swisnieski

Are you sure social psych is the most competitive subfield? I was under the impression clinical was. Although given how few of the psych departments I've looked at have respectably-sized social psych components (almost everything these days is cognitive), I could see how it would come a close second. I'm still in the application process but I'm now anticipating across-the-board rejections, partly because I didn't address fit very well and partly because I cut back the number of schools I applied to (from 9 schools to 5, leaving pretty much solely top-tier schools) because of too little money. But I'm not thinking it's all bad. I would actually like to just live and work for a year before rushing off to grad school. Although I'll probably still be devastated for a year.

Worth it? Yes. But then again, doing the right thing is never easy.

Sense and Sensibility. Not for pleasure (although I am enjoying it) but because it's required reading for the British Lit class I'm taking starting next week, and I'd like to get a head-start on the reading. Hoping to have this finished before the semester starts so I can read Moll Flanders in a week or two.

Meeting on January 4th??? Wow -- kind of makes me wish I had applied there after all, just so I'd get at least one response soon! Good luck eucalyptus!

I dreamt I was invited to my dream school (Carnegie Mellon) along with a dozen or so other applicants to interview. When I got there, all the students have large binders (90+ pages) containing biographies, their CV's, research samples, etc. I was the only one who didn't have one because I never bothered to read the material they sent along, which apparently included instructions for how to prepare for the interview. Then we all sat through a mini-lecture. The professor (the one who I want to be my advisor) called on me to answer a question about volcanoes, of all damn things; I didn't even hear what the question was because I was frantically trying to draft 90 pages worth of material for my notebook. So I just said I didn't know. She asked me why and I said I felt "frazzled." Oh god, real-life Sean is embarrassed just to relate the story of dream Sean's misfortune.

All of my applications required the same input. In my case I only took the GRE once so it was obvious what to put, but in your case, I'd have put the most recent set of scores since it would be the most relevant. It doesn't matter much though, since they expect that many of their grad school applicants will retake the GREs.

Psychometrics is what you want. Unfortunately it is a heavily statistics-based field; the development and validation of psychometric tests is pretty much all statistics (item-response theory, factor analysis, etc.). Pretty much any field will give you a background in psychometrics so focusing on personality psychology, if you're specifically interested in measuring personality traits, is probably the best way for you to go. As far as I know there are no separately subfields for psychometrics; they're essential to pretty much all forms of psychology.

I think starting with a masters is the right idea. It does sound like what you're interested in is personality psychology, although really, most programs don't recognize a distinction between personality and social psychology. If you're interested particularly in testing, you may pursue a doctorate at a school with a strong program in psychometrics and statistical psychology, although this focuses more on the mathematics of how scales are developed then on the actual, practical application of those developments. Industrial/organizational psych is basically psychology applied in the workplace. An I/O program isn't necessarily the best fit for you because you don't seem to want to limit yourself to workplace testing. Still, it's one avenue to explore. I recommend you look up more information about I/O programs in schools of interest because I imagine it varies widely from school to school, like any psych program.

24, on the cusp of 25. I'll be applying straight out of undergrad is the sad thing -- I started primary education a year late and it took me six years to get my BA.

I think you should be fine. Your GREs are probably the closest thing to a weakness in your application and even they aren't that bad, they're just not exceptional (I'd say they're above average). Publications ALWAYS look great in applications; even top-tier schools frequently don't except students to have publications when they apply. Provided you have a decent SOP and good letters, I'm sure you'll do fine.

Good point; I wouldn't be at all surprised. But I wouldn't go so far as to call it a scam, cheesthunder. Maybe an accounting gimmick. People with below a 1000 on the GRE's probably aren't exactly surprised to get their rejection letters from Harvard.

Which matters more for doctoral programs in psychology -- verbal GRE scores or quantitative GRE scores? Obviously they're both important, but I had always thought the latter was given more weight on account of the emphasis on the quantitative analysis of data in graduate level work. But lately I've seen some evidence that some schools tend to look more closely at verbal scores. For instance, Northwestern University's web site lists only an average Verbal score (no reference is made to quant scores). Likewise, at least two of the professors at grad schools I've contacted re: admissions have told me that, while they don't have a cut-off or anything of the sort, they do prefer "strong verbal scores" (again no mention made of quant scores). I suppose this makes all kinds of sense -- the ability to communicate clearly in writing is even more important than well-executed data analysis in psych research. This is a source of concern for me, since I'm applying mostly to top 20 programs and my verbal score is markedly higher than my quant score in terms of percentile.

Agreed 100%. I've said elsewhere I think grad schools are reluctant to tip their hands with such stats for fear of discouraging good candidates with one or two glaring weaknesses (as in low GRE scores despite a strong GPA, lots of research experience, great LORs, etc.), but if some base measure of quality is used to assess first-round rejections, it should definitely be public knowledge, if only to save themselves the time of weeding out such candidates and the candidates themselves the humiliation.

Hmm. I guess it depends on the school? All the schools I applied to suggested I should take the GREs no more than 2-3 months before the deadline for applications. Admittedly all the schools I'm applying to are pretty top-tier. Still, as has been mentioned, with the upcoming changes to the GRE, I don't see much point in taking them now.

I would take it the year you apply. If you're applying in fall of 2011 to start in fall of 2012, take them in the early fall of 2011. I took mine on September 1, with deadlines this month. Schools aren't particularly interested in knowing how well you did on a test a year ago -- they want up-to-date info.

Lack of access to a computer would disadvantage people in other ways beside GRE test prep -- like, for instance, keeping them from writing an SOP or using online applications. Perhaps these requirements should be abolished as well?

Hell, I almost turned in my SOP to Maryland with references to "Carnegie Mellon." Thankfully I managed to catch the mistake before turning it in, but man, that woulda' been embarrasing.

Got an automated e-mail recently from my safety-net school saying I had not uploaded a supplemental form on my application and asking me to please do so as soon as possible. Logging back into the application, I realize I had, indeed, not uploaded it -- I had glanced right over the requirement since it was a solid block of text with instructions I had assumed were directed entirely at applicants to the clinical program. I quickly filled out the form and went to attach it to the application... Of course, I couldn't. The deadline was 17 days ago. My application is locked. No word from the lady in charge of the grad program on how to proceed. I e-mailed her three days ago. Oy vey!

Poster above knows his/her grammar!

Possibly I'm just a lazy beta-male Gen Y slacker but I'm not actually worried/nervous about grad school admissions at all, at least not yet. Really the only thing that worries me is that I'm not as worried as most of the people on this forum. Makes me think I maybe didn't put enough effort into my SOPs and such, which I'll regret later. Oh well.

Ah, so you lose the stipend but they give you kind of a kickback for saving them money?

Does anyone know if grad schools that pay living stipends for full-time graduate students continue to pay those stipends even if the student is already receiving one from an outside source (e.g., the NSF GRFP, Javitz, etc.)? I ask because I'm looking at how easily I'll be able to live on a grad school stipend. I'm hoping to get into Carnegie Mellon with full funding, which would give me a stipend of around $1800-$1900. But let's say I get the NSF GRFP on top of that, which would pay me $2500 a month and the school $10,500 a year. That would mean I'd be making as much as $4400 a month, or over $50,000 a year before taxes. For a grad student, that seems outrageous, which is why I wonder if the school would even continue to pay me their stipend and instead to decide to let me live off the NSF's. Does anyone have experience with this?

Nothing in the psychological literature supports the idea that intelligence (understand in the raw cognitive ability sense of the word) is "equally distributed." But that's a story for a different forum, esp. since there is little evidence that the GRE measures intelligence, anyway. I don't see that SES has much of an impact on GRE's, either. If you can afford to get a bachelors, paying for the GREs and associated test prep stuff is probably not out of reach. Prep courses are unnecessary (and in my estimation useless); I did pretty well, I think, using just two books I bought for a total of maybe $30. I don't think you guys appreciate the extent to which a bad admissions decision will hurt a school. Graduate students are a large investment of time and money; when they TA, they are representatives of the school. If a student is revealed to be a poor investment there is no way for the school to recover that money. That's why it's important for them to get their decision right, for which the maximum amount of information is required. If a minor investment of $200 or so gives them that information, give it to them, considering the value of the education you'd have them give you basically for free.

Let's hope it's not just Stanford that's open-minded about low GPAs, eh?

I don't think there's much harm in not having a writing sample available, esp. since the department doesn't appear to require it. My contact at Carnegie Mellon (whose program is only slightly less prestigious than Yale's) told me they don't even expect their incoming grad students to have publications.