, e.g., ran studies, analyzed data, wrote results. As Izs said, more than just what's on the rest of your application or in your transcript. [i get reference letter requests from people in my large lectures and I tell them, "I'll write one, but all it will say was 'So-and-so got an A, which put them at #14 of 170 students.'"
 
3. From somebody important. I also discourage students from having me write them letters because I'm a postdoc. You want a letter from tenured or tenure-track faculty. Ideally, from somebody who knows your future advisor(s) because academia is small and personal connections matter. One of my undergrad letter-writers went to the same conference as a few of my POIs and talked me up to them. This helped a lot.

Hello everyone,
A few of my mentors are willing to write excellent letters of recommendation for I/O psychology programs.
 
1.  What does a good letter look like?
 
2.  One very old professor has wrote one; it is clear he is well past his prime and even writes mis-spellings and such.  Can I still submit that?
 
Thanks

Your big hurdles will be convincing a graduate program that (1) you're actually interested in psychology and can maintain that interest long term (2) you actually know what a PhD in psychology entails and, (3) you have the background knowledge in psychology that's needed to succeed at the graduate level.
 
I suggest finding a lab in which to volunteer/work for a year. That firsthand exposure would help demonstrate 1 and 2, and also help YOU to determine whether you're actually interested in psychology or just think you're interested in it. Demonstrating prerequisite background knowledge is harder, though you could always hope for an advisor who cares less about this. You could also try taking the psychology subject GRE; you'd need an awesome score to show you know your stuff.
 
Here's an analogy that might illustrate what you're facing: I like balancing my chequebook and tracking my investments. It feels really good to make all the numbers reconcile and add up. Your degree is in math--would what I've said give me the background to succeed in a graduate level master's program in math? That is, to tackle material that's harder than what you ended your degree on? I doubt it. Psychology is the same way; you can't just jump right in. I empathize because sometimes I think I should have gone into accounting instead but, realistically speaking, I have no idea what accounting all entails because I have no experience whatsoever there (except for the aforementioned chequebook).
 
Or, one possibility is to look at social psych programs with an emphasis in behavioural economics, if that's an area of interest. Then your degree might be an advantage.

I guess the point of going to school is so other people are jealous.  No wonder you are unhappy.

I'm not going to say you should consider a another career field, OP, but I don't disagree with the folks who have suggested it.  Moreso I think that you are going to have to do a lot of work in the interim to make yourself attractive to PhD programs.
 
First of all, no, there is no website that hosts separate statistics.  You have to look at each program individually.  Few programs advertise their average GPAs and GREs, and when they do, they are generally in the 3.5 range and the 600s-700s range (on the old GRE).  I think a 155 on each section is like the minimum that you want to score; with a low GPA, you really want to push into the 160s if possible.  No PhD program is going to openly advertise that they accept people with low GPAs (and, as someone already pointed out, "low" means a 3.0 or 3.1 instead of a 3.6 or so).
 
With alumni success - a few schools will have lists of where their recent alumni have ended up.  Most do not.  The best way is to ask the departmental secretary about placement rates in the last few years.
 
Is social psychology lucrative?  If you mean financially remunerative - no, not very, not relative to the amount of time you have to put into training.
 
Basically, in order to give yourself a shot you will need to prove that you have the ability to undertake graduate level work and that you have grown and matured past your undergraduate mediocrity.  Furthermore, you need to show that you have sharp skills in research in the area.  You have not worked in the field in 3 years.  So you have a lot of work to do.
 
One way that you could, potentially, do this is get a job as a lab manager at a psychology lab (or related one - like a psychiatry or public health lab).  In this role, not only will you be getting research experience but you can also probably take some graduate-level classes for free as part of your job benefits.  Given your history you will need more time at this - I would say at least 3 solid years.  If you do this and get some As in grad classes and glowing recommendation from your PI, that could go a long way towards helping.
 
If you are unable to get this kind of job, you may be able to find another research associate position (market research, think tank, nonprofit) and then take graduate courses as a non-degree student at a nearby university.  You will have to pay.  But you really need to take a few classes and show that you can get As.
 
Basically, you need to re-start your research experience and show that you still have a passion and that you know the skills.  You also need to study for the GRE and get those scores  up, given your low ugrad GPA.
 
You will need 3 letters of recommendation.  So if you can only get 2, you will need to do something to get a third (take a class, volunteer in a lab, etc.)
 
Also
 
 
Please do NOT do this.  Your personal statement is not the time to exemplify your creativity and resilience.  Nor is it time to discuss the obstacles you have overcome.  Academics roll their eyes at these types of statements.  Instead, your personal statement is where you discuss 1) your prior academic professional experiences - research experience, primarily - and how they have uniquely prepared you to undertake a PhD and led to your interest in group decision-making; 2) your current interests, and why X university will be an excellent fit for you given your interests and prior experiences, and 3) briefly, what your career goals are and how X university can help you get there.  Think of it like an academic cover letter.  You do not want to draw attention to your shortcomings.
 
I know you said this tongue-in-cheek, but I also want to point out that the Peace Corps is also very competitive these days!

I think you're better off finding another career. I apologize in advance for being really harsh here, but you've written several things that suggest you might not have the aptitude or background for PhD work, and included a few serious misconceptions about the field. Of course, I don't know you--so disregard if you like--but here are the details.
 
 
 
Are you sure these problems are behind you? You yourself might be convinced that your record doesn't reflect your ability--and maybe that's true, I don't know you--but graduate schools won't take your word for it. They need to see a proven track record. Like, years of stellar work.  Once I hired an RA whose academic record was spotty because he had some chronic illness issues that he assured me were behind him. I gave him a chance and he repeatedly missed work because of illness. Maybe he was really sick--and I was sympathetic--but I still needed the work to get done. Why should I take a chance on someone when there are many other qualified candidates that don't require taking a risk?
 
Also, GPA doesn't just reflect capacity for learning but also whether you have the necessary knowledge to move on to more advanced work. Even if you could have done better if you'd been accommodated/diagnosed at the time, the fact remains that a low GPA suggests you might have missed much of the material that you should have learned and would need to succeed at the graduate level. 
 
 
 
 
In the graduate school context, a "relatively low GPA" means 3.0 instead of 3.9. I think the 2.4 gpa case linked above was a one-in-a-million shot.
 
 
 
Non-academic work doesn't count, don't even mention it in any of your application materials or it will look like you don't know the norms.
 
Also... are you sure your reference letters will be positive? They need to be stellar. I ask this because the record of being let go in other jobs suggests that you might also have had problems (about which you're unaware) in the research jobs. When you ask for reference letters, I would pay close attention for subtle or not-so-subtle cues that they're reluctant to write them. You also graduated a few years ago.... by now their memories of you might be fuzzy and the letters would lack the necessary details that make a good letter.
 
 
 
 
This is just not high enough. Many programs require 80th percentile or higher. Put off writing and study longer. A score in the 50th percentile would just confirm that your GPA accurately reflects your knowledge and abilities, and not in a good way.
 
 
 
 
This one of the misconceptions about the application process that I mentioned above. This is not what a personal statement should be about. It should be about how you developed your research interests, what you've done about them (in a concrete way), and your plans for pursuing that research in the future. I would look for a trusted professor who can read your statement before sending out. 
 
 
 
No. Very few PhDs get their coveted tenure track jobs and if that's not your goal, you're better off taking another path. A new assistant professor might make $60-80k starting but those positions are rare and getting rarer. Nobody goes into academia for the money.
 
 
 
There's no shame in doing something other than grad school. Many times I wish I'd done something different and I regularly ask myself whether it's time to cut out of academia and find something else--and I started in a much better position than you're in now. The field is tough and getting worse so, based on what you've written, I can say with almost complete certainty that you'll be better off choosing something else to do. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but maybe it'll save you a lot of time and anguish in the future.

I think you're better off finding another career. I apologize in advance for being really harsh here, but you've written several things that suggest you might not have the aptitude or background for PhD work, and included a few serious misconceptions about the field. Of course, I don't know you--so disregard if you like--but here are the details.
 
 
 
Are you sure these problems are behind you? You yourself might be convinced that your record doesn't reflect your ability--and maybe that's true, I don't know you--but graduate schools won't take your word for it. They need to see a proven track record. Like, years of stellar work.  Once I hired an RA whose academic record was spotty because he had some chronic illness issues that he assured me were behind him. I gave him a chance and he repeatedly missed work because of illness. Maybe he was really sick--and I was sympathetic--but I still needed the work to get done. Why should I take a chance on someone when there are many other qualified candidates that don't require taking a risk?
 
Also, GPA doesn't just reflect capacity for learning but also whether you have the necessary knowledge to move on to more advanced work. Even if you could have done better if you'd been accommodated/diagnosed at the time, the fact remains that a low GPA suggests you might have missed much of the material that you should have learned and would need to succeed at the graduate level. 
 
 
 
 
In the graduate school context, a "relatively low GPA" means 3.0 instead of 3.9. I think the 2.4 gpa case linked above was a one-in-a-million shot.
 
 
 
Non-academic work doesn't count, don't even mention it in any of your application materials or it will look like you don't know the norms.
 
Also... are you sure your reference letters will be positive? They need to be stellar. I ask this because the record of being let go in other jobs suggests that you might also have had problems (about which you're unaware) in the research jobs. When you ask for reference letters, I would pay close attention for subtle or not-so-subtle cues that they're reluctant to write them. You also graduated a few years ago.... by now their memories of you might be fuzzy and the letters would lack the necessary details that make a good letter.
 
 
 
 
This is just not high enough. Many programs require 80th percentile or higher. Put off writing and study longer. A score in the 50th percentile would just confirm that your GPA accurately reflects your knowledge and abilities, and not in a good way.
 
 
 
 
This one of the misconceptions about the application process that I mentioned above. This is not what a personal statement should be about. It should be about how you developed your research interests, what you've done about them (in a concrete way), and your plans for pursuing that research in the future. I would look for a trusted professor who can read your statement before sending out. 
 
 
 
No. Very few PhDs get their coveted tenure track jobs and if that's not your goal, you're better off taking another path. A new assistant professor might make $60-80k starting but those positions are rare and getting rarer. Nobody goes into academia for the money.
 
 
 
There's no shame in doing something other than grad school. Many times I wish I'd done something different and I regularly ask myself whether it's time to cut out of academia and find something else--and I started in a much better position than you're in now. The field is tough and getting worse so, based on what you've written, I can say with almost complete certainty that you'll be better off choosing something else to do. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but maybe it'll save you a lot of time and anguish in the future.

It's an unvitation buddy.

Hopefully you will have some sort of training when working with aggressive or violent patients. Some things I've learned in a previous training....
 
-Don't wear necklaces/chains around your neck (for men, neck ties would be included)
-Don't turn your back on a person that is behind you (ie: if you have to leave the room, walk through the door sideways)
-Sit or stand close to a door (and make sure the walkway to the door is clear)
-Do not put yourself near a corner that you could be backed into
-Stand slightly to the side (left or right) if you think you could be punched in the face
 
Keep in mind that the media perpetuates a lot of negative stereotypes about people with mental illness. The risk of being injured by a person with mental illness is probably a lot lower than you think. I find that treating people with mental illness with a lot of dignity and respect can go a long way and help them to feel more comfortable around you. But if a person is known to be violent of aggressive, the risk is there to a certain degree. If you keep the above points in mind and get training and instructions on safety and violence reduction from your practicum supervisor, I'm certain that your level of safety will be greatly increased.

I am unsure as to why you think you will be at risk because the people you are transporting having mental illness. It seems your biases about this population are overshadowing what social work is. Safety is certainly important, but severe mental illness does not mean more danger than other populations. Your assumption that because they are ill means they are violent  is unfounded.

So you're stating absolute facts about people you don't know based on your vast years of experience (23) and aren't open to, you know, discussing things on a discussion board?

Then why are you posting in a thread you have no interest in discussing?

Seems like you just want to judge people based on your limited world view, and then defend it to the end without listening to anything anyone else has to say.

Also, based on your posts, you do seem to need a lecture on relationships. Especially since you seem to want to "lecture" other people on their relationships. Turnabout is fair play, no?

I really don't need a lecture on people, or relationships... I am saying that a guy who is in his late 20s choosing to date a teenager is sketchy.. that is that.  i will not be changing my opinion so thank you for trying but no thank you. If older guys chose to date you because you are a young single mom and they can relate to that then more power to them but at 18 and 19 she should maybe be dating 23 at the oldest.  I am not even saying that people can't date older, I am saying the a grown man dating a TEENAGER is wrong, weird and bad.  I am 23 I have gone out with guys in their 30s but guess what.. I'm 23 not 18.