Neurotic

Thanks for making this thread. I hope that more people in our field find it and share their stories as well. I know it would help me feel a little bit better to hear from others who are going through what I am going through. I am also applying for cognitive neuroscience/behavioral neuroscience programs for Fall 2014. I began by only looking for programs in experiemental psychology, but I expanded my search into neuroscience/interdisciplinary programs as well. My main interests are in psychopharmacology, traumatic brain injury, and Alzheimer's. I realize my interests are pretty varied, but I would be happy doing research in any of these areas. I plan on tailoring each of my applications to fit at least one of these interests as there are faculty doing research in at least one at each school I am applying. I am also applying to twelve different schools which I felt like was a lot, too. One of my professors suggested I apply to 10-15 and I figured he knows better than I do. I'll go ahead and share a little bit about my situation. At first I was very excited about the prospect of applying to PhD programs, but now I am definitely more apprehensive. My GPA at my last two instutitions, over the last three years (75 credit hours), is 3.8. I am taking my GRE in two weeks (I know, I am cutting it really close here but I excel at standardized tests and I am not worried about doing well). The one thing I feel is a huge black mark on my academic career is that I had a bad year in 2009 and one bad semester in 2010. I made 2 F's in 2009, and in 2010 I made 1 F because I neglected to get a turberculosis test. This makes my overall GPA much lower (somewhere in the 2's). Basically, my academic career consisted of a lot of me flailing about, having no clue what I was interested in or what I was doing. I have six years and over 200 credit hours of classes, but I have never made below a B in either of my majors (I double majored for my BS in Behavioral Science and Anthropology). The year I finally got my act together was after I managed to leave my abusive ex-husband and I started attending the school I am graduating from. Additionally, I have only one semester of actual research experience and then two semesters of classes about research/experiment design. I also have just over a year of experience working as a veterinary technician, and I have a year of classes in vet tech in addition to my certification as a veterinary assistant. This has helped me somewhat because we do research on rats, and I think it may be to my advantage at other schools with animal research facilities. My letters of recommendation are coming from the professors which are overseeing my current research and from my professor that taught the research design and statistics courses I took. I have been wondering if applying this semester is a bad idea. I may be able to continue with research at the lab where I am now, and my professor said I am definitely accepted into the Master's program there. So then perhaps on next year's apps I would be able to show ability to do graduate level courses and I would have more research experience. My only concern is that this would only add more debt and more time when I feel like I am already behind. Any advice and opinions are welcome. Sorry for rambling. Again, thanks OP for starting this thread.