ihatechoosingusernames

I would love to go back to Seattle for school, but it isn't going to happen. I tried so hard to force a research fit with someone at UW, but I figured I shouldn't waste an application to a place that wasn't going to take me for an obvious lack of fit Haha, oh well! Go Huskies! Also, I'm currently trying to finish a last minute application. Personal statement word limit on this one is 500 words, but they freaking ask for your entire life story! How the hell am I supposed to tell someone why I picked psychology, why I want a graduate degree, my research and interests background, and who I want to work with all in 500 words?!?! I'm sitting at 540 words and I'm this close to scrapping the damn thing and writing a haiku instead. I will work for you Pick me or I will cry I will study hard

wild child

Soccer balls

I suppose so I had a 311 overall, with my quant and writing scores just barely over the 50th percentile and my verbal just under the 80th percentile. It wasn't that the scores themselves would automatically toss me out of the running, but paired with my 3.3 GPA I was a solidly middle of the road candidate.

I was just talking about this with my husband tonight. When I last applied, my stats weren't great (low/avg GPA, avg GRE), I didn't have a lot of research experience other than a kick ass honors thesis, and I was also super unfocused when it came to my interests. I'm wondering if there are a lot of similarly unfocused students that are easy to weed out, especially for the programs with hundreds of applicants.

Well, I just made the mistake of going over my submitted personal statements again and found a very obvious error! WAHHHHH! I should have just left it in computer folder to rot forever :'(

Hehe, I totally reviewed the night before the test too because I was super stressed out and hadn't been super consistent with the studying. Felt like I was having mild panic attacks. I ended up taking some Emergen-ZZZ (which is Emergen-C with melatonin - totally recommend it!) to help fall asleep, and then got to the test site an hour beforehand. Which was good because I ended up having some super duper parking issues that delayed me quite a bit. Just get some sleep and try not to panic too much. You've done all the studying you can at this point. Good luck!

AWWWWWW YISSSSSS. Submitted my first completed application of the season! Happy Thanksgiving, all!

I'm originally from Washington and graduated from college in Seattle Bastyr and Northwest are...meh. Seattle U is fantastic and has a great reputation, and Western is also great. I grew up very close to Bellingham and it's a fantastic place to live, especially if you love outdoor activities. It's slower-paced than a big city like Seattle (Bellingham is called the City of Subdued Excitement for a reason!) but there's still a lot to do and experience while you're up there. They have a beautiful campus. Is there a specific type of counseling psychology you're looking at? You might also take a look at Antioch University or Seattle Pacific University.

I emailed my professor. I also moved out of state, so I know your pain Plus, I figured it would give my professor a second to recall who I was. I feel like if I had called and he didn't remember me right off the bat I would have been embarassed and wouldn't have asked him for the letter. When are your application dates? My only concern is that you may be taking your GRE a bit late to apply this year. Some of the schools I've been applying to with a Dec 1 date said not to take the GRE after October 15. That said, if you have later application deadlines you could very well be fine. Good luck on the GRE though! I hate that stupid test and all the time and money that was wasted on it.

Is anyone else nervous as hell? Also, has anyone turned in any applications yet? December 1st is coming up!

I guess I have a pretty specific research interest, but I could enter into almost any field and make it work. I'm applying to I/O, Social, and Applied/Community programs, and I think I have a pretty strong fit with all of them. I just really love psych as a whole and wish I had enough time and money in life to study more than one field in depth

So I just had a rude awakening this morning. Last night I had sent all my reference writers a checklist with my school information, CVs, personal statement, etc. This morning I woke up way too early but figured I'd check my email to see if anyone answered, and then maybe I'd roll back over and go to sleep. Um. No. I recieved an email from one of my recommenders that started off with the phrase "I have to be honest with you about something..." Cue the heart palpitations. I was told that they've never had anyone ask for letters for more than 10 schools. Ha. My curse (or blessing?) is that there are quite a few researchers with a focus on gender based violence and sexual assault or harassment. I really think I'd be happy at any of the schools, too. Thankfully, my letter writer is still willing to write letters for as many as I decide, but they just want to know that I'm not picking random schools with research interests that may not fit. I think this was just the push I needed to narrow down my list a bit. I had a few schools on there that were okay fits, but were more focused on gender stereotyping than gender violence. My new list is still a wee more than 10, but it's a good list. I just wish I didn't need an early morning heart attack to spur me to cut out some schools Anyone else have trouble narrowing down the list? Or maybe the opposite - anyone having trouble finding enough schools to apply to?

Hey! I was shy too. I have my honors thesis advisor and a professor I've only taken one lab-based class with as two of my recommenders. How long have you been out of school? I think for MA programs professional recommendations will be more acceptable, though realistically you'd want at least two academic references. Also, when are you planning on taking your GREs? And take most things on here with a grain of salt. My first application season was spent lurking on here and panicking every time some person posted a "OMG I'M SO WORRIED I'LL NEVER GET INTO GRAD SCHOOL 4.0 GPA, Q:170 V:170, 4 YEARS RESEARCH EXPERIENCE, 5 MILLION PUBLICATIONS 10 MILLION POSTER PRESENTATIONS, WHAT ARE MY CHANCES!?!?!?!!?!?!" post. A lot of this is up to chance: is your PI accepting students? Does your program have funding? How well do your research interests fit? No matter how great your GPA and test scores are, you aren't getting in to a program that doesn't need students that year. I know I'm not the only one here who's applying a second time.

If it wasn't for the fact that you guys want people with Master's degrees, I would have applied to the Community and Applied Social Psychology degree in a heartbeat. I'm actually finishing up a grad certificate at UML in Victim Studies, and I love how the psych and criminal justice departments have so many people with research interests in interpersonal, domestic, and sexual violence.

So, between the first and second times you applied, did you do anything to improve you application? If so, what?

Not gonna lie, I was trying so hard to find a research fit in a school in New Orleans. I'd LOVE to live there Wayne State's also on my list.

Ain't that the damn truth! I don't know about you, but I took a few classes at different schools during my summers that have really upped the overall cost of sending transcripts. I have to spend about $40 for all 6 of my official transcripts combined, so I'm thankful for the schools where you only have to send in the unofficial transcripts. It's spendy...according to my handy dandy spreadsheet, I'm spending about $2100, not including the GRE test and test prep bulls**tery. Anyways, it looks like we have a few overlapping schools! George Mason, TAMU, and maybe Rice

I took the test for the first time back in October 2013, which was the first time I applied to grad school. My scores: V-158 Q-153 and AW-4. I was fine with it at the time, since I was right at (or just below) the mean scores of all of my schools. I didn't get that round. It also doesn't help that my GPA is also pretty average and I had little lab experience at the time. There was nothing that made me stand out. This time around I studied using Magoosh. I wasn't trying to increase my verbal score at all, but I needed to up my quant score. I studied pretty irregularly starting about 6 months out from the test. I studied at least 50 hours, and almost all of that was spent watching the videos. I can't say I like them, but they did seem to help. I would redo the practice questions that I got wrong, and that messed with my score predictor a bit. My initial prediction range was V-157-162 and Q-152-157. The first Magoosh practice test I took about 2 months out from the test showed me with a V-155 and Q-152. Then over the course of doing a few more practice questions my score range moved down to a V-155-160, and Q-150-155. I was crushed and more than slightly mopey. It definitely decreased my desire to study. Why was I spending all this time on math if my scores were decreasing? I kept going, though, and 48 hours before the test I took the Powerprep test just for the Quant. It showed me at 154. The day before the test I took a second Magoosh test and ended up with V-161 Q-155. I know they say to give your mind a rest the day before the test, but it was helpful to see which types of questions I was struggling with. I watched the video explainations for the answers, and then watched them briefly the morning of the test while I was getting ready. Actual test scores: V-164, Q-156, AW-?? The big thing that helped with my verbal scores was reading. A few months ago I saw a GRE tip that talked about how important it was to see words in context. I tried one those GRE vocab novels, but they were crap. However, I found that reading older yet engaging novels (like Sherlock Holmes) on a Kindle or Kindle app was great. You're able to highlight a word you don't know and see the definition right there. It also kept a list of all the words I highlighted so I could refer back to it if I wanted. I'd recommend a Kindle if you're in the market for one, but the kindle app is free. There are plenty of free e-books on Amazon and probably through your local library.

Hey! Nice to see another second time applicant in social psych! Thanks for starting the thread. I'm applying to Social and I/O programs this year. I, too, have gained additional research experience and it's really helped me figure out what I want to study in the future. My focus is broadly based on issues surrounding gender. I'm still refining the apply list, which need to be done soon since most schools have deadlines in December! This year is speeding past. Yikes.

I've noticed that a lot more schools (or a lot more of the schools I'm applying to this time around) are accepting unofficial transcripts. They'll only need the official transcripts once you're both accepted and choose to go to the university. That's 100% the way it should be done.

Hey! I've had that broad range too. Some profs just send back a polite "I will be accepting students" email, and others seem more excited and ask if I have any questions about the program. With those, I'll send back a few questions that I found from this document. I send out my CV with each email, and last year I had a professor contact me via phone to discuss some of the work I had done. A grad student I talked to also said that depending on the type and popularity of the professor's school and work, they may have a ton of emails from prospective students that they're sorting through, which may explain why not everyone emails back. All of my initial contact is done via email, but if they ask to schedule a call or Skype meeting I most definitely take them up on the offer!

I'm applying to about 17 programs (15 PhD, 2 Masters) this time around. Last time I only applied to 5, and found out quickly that a lot of this is up to chance. It's partially a numbers game, and how well you fit with the faculty member's research interests really, really matters. Make sure you know that the professor you're applying to work with is taking students. Not everyone posts it on their websites. Some of the schools with PhD programs have terminal Masters programs that you can be considered for if they don't consider you ready enough for the PhD. I think George Mason does that. Also, if you haven't already done so, it's helpful to look at the SIOP graduate training program search tool. There were a few schools that I found this time around that I didn't know about before I know deadlines are still a bit further out, but is anyone starting to feel like they're crunched for time already? I know I sure am!

Workplace discrimination, mostly.

Here's my opinion as a second time applicant - don't let the people here on GradCafe decide for you. This message board can be one of the most brutal places for feedback, and some of the negative feedback is completely unwarranted. I can only speak for myself, but I know that I'd regret not applying in the long run. There's a decent chance that because of my GRE and GPA I'll be cut from the get go again, but I know that I'd rather try and have the school reject me than take the advice of another applicant on whether or not I should apply. Just look at the results from years past - some people have perfect GRE/GPA and were rejected. Others have lower scores than you do and have been accepted because of their life experiences or their fit with their faculty mentors. There are so many factors that come into play, and you won't be able to control many of them. Worst case? You try, don't get in, and are in the same place you're in now. If you have the monetary means, I'd say go for it. You're obviously passionate about psychology.