Piagetsky

I agree with this on its face, but another question to ask is how flexible/supportive your POI would be in advising projects more in line with your interests than the future directions s/he plans to go in. Would your POI be willing to work with you on projects more closely related to their past line of work? 
Some POIs are quite flexible and are willing to support their grad students in pursuing their own interests, even if they're somewhat divergent from what they themselves are currently interested in. Others either don't feel comfortable bending outside their immediate area of expertise, or else want/expect their grad students to help further their own current research agenda. These are questions that you can discuss with the POI, as well as their current grad students.

If this file is not public, LMK, but this might be helpful.
 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IImqRbOrbWmZuy0xRgq3wh4RjmmuHWYBgZ3WbjBkW2g/edit#gid=17

In my experience, this varies by school.  I did the same thing you're talking about (community college to university and hopefully to grad school), so I can answer specific questions about what my classes were like, but I'd be hesitant to generalize those to other schools.  BTW, I'm from Portland (though I didn't go to school there), so if you have questions about Portland, I can answer those too!  I'm really glad I returned to school after all these years.

So how many days are there in 24 hours?

I decided to make a rule: I am permitted to check my email once a day. It's not working out very well. 

Looked up the program out of curiosity. Looks sketchy as hell! I would most definitely not go there, even as a last resort. They are clearly ripping students off, probably playing off desparate students with no other options, students who have no idea what they are doing, or students from incredibly rich families who want to buy a psyd in school psychology. The fact they are even certified makes me question how much a certification matters or how a program goes about getting certified to begin with. They may have a decent enough program, but they are clearly in the business of student loans. Just look at their fees: $1310 per credit  plus all these "extra fees" that add up to an estimated $50,000 per academic year lol. The fact they even mention that "students who are in financial hardship can meet with the Dean, but will be charged 1% interest" or something similar and advertise their default rates of graduates on their homepage is quite hilarious. You would be maxing out your unsubsidized Stafford loans, plus having to take an enormous amount of other loans (self loan, etc...) just to pay for it all. They are definitely taking advantage of the system for their benefit, exactly like the pharmacy ceo last year who spiked up the price of that hiv drug. Students have the advantage of paying a percentage of their income so as to make payments affordable, but this program has sketchy written all over it. Definitely steer clear is my advice.
 

Admission offer to GUELPH!  

accepted to Guelph!!!!

WL for Indiana HPS. Fucking fuckity fuck.

The site worked for me.  This is awesome...thanks @juanmesh!!

We recently had interview day at my program. After the day ended, we met with all the faculty members and were asked to briefly provide our thoughts and any potential red flags we noticed about applicants. Feedback included social awkwardness, being under dressed, saying judgmental things, asking great questions, being personable, having admitted to not being interested in research, being (un)able to coherently discuss their research interests, (not) being a good fit, etc.
No matter how casual your interactions with current graduate students may seem, remain professional; the faculty will likely ask for their input on you. The moment you step on campus, act as though you are being interviewed the entire time. If you are staying with a current grad student, the same advice follows. Don't say anything to anyone that you wouldn't say to a faculty member. I know of several instances where students or staff affiliated with a program told faculty about unfavorable things applicants said/did, which resulted in rejections (admitting to not liking research, fighting over where to sleep at a grad student's apartment, being mean to a secretary, etc).

So I visit this section of the forum fairly regularly cos I'm applying to an Ed PhD program but my background is Information Systems. I built a web app, not sure of how well it works but basically, it takes your search term and searches gradcafe survey results. Then it visualizes the average (using column charts) and distribution (using boxplots) of uGPA, GRE Q/V/AWA by accept and reject.
You can search for anything but the more specific your search is, the less likely you are to get results - not everyone submits their uGPA & GRE scores. I'm open to suggestions, my sense of design is non-existent and I may have made a couple of errors.
https://grad-cafe-visualizations.herokuapp.com/

8 schools is not overzealous at all.  I applied to 15...and got interviews at all of them 

I'm seconding MarineBluePsy. AWishinAndAHopin, I'm so sorry that happened to you! The grad student's behavior (both in your conversation and with other faculty/grads at the party) is absurd, and if it's any indication of the culture in that department/program, you definitely dodged a bullet.
And to answer question, no, you absolutely should *not* know exactly what your dissertation will be on at this point. Having a clear set of interests and some concrete ideas for future directions is important, but much of the *point* of grad school is to deepen and expand you interests as you go forward, gain experience, and work with a wider range of people. If all goes well, what your dissertation ultimately ends up looking like will be *quite* different (in wonderful ways!) from what you would currently predict.

What is terrible was the rude behavior that graduate student displayed in front of you and everyone else.  If no one felt that he/she was out of line and changed the subject then perhaps that isn't the kind of environment you want to be in.  Plenty of applicants have no idea what their dissertation will be on and even if they do know that doesn't mean it's original, can get past IRB, or can be done in a reasonable amount of time.  I think knowing where your interests lie and what you want to explore next is a good start and you want to be in a program that sees that potential in you to do more with the training they can offer you.

I would redo the survey if I were you. There's no statistical test that can help you figure out the effect of gender if you didn't specifically ask about gender. Also, without knowing the form of the data (type of various [ratio, interval, etc.]) and what you're hoping to know, it's really not possible to tell you what statistical tests to do. You should consult with your professors about how to proceed.

@v.clinpsy I swear, I have such a love-hate relationship with this site, I haven't accomplished any real work since January 1st lol. 

Ditto. I understand if they're still making a decision of course, but if they've made decisions and are not going to extend an invitation an email would be nice. Cross it off our lists. 

I don't think the interview has anything to do with selectivity. The most prestigious school that accepted me did away with the interview. They said they did not think it was fair to interview only people who had the means to fly out to see the school, and that it biased their selection process so they made all final decisions without any interviews.

1000 times this.  Even the ABA has said that people need to quit going to law school as far back as 2009.  The market is saturated and the job prospects are crap.

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/01/the-aba-started-warning-people-about-going-to-law-school-years-ago/

1000 times this.  Even the ABA has said that people need to quit going to law school as far back as 2009.  The market is saturated and the job prospects are crap.

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/01/the-aba-started-warning-people-about-going-to-law-school-years-ago/

Don't worry. Your roommate will most likely end up with twice as much debt as you and a smaller likelihood of finding a job after law school (as told by every professor I have had who is a lawyer when asked by students about going to law school). It's a competitive process for a reason! Still not fun to deal with though. Best of luck to you!

What they will think: "Wow! This student is serious enough about his education to apply to many different schools (like everyone else), and is also mature enough that they won't accept the first offer they get."
What they won't think: "Wow, he didn't accept our offer 0.00005 seconds after we gave it to him? Fine, we don't want him anyway!"

Wow that is even more cruel. The cynical part of me that loves dark comedy imagines like 10 professors crowding around a laptop, passing around a bottle of Jack, laughing their butt off, saying "yeah, hit send again!!!" And then laughing uproariously once more.
The only possible explanation.