brown_eyed_girl

I know this is a month old, but I have to speak out and say I noticed you have copied very specific phrases as well as the general format of this sample statement of purpose provided by Berkeley http://ls.berkeley.edu/files/statement_of_purpose.pdf
In the sample: "In lieu of a formal introduction of my research interests and aspirations I offer a summary of my senior thesis..."
In the sample: This first venture into serious historical..."
Whether you realize it or not, this is plagiarism, which I think is about the worst thing you could do in a statement of purpose. Furthermore, trying to fit your statement to the format of the sample has made your statement rather bland and generic. I suggest you scrap this completely and write YOUR statement of purpose, without looking at someone else's. Don't even think about using it as is; if I could tell you plagiarized parts of this, I am certain committee members will be able to as well.

This forum is intended to offer advice specifically about Art History graduate programs. If you are currently a student, try your school's writing center. It looks like you would benefit from some edits for style, sentence structure, and vocabulary. I'd also consider putting more important/relevant information at the start of the paragraph - unless you have a lot to say about the figure on the right wearing a red dress, you may not want to lead with that or use two sentences to tell us what color the dresses are. You may also want to consider issues like use of light/dark, negative space, facial expressions, treatment of drapery, stylistic tendencies, quality of brushwork, etc. If you don't have a writing center or tutor available to you, looking at visual analyses in published sources may give you a better sense of where you should aim. 
Edit: I just saw that you've already asked here about how to improve your writing abilities, and that you stated that you are new to the field and English is not your first language. You are off to a good start, and I encourage you again to use your school's resources to work on your English composition skills. Right now, your writing is fine in terms of grammar and spelling, but you have room to improve in complex sentence structure, academic vocab, and overall flow. This takes practice, time, and effort to achieve, but it's certainly doable. Some general writing composition classes would be great, too, if they are offered at your school. Good luck! 

This forum is intended to offer advice specifically about Art History graduate programs. If you are currently a student, try your school's writing center. It looks like you would benefit from some edits for style, sentence structure, and vocabulary. I'd also consider putting more important/relevant information at the start of the paragraph - unless you have a lot to say about the figure on the right wearing a red dress, you may not want to lead with that or use two sentences to tell us what color the dresses are. You may also want to consider issues like use of light/dark, negative space, facial expressions, treatment of drapery, stylistic tendencies, quality of brushwork, etc. If you don't have a writing center or tutor available to you, looking at visual analyses in published sources may give you a better sense of where you should aim. 
Edit: I just saw that you've already asked here about how to improve your writing abilities, and that you stated that you are new to the field and English is not your first language. You are off to a good start, and I encourage you again to use your school's resources to work on your English composition skills. Right now, your writing is fine in terms of grammar and spelling, but you have room to improve in complex sentence structure, academic vocab, and overall flow. This takes practice, time, and effort to achieve, but it's certainly doable. Some general writing composition classes would be great, too, if they are offered at your school. Good luck! 

There are no circumstances under which I would recommend taking an unfunded PhD program. Even if you were independently wealthy, a PhD is a job. Why would you work for someone who does not respect you enough to pay you enough to survive?

Svent is right, in part, but it also depends on a number of other things, as well. For example, only a certain percentage (less than half, maybe even?) of English programs require the test anymore, so it depends on what other programs you're applying to, which of them require the test, and whether or not the ones that don't require it would be as good a fit as the ones that do. As for the ones that do, I'd check in with each specific school, because even though IU might waive it in favor of the rest of your app, others might not be as lenient about it (every department seems to have a slightly different policy on the scores for this test). Further, if you're only applying to one or two that require it--given that they say they'll still accept your app without--then it might be worth the potential loss of application fees (depending, of course, on how much each fee is exactly). If you go this route, I think it might be helpful to briefly (but only briefly) highlight a range of canonical knowledge in your SoP.   It seems that this test is intended to show that you have a breadth of surface knowledge to complement your focus on a particular and narrow field of research, so, programs that want the test are probably looking for at least a sense of this breadth, and it'd likely be to your advantage to find another way to show them you have this. (Or, if you have a very clear sequence of historical distribution requirements satisfied as shown on your transcript, this might cover it as well.)
What it really comes down to then is this: if you had to take a year off, would you be okay with waiting? Is IU (or another school that reqs the score) your very top choice, and do you think you'd ultimately regret accepting an offer from another school that doesn't require it, instead of taking the gap year and waiting to apply to IU?
Then the big one: How strong do you honestly think the rest of your app is?--IU gives very specific data about what they're looking for in terms of GPA and GRE scores; if you're right at the cutoff, this might not be great, but if you're above or well above what they list as averagely acceptable, then that might be the boost your app needs to make up for the missing score. And, how are you in terms of fit? If you think your work really meshes well with one or several of the profs in the department, and you can argue strongly for why this program is absolutely perfect for you, this will help. Really, this is what you need. If your work--both past (writing sample) and proposed (SoP)--is interesting and if it fits well with the department, this is what will help them overlook a missing test score. But if you think your app's weak in any of these other areas, then it might be worth waiting to apply until you can satisfy the score requirement, or going for other schools.

http://magoosh.com/gre/2013/gre-scores-for-top-universities/

Everything has been really wonderful.
I have been able to handle my courseload while holding down a job.
My professors seem to genuinely be interested in me and they're happy to help me in any way they can.
I've been relatively confident in my writing.
I'm enjoying the readings.
There are so many wonderful resources at my fingertips and I'm so grateful.

The only downside is I'm not really connecting with my cohort and don't have time to attend events because I work.
I am afraid this will hinder me in the future. I have been rather reserved. 

If you're applying as an MA student in large programs that have doctoral programs, there's no need to contact individual professors. You will not get terribly much face-time with them once you're there; the faculty at Columbia, Penn etc. are extremely busy with their own research and long-term students, and they will figure that if you're not invested in being in their program long-term (for the Ph.D.), then they don't need to be all that invested in you. This is all the more the case for people working in modern/contemporary, where the profs are already overrun with undergrads as well who want to write senior theses in these areas.
For Williams, by contrast, and any others where they *only* offer an MA, then you definitely should contact the individual POI and let them know of your interest and academic background.

I think what Sophie_B is describing is a lot different than what the original post was describing. Athabasca University is a real and accredited online-only university in Canada and I think an online degree from that institution is still useful. Sure, there will still be some people that think it's not the same as a "brick and mortar" university and in some ways, they will be right. An online-only graduate degree will lack some of the important aspects of graduate education that involve "residency" in your program, attending seminars and such. This is why many graduate programs have a minimum residency requirement (usually 1 year in Canada). 
However, Sophie_B is also describing a hybrid system that is also very common in Canada, where you take some (but not all) of your courses online. This is common at all levels. I don't think there is any issue with taking distance-ed / online courses and in fact, our transcripts do not indicate whether or not the course was online or in-person. For example, at UBC, it's possible to take a few courses either in a physical classroom or in an online classroom. The medium of instruction is different but the end result is the same.
And, online-only degrees do serve some purpose. As Sophie_B pointed out, they are great for working professionals looking for additional accreditation. I think you would attend an online-only PhD program for a very different reason than a "brick and mortar" PhD program. For example, if you are working in a field already and you just want to upgrade your education and accreditation, I think an online-only programs are the right choice. However, if you want to be an academic and aim for a career in academia and especially for tenure track positions, then an online degree isn't going to work. It's not that the education is not up to snuff but you're missing the networking and collegiality and sharing of ideas/collaborations that you really need to succeed in academia.
Finally, I feel the need to point out a couple of differences between these programs in Canada and in the US.
1. In Canada, tuition is much lower. We probably pay around $6000 (arts/science programs) to $10,000 (business programs) per year in tuition and fees. So, a PhD will cost (without considering living expenses) something like $25,000-$40,000 over 4 years, which is certainly affordable if you do it online while working full-time in a professional career to pay the rest of your bills.
2. In Canada, the number of schools that are just there to rip you off is way smaller. I think the response to the original post was appropriate because so many US schools are for-profit only and they exist to separate hard working students from hundreds of thousands of dollars. But in Canada, there are way fewer such scams and if you choose an online program attached to a brick-and-mortar university, or if you choose the one highly reputable online-only University that I know about (Athabasca) then it is fine.
In summary--I think Sophie_B is right to point out that some of the responses here seem a little snobby when you say "You can't do a PhD if it's not at a brick and mortar school!" or "It's not a real PhD if it's online or part time!". I just want to add that a PhD program designed for an academic/research position is probably the mainstream PhD program but it's not the only one. It's okay that some people want to take online-only PhD programs that will basically provide accreditation but not much else. (As long as they are not being lead to scam programs!)

Hi Joy93,
As far as I've been advised by a potential supervisor at a U.S. school (for a PHD statement), I was told not to sound as if I have my mind made up about a particular topic because that could be seen by the committee as a sign of not wanting to avail the intellectual diversity of the department. When going through 500 applications for roughly 5-6 spots (at most top-ranked schools), the committee wants a student who will have an idea about his/her research interests (for example and these are rather broad for a reason: gender, patronage, critical theory, etc.), yet, still be open to the department's intellectual currents. For instance, a student could be applying to work with a South Asianist (with a dissertation area in pre-modern Nepal) but would draw upon methodologically from the Western Medievalist, Modernist, Islamicist, and/or East Asianist. This suggests an openness to new experiences on the part of a student.
Having said that, most statements usually begin with a research area/topic/object that you want to investigate. Begin by raising major/pertinent questions around your topic in such a manner as to address the geographic, chronological, and methodological strengths of the department and not just your supervisor. By addressing the department you show the committee your reasons to be in their program over and above another program. After all, you're working not just with a particular supervisor but with an entire department.
This is what I've been advised, but take it with a pinch of salt, as our situations are different (I'm applying for a PHD, you're applying for an M.A., our areas are probably different). As for rolling admissions, as far as I know most schools wait till after the application deadline to inform applicants. Finally, if you are applying to M.A. programs have you considered some in Canada. There are excellent standalone M.A. programs at Toronto, McGill, UBC, Victoria, Queens, and Montreal.
Hope this helps.    

Thanks for all the useful suggestions and perspectives. It's definitely intimidating going from being out of school for a year with only an undergrad degree and going into a PhD program, and since I'm the type who needs a lot of down time, I'm glad to hear work-life balance being emphasized so heavily here.
 
I won't start grad school till fall so I can't give any advice on that yet, but I am a big believer in taking time to recharge. I meditate daily, sometimes just for 15 minutes if that's all I have and sometimes a full half an hour. I know that it has made me more focused and engaged in various areas of my life, so I'm betting that will be a big part of maintaining my sanity in grad school. I can definitely be a Type A and want to go from one thing to the next, so meditation is a way to force myself to slow down, really pay attention to how I'm feeling physically and emotionally, and refocus myself. Plus there's pretty much a new study every week touting the benefits of mindfulness meditation - from increasing compassion to improving sleep quality and reducing depression. 
 
Grad school is very important to me, but I think it's also really important to devote time to the things that really matter most to us. I will not sacrifice my relationships on the altar of scholarship; my loved ones need to know I'm there for them, just as I know they'll be there for me. I hope that I'll continue to volunteer with kids once a week, making time for something beyond myself. I won't give up cooking myself nutritious meals. Being a student will be a huge part of my identity, but it can't be all of it. When I'm struggling on a project (and I'm sure that day will come) I want to know that I am worth more than that project. At the end of the day, it's just school! I want to do my best, but I don't think that has to come at the exclusion of everything else. 

Many, many programs (I'd venture to say most) would be conducive places to study critical theory. Don't focus exclusively on programs with a formalized "critical theory" component. Instead, focus your attention on pinpointing faculty who are engaging with critical theory in a way you find to be compelling... and apply to work with them.

Oh this is great! The template is of great help. I will talk to my LoRs to get a better understanding on this for my field. Thanks a lot for this!

TakeruK, that makes sense! The context you're describing does sound confusing - it's less the word itself than the fact that it sounds like the author used it incorrectly trying to "sound smart" even though another word would have been clearer. This reminds me of the advice I've gotten from several friends and colleagues who've completed their PhDs, all versions of: "Do you. Don't think you need to write a certain way or speak a certain way. Don't use words you don't know. Don't be intimidated because someone else is using words you don't know - they might not even be using them correctly."  
The issue you bring up of writing for a readers who aren't native English speakers is really interesting. As someone in the humanities, I've never heard anyone make that argument, but it's good food for thought. As I prepare for an upcoming foreign language translation exam, I would certainly appreciate if others in my field did this.  Personally I hate reading jargon-filled articles, and I do try to make my writing as pithy as possible. I was also taught to write with the assumption that the reader would not have prior knowledge of my topic - something that doesn't usually happen in academic writing, but is very helpful for readers who aren't experts in your field/subfield. Interdisciplinary study is important to me, so I would love if more academics wrote in a manner that was accessible to those in other disciplines. 

Fair enough but perhaps I didn't pick the best example to show without context! In my understanding, exacerbate is supposed to mean "make [something bad] worse" but, in my opinion, it should only be used when it's already established that the "something bad" is bad. For example, "I missed the bus by 5 seconds. The fact that it just started raining only exacerbated the situation".
In the example I was thinking of, the authors attempt to describe the atmosphere contents of a planet using a model that they compare to the data. They say that the potential existence of clouds exacerbated the quality of the fit of their model to the data. However, prior to this, they did not mention any existing problem with their model fit and the figure they refer to with this statement actually looks like a good fit, except for one small area. They are focusing on this area as it was an important area, however, this was not stated. So, I was a bit confused when I first read this sentence because "exacerbate" implied that the fit was bad, but at first glance, the data looked good. I had to look up "exacerbate" in order to be sure I didn't misremember the meaning.
I felt like the use of "exacerbate", while correct, makes the reader take two steps in logic with just one sentence. The reader has to first realise that the authors are saying the fit is currently bad and then realise that clouds made things even worse. But if the authors had used "made worse" instead of "exacerbate" then it would be clear right away that both the fit is bad and clouds made things worse.
I try to keep my scientific writing at a more accessible level of English because although "English is the language of science (or at least my field)", I think that's a little unfair. I would want our field to write in a way that is as accessible to as many non-English speakers as possible. I think the above use of "exacerbate" did not achieve this and for a reader who is unfamiliar with that word, the reader might miss the authors' point completely (because at first glance, it didn't look like a bad fit). I usually aim for high school English level of writing, and I avoid using idioms.
So I do agree with you that words like exacerbate (or any word really) does have it uses. My main gripe with words like this is when people use the more advanced version when the simpler version will also work (and has more clarity). I think that in some situations, the more precise meaning of a more "advanced" word is necessary and the author should use it. Thus, I still use a lot of scientific jargon in my writing because these are words anyone studying the field (whether or not they are a fluent English speaker). And jargon is invented/used because the precise meaning of the word in a scientific context is required! 

1. On just a personal impact level, the loans are figured on the basis of your salary AND the amount that you owe, and you are paying them for a LONG time. For example, let's say that you borrow $110,000 at 6.8% interest. Now let's say that you put those loan payments on PAYE, and let's say that you start off making $65,000 as a single assistant professor with no dependents. Your monthly payments are $396 a month to start out with - and nearly $400 a month is a lot of money when you only make $65,000 (which is slightly more than the average salary of an assistant professor), especially after taxes, retirement savings and health insurance.

But let's say that two years later you get married. Let's say that your spouse has no loans (whew!) but let's say that he makes $60,000. Now your total family income is $125,000 and your monthly loan payments go up to $845 a month at the low end, and are expected to increase to $1266 at the high end as your salary goes up (remember that student loan payments under IBR and PAYE increase with your income).

2. You have to pay taxes on the forigven amount. Let's say that you do borrow $110K, you start out making $65,000 a year, and your repayment period follows the projected amounts that the federal government projects (starting at $396 a month and increasing to $1,148 a month over a period of 20 years). The forgiven amount will be just under $85,000, which means that you might be hit with a tax bill of $30-40K right after you finish paying off your loans! (which will necessitate payment plan with the IRS, which means more payments...)

3. You could be investing that money somewhere else. In the above repayment scheme, you are repaying a total of $171,725, including $146,443 in interest. If you stashed that $360/month into a investment account with a 7% rate of return over 20 years - not even increasing the amount gradually, like you would with PAYE - you'd have nearly $200,000 in 20 years. That's your kid's college education. Maybe multiple. Or a new house! Or a bunch of vacations. Even hiding it under the mattress you still have $86,400 after 20 years. Even if you don't invest it, that extra $400 to $1200 over the life of the loan could mean a better house in a better location, or private school for your kids if you want it, or a better car...or whatever.

4. On a less personal, but more large-scale frame, think about the impact on our economy if thousands of people borrow money that they cannot repay. You're borrowing money from the government; if you borrow more than you can reasonably repay in 20 years, the rest is "forgiven." What "forgiven" really means is that the government takes the loss on it - so they're taking the loss on $85,000 in this case. 21 million college students enrolled in Fall 2014; let's say that 70% of them borrowed federal student loans (14.7 million) and let's say that each year 1% of those people (147,000) borrowed more than they could repay and got an average of $40,000 forgiven. That's $5,880,000,000 ($5.8 billion)! To put that in perspective, that's more than the annual budget of the WIC program. These programs are new, so we haven't seen the full impact of them yet, but what do you think is going to be the large-scale, long-term impact of many individuals borrowing more than they can repay? How long will this program last if people don't borrow responsibly and it becomes too expensive to support?
 
The PAYE and IBR programs were meant as relief for lower-income borrowers who fell on hard times and/or were negatively affected by the recession; it wasn't meant for people to deliberately borrow more than they know they can afford to repay.
 
With that said, sometimes there's a need to borrow a lot of money - some kinds of programs simply cost a lot and can't be afforded any other way, like professional master's degrees, MDs, JDs, etc. But that's not the case here.
 
IMO, the NYU MA shouldn't really be an option. Psychology MA degrees don't really have outsized importance in helping you get into graduate school. Or rather, it's not the MA itself; it's the kind of experience that you get in the MA program - working with researchers, getting experience, writing papers. You could do that by working as a lab manager or research assistant/associate for the next 2 years (which many people do, and then get into competitive PhD programs later). If you worked for a university you could even take a few graduate-level classes as part of your benefits. Even if you decide that an MA program is the best way for you to prepare for the PhD, you don't have to go to NYU or a similarly priced school. You can go to your local public flagship. If you are going to commute into the city from your mom's in NJ, you could go to one of the CUNYs - City College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College (tuition is about $11,000 a year for nonresident students).
 
So to me, the decision is whether or not to go to Ohio University, and that depends on your ultimate career goals. You say that you want to be a professor and do your own research. Doing your own research, to me, implies that you want to be at an RU/VH, RU/H, or DRU school. The question is whether Ohio U is going to get you there?

Something that might be telling is looking at where the faculty at Ohio University (which, by your own admission, is a lower-ranked program) got their own PhDs. Perusing the faculty list, I see UNC-Chapel Hill (x2), Miami (of Ohio), Michigan (x2) Minnesota, Case Western, McGill, UC-Berkeley, Kent State, Penn State, University of South Carolina, UMiami, UVa, Indiana (x2), UGA, Vanderbilt, USUHS, Michigan State (x3), Purdue, UF, UT-Knoxville, Iowa, Temple, UBuffalo, and UC-Irvine.  With few exceptions, those are top 50 psychology programs, and most of them are top 30. The exceptions are Miami U, USUHS, Case Western, UB, UGA, Kent State, South Carolina, and UT-Knoxville. That's 7 faculty out of 29, which is about 27%. So nearly three-quarters of the faculty at this 100-ish ranked psychology program went to a top 50ish program to get their PhD. (And even those 7 program are mostly ranked higher than Ohio's program.)
 
You can do this with pretty much any program. Take a look at the professors of the top 30ish programs in psychology and you'll see that they probably primarily got their PhDs from other top 20ish programs. Look at programs in the top 50ish and those professors probably got their PhDs from the top 30ish.
 
Generally, academia is a prestige-focused field - where you went and who you worked with matters in getting postdocs and in getting jobs. The general rule of thumb is that it's quite difficult to get hired someplace more prestigious than your own PhD program. There of course is always the occasional person who is able to get hired "up," so to speak - there's a guy in my old department at Columbia who got his PhD at a program not even in the top 100. But the odds are stacked against you, and you have to be really outstanding to be considered alongside the mediocre and middling students whose PhDs are from top 20 programs. (For the record, I'm not saying that I agree with this, just that this is the way I've observed it is and that trusted mentors have advised me, too.)
 
Why not ask? I'd contact your POI at Ohio U and ask them what the placement rate is like for former students and what kinds of institutions they end up at. The website says that the vast majority of graduates take "positions in academic settings, ranging from universities to two-year colleges, and in research settings, both public and industrial." I would ask for more elaboration.

Hmm. Well, if your boss is giving you condescending talks, you've made a lot of mistakes, and your coworkers have a poor impression of you, what makes you think you would get a good letter of recommendation from the boss anyway? I don't say this to be mean - I just wonder whether that's a good reason to stay if the situation is as bad as you are describing.
Before you make any decisions, I think you should probably have an honest talk with your boss and, in as professional a manner as possible, explain that you're struggling and ask him what you could do to improve the situation. Surely the boss is aware that it's not going well. Perhaps he will say that the lab doesn't seem to be a good fit for you, in which case you have a graceful out to leave. Perhaps he will give you valuable constructive criticism, which you can use to improve yourself. If you haven't already broached the topic of grad school with him, you may also want to use the opportunity to bring up your career plans and seek his guidance on grad school. Just be prepared for the possibility that he might not be the best person to write you a glowing LOR under these circumstances, and if I were you I'd think about alternatives no matter what. 

Hmm. Well, if your boss is giving you condescending talks, you've made a lot of mistakes, and your coworkers have a poor impression of you, what makes you think you would get a good letter of recommendation from the boss anyway? I don't say this to be mean - I just wonder whether that's a good reason to stay if the situation is as bad as you are describing.
Before you make any decisions, I think you should probably have an honest talk with your boss and, in as professional a manner as possible, explain that you're struggling and ask him what you could do to improve the situation. Surely the boss is aware that it's not going well. Perhaps he will say that the lab doesn't seem to be a good fit for you, in which case you have a graceful out to leave. Perhaps he will give you valuable constructive criticism, which you can use to improve yourself. If you haven't already broached the topic of grad school with him, you may also want to use the opportunity to bring up your career plans and seek his guidance on grad school. Just be prepared for the possibility that he might not be the best person to write you a glowing LOR under these circumstances, and if I were you I'd think about alternatives no matter what. 

Are you more interested in being a Curator or a Collection Management professional? What makes you drawn to a PhD versus an MA? 
To me, Curator versus Collection Manager are drastically different jobs/skill sets and have very different training requirements. Museum curation often requires a PhD, though there are still Assistant Curator positions out there for those with MAs in large museums, and you might find full curator jobs requiring only an MA at some smaller institutions. Of course, outside the museum circuit you don't need a specific degree to do gallery/independent curating, though the MA/PhD could be helpful.
On the other hand, in my experience collection managers have MAs or even just BAs. Tho I'm sure they exist, I've never met anyone in Collection Management with a PhD. Though you say you've hit the ceiling at your particular institution, are you sure that has to do with your level of education? Could you find opportunities to advance in CM at another museum?  
I know this doesn't exactly answer your question, but I just wanted to pose these thoughts because based on your description of your career goals, I'm not sure that you need/should get a PhD. Of course, if you want a PhD for other reasons that is totally understandable, but I'd be wary of getting a PhD for career advancement unless you're fairly sure that you need it for your career, which doesn't sound like the case based on the info you provided. And given that you don't sound like you have a particular Art Historical focus, an MA sounds like a better match of degree for you at the moment. 
If you ARE set on the PhD being the right degree for you (e.g. you're sure you want to be a museum curator/teach at the university level/can't imagine yourself doing anything but research and teach for the next 7-10 years of your life) then I'm sure that there is large degree of variance between the levels of competition at different schools. It's a hard thing to quantify, though, so you may just have to visit some different programs and get a sense of what the vibe at each place is. And, of course, you will need to hone your research focus before applying/to begin to narrow down the kinds of places you would want to apply. 
Good luck! 

It's hard to say what exactly got me in, but if I were going to try to help someone shooting for humanities PhD programs, what seemed to work for me was:
 
- I built relationships with professors during undergrad. This is the single biggest thing that I think helped me get into grad school. When I found a professor I liked, I tried to take multiple classes with them so that they could get to know my work and style. I did a summer abroad intensive with one prof. I was a paid reader for another prof. I stayed in touch with other professors and asked questions about their subjects when it was relevant. These professors got to know me and my work pretty well, and I'm sure my letters were much stronger for it. The power of this goes beyond letters though - these professors were instrumental in setting up job opportunities for me that led to paid work in my field, which I think was huge for my applications. 
 
- Write a thesis. At my undergrad, a thesis was not required, but could be arranged as an independent honors project. If I hadn't done one of these, I'd have been stuck without any writing samples. Granted, I don't think my thesis was great and it required a ton of reworking and editing before I used it as a writing sample. But it was hugely helpful that I had formulated an idea for it and done a lot of research for it as an undergrad student, and I think the fact that I did one when it wasn't required showed some commitment.
 
- Be succinct in your writing sample. I'm sure there are many schools of thought on this, but I kept mine straightforward and to the point. I talked about my area of interest, explained my prior experience and why it prepared me well for doctoral study, and discussed why the schools I was applying to (and the POI at each school) made sense for my goals. I figured committees don't have much time for each app, so I tried to keep my statement on point and free of superfluous info (no irrelevant stuff about my path, why I like my field, blah, blah, blah - I tried to frame my interests within the current trends of scholarship in my field).  
 
- GRE wise, I found the (free) Magoosh GRE vocab app to be good for memorizing dictionary definitions and giving me extra confidence on the verbal section. I did not do well on the math, but I think having a strong verbal score (96th percentile) at least kept me in the running. Obviously this advice is specific to humanities programs, which don't put much weight on math. I just knew I needed to do well on verbal, and I found that having a large arsenal of definitions memorized help me be confident on the test. 
 
- Avoid over-saturated topics/have slightly unusual interests. Obviously you can't really choose this if you just happen to love something popular... but if you're trying to decide to apply to study one topic versus another, and you don't feel strongly either way, you're probably more likely to get in studying the less popular one and be more likely to have something interesting and new to say about it. You're also probably more likely to get into a better program or work with a more senior scholar in the field if the field you choose is a little less popular. In my field, this means that you will probably have better luck getting into a top program if you're studying 13th century Japanese scroll paintings than Andy Warhol. Not saying you should choose your field based on this, but you might have an opportunity to stand out more if your interests tend toward a less trendy topic. 

Replicability/reproducibility is becoming more talked about in psychology, yes, but not more prestigious - at least in my experience. APS, especially, has spent a lot of time discussing what steps we should take in replicating research, like the registration of data you mentioned, spunky. But there's no reward in it, and that's the rub. Early career scholars need publications in order to get TT jobs and replications are difficult to publish and to convincingly talk about in job talks. Tenure-track scholars need publications for tenure, and the same issues come up there. And tenured scholars aren't going to be spending their time on replicating experiments. Some of them are still interested in promotion, and some of them have to fund significant portions of their salaries on grants, and the NIH and NSF aren't funding huge replication grants most of the time.
 
I think LaCour's story is an interesting entry in current rumbling conversations about academia and the need for reform in the field. I think LaCour lied because he's a lying liar, and the subsequent questions about his dissertation data, other papers he's published, and some awards and grants on his CV pretty much support that. But it does raise some questions about the pressures on young scholars, especially those at high-flying programs. I went to a top 10 program in my field and the pressure and expectation is very much on for you to get an elite R1 job just like the university you came from. It's so unrealistic and stupid - there aren't enough of those jobs to go around, and it's not like they really prepare you for that eventuality anyway. But it's also ridiculous! We hired 3 assistant professors in the time I was in my department, and I got to see the CVs of the finalists they invited to campus (we typically invited 5 instead of 3; don't know why). These people obviously never slept. As graduate students, postdocs, and assistant professors with less than two years of experience, they had 15-25 publications (that's a lot for my field at this early stage), grants, and teaching experience, plus awards. The one guy who had 10 pubs (which is still a lot for a grad student) had a first-authored publication in Science. But they all had some splashy, sexy area of research. None of them were doing replications of other people's work, or anything close.
 
Most people when confronted with the pressure wouldn't completely make up a study and fake some data, so LaCour's on his own. But when p = .06 means the difference between another first-authored publications and years of work wasted...yeah, I think a lot of people massage that data to get it down to p < .05 (which is generally the threshold for statistical significance, and by extension a publishable paper, in psychology). When you want the brass ring of a job at a top R1, or some new grant funding, or tenure - or all of those things - yeah, I think some shady things go down, and I think a large number of scientists probably do those shady things.
 
I don’t think researchers have a duty to verify the papers we cite. First of all, that’s an enormous undertaking - how could I ever? You have to trust that the majority of people are telling the truth (mostly) and that the journals have done their job in peer review. Even in peer review, reviewers aren’t paid - so it’s not like they have time to re-run study results. Journals have to take it on faith that authors are not making up their data and analyses from whole cloth, until we get to the point that we’re banking data on a regular basis. Collaborators are a different story, though. If you’re going to put your name on a paper, you should verify that the results in the paper are correct and valid. That’s why I have disdain for this famous Columbia professor who’s trying to distance himself from the whole thing and put the blame on LaCour. Yes, LaCour bears the most responsibility, but each author on a paper is responsible for the paper as a whole.
 
Would I turn in a fellow grad student? It depends on the extent of my knowledge and what they were doing. If I knew for a fact that they were making up data and I could prove it, and we worked for the same PI or they worked for a PI I felt comfortable with, then yes, I might say something. Otherwise…probably not.

Coming from the bench sciences, there's a lot of replication. 
 
It's not direct replication of the entirety of someone else's study, but there's a lot of procedural/comparative replication. 
 
If you're building off of (or comparing to) someone else's work, you would usually do a part (or all) of what they did, and then show why yours is better/worse. 
 
Same with synthetic work- you don't get credit for designing, say, a base molecule that someone else has already made, but there's a good chance a number of other people will make it on the way to something else, or to use for something else. 
 
It's not perfect, but errors do get quite frequently caught because of it- especially things that end up being environmental and not considered as a cause. There's a famous case of a synthesis that would only work with the tap water at one particular university- they happened to have copper in the pipes, which was leeching into the water. Once that was found, copper was added everywhere else in trace amounts, and then it was replicable. 
 
Biological work is harder to replicate, but molecular biology as a field is trying really hard to standardize- typing cell lines so direct comparisons can be run between different labs around the world, requiring (or strongly suggesting) profiles of cells used as well as typing data to ensure apples to apples in those comparisons.
 
Not all data gets replicated, and some stuff is pretty damn hard/impossible to replicate exactly, but the more "interesting" or groundbreaking work (like in LaCour's case that challenged all currently supported theories), you can be sure that dozens of groups around the world will try to duplicate your results within months of publication.

I assumed someone would have already started a thread about this, but since I don't see one -- can we just talk about the Michael LaCour falsified research debacle for a minute? Is anyone else as riveted and shocked by this case as I am? For anyone who may not have heard, this is the case I am referencing, though more and more details have come out: 
 
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/05/how-a-grad-student-uncovered-a-huge-fraud.html?mid=fb-share-scienceofus
 
In short, a star PhD student at UCLA, whose study was considered groundbreaking and published in Science, turns out to have falsified much of the research in pretty major ways - from making up hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money that never existed to beefing up his CV with nonexistent awards. 
 
This case raises so many questions for me. Why would someone falsify their research to this extent after investing so much time in their PhD? Didn't he know he'd get caught? On the other hand, are there many more like LaCour who haven't been caught, given how many people tried to talk the whistle-blower out of saying anything, even as his proof became undeniable? What is your duty as a researcher to verify the papers you cite and the research of collaborators? Would you turn in a fellow grad-student whose research methods were extremely suspect, in spite of warnings from mentors and colleagues that you couldn't gain from it so it would be safer to say nothing? 
 
Thoughts, anyone?

Well done to Dr. Green for falling on the sword and fairly gracefully taking responsibility for his lapse.
 
However, this is the part that haunts me the most:
 

I don't appreciate my ethics being called into question. I am aware (and compliant) of the rule to notify other programs to which you've been accepted as soon as you accept an offer, but if a school hasn't gotten back to me by now (or been in any contact since I submitted my app - no interview, no contact with POI, etc.) I assume I have not been accepted anyway. Correct me if I am mistaken and I'm happy to resolve the issue with a quick email... but let's not put this in grave moral terms. And I'm not sure why these responses are to me rather than Happy Little Pill or Kantekst?