eucalyptus

Chances are they'll ask you about what research you want to do and what kinds of questions you're interested in, and then they'll tell you about whatever aspects of their own research they think you might find interesting. So when you're talking about your research interests and experience, you want to frame it in a way that they might find interesting, which is where knowing their general field/interests ahead of time is helpful. In my case, if I was talking to a languagey person, I'd frame my interests in terms of that. Anyone who studied animals would get a mention of my chimp work, so we could talk about that. And if there was someone with whom I really could not see any connection, I would just tell them about my research anyway and more often than not, they'd tell me something about their own work that, regardless of whether it was relevant to my stuff, was super interesting. A lot of profs (particularly older ones) have very broad interests and will be able to tell you neat things or ask you insightful questions from a different perspective than the ones you've considered, so just be ready to talk about your work and think about new exciting things! Also, it doesn't hurt to have a list of generic questions to fall back on in case you run out of things to talk about.

I went to 4 interviews last year and from what I could tell, it seemed like the acceptance rate at all 4 was around 50% of the interviewees.

I'm a first-year PhD student currently so I went through all the interview craziness last year. I was really surprised by how much experience everyone I interviewed with had! I'd done some smallish research projects in undergrad, but nothing related to the field I'm in now and nothing impressive at all. I then spent two years in the UK doing postgrad research (I was in a Masters program, but I never handed in my thesis). I thought I'd kind of taken the long road to grad school but almost everyone else I interviewed with at four schools had a full-time RA or lab manager position for at least a year, or a Masters degree. Many had more than a year full-time - in addition to an Honors thesis and whatever undergraduate research they'd done. I would say maybe 10% of the interviewees were still in undergrad. I wish someone had told me this years ago! I came out of undergrad feeling terrible that I hadn't gotten into any of the prestigious American programs I'd applied to, and I had no idea that full-time RA positions were common in the least - we didn't have any at my undergrad school. Also, while I agree that fit is incredibly important, I did find that you don't need to have amazing fit between your prior research experience and your POI's interests, but rather between your stated future research plans and your POI's interests. I'm working on a very different project now than I did in the UK, and have never really done anything like this before (i.e. I do infant research now and had previously never tested anyone younger than 5). I just happened to have become intrigued by something that my advisor recently became very interested in too - she hasn't published anything on the topic yet, so I had no idea she even cared about this until another professor mentioned it when I was preparing my applications. And in terms of measuring how good your research experience is, I didn't get my Masters degree and also didn't publish anything from my work there. However, my advisor (and other profs I interviewed with last year) were impressed by the content of the research anyway - they seemed to like that I'd run a whole bunch of cohesive studies all trying to get at one fairly interesting question.

In my department, you wouldn't necessarily be in - it depends on whether the prof in question is allowed to take a new student this year, which depends on how many other profs want to take new students and the relative sizes of their labs. So, good sign but not definitive.

I completely agree with this! Applications were pretty nerve-wracking; I'd say the hardest part was clarifying what exactly I wanted to research and finding the best profs to apply to - it was a very iterative process for me. Next in difficulty was preparing for all the phone calls and interviews. Waiting wasn't too bad because I already knew that a couple schools were interested in me by mid-December and I started getting invites to interview in early January. And once I'd nailed down my topic and convinced some profs to like me, the actual applications weren't too bad at all. And finally, deciding where to go and moving were both pretty fun! My PhD program itself is way, way harder than all of that though. I'm still working on getting the right balance between classes and research, and that's only going to get harder once I actually start running studies...

Even profs have submitted manuscripts on their CVs, so it's definitely okay to include them. However, don't mentioned where it's submitted (since it might not get accepted there, and then you'll submit it somewhere else). Usually it's just Author, A.B., Author, C.D., & Author, E.F. (submitted). Title title title.

Instead of listing your extensive reading in the field to show that you're well prepared, consider using it to frame questions that you want to explore in your grad studies. Nobody really cares if you've merely read things, they want to know that you can synthesize what you've read into something interesting. Presumably your interests are situated in the context of some of these things you've read, so show how those readings have informed your research questions or hypotheses. You'll probably end up only talking about a handful of readings or researchers in this way, but that's okay - it's assumed that you've read other things too. Besides, a long list of things you've read only demonstrates that you're dedicated to your area, not that you're good at it!

I also scored in the 99th percentile and wasn't a true psych major (cognitive science). I'd never taken any courses in social/personality/clinical/developmental when I took the test, but I found that most of the material on those subjects at least had been covered at a rudimentary level in my intro psych class, and a rudimentary understanding was all that was required. I borrowed a prep book from a friend (I forget which one) and spent two weeks going over that, reading bits of my intro psych textbook on anything that was unclear. The prep book I used seemed to do a good job of letting you know what would be on the test, even if it didn't explain everything amazingly well (it was better for jogging my memory on things I had already learned than explaining totally new things). I also found that some areas of psych were higher yielding than others - for example, even though I didn't have any background in social psych, it's easy to learn and covered extensively on the subject test. On the other hand, learning brain areas and other neuropsych takes me forever, and isn't covered on many questions anyway. You can actually do really well on the psych GRE even if you guess on a lot of questions, since it's graded comparatively and apparently nobody knows everything.

In my department, external fellowships take the place of internal funding, with up to a $4000 incentive bonus depending on the fellowship amount. Getting external funding also releases you from TA-ing obligations (the internal funding is structured so you get free/fellowship money for years 1, 2, and 5 and TA for years 3 and 4). If you choose to TA on top of an external fellowship and there are TA positions available, the TA pay is extra (about $14000 per semester). If you win more than one major fellowship, you generally have to pick one of them, or at least wiggle the timing so you're not holding more than one at once (this would probably mean giving up the first year funding from one fellowship in your "dream situation").

My best friend in grade 3 had an invented last name: New (as in, "we're going to give you a new last name!"). Eight-year-old me thought it was really awesome, although I did accidentally call her mom "Mrs New" when I first met her. I plan on keeping my last name, because I'll probably have publications by then and my boyfriend's last name isn't any cooler than mine (if it was, I would probably take it). Our kids can have his last name, and the occasional "Mrs HisLastName" won't bother me... years of having my first name mispronounced never got on my nerves, so I doubt this will.

That was pretty much my experience. All the professors I interviewed with asked me where else I'd applied (or, usually, who I'd applied to work with). They were interested essentially to see if the list made sense and was cohesive with regards to my stated research interests, and to know who their competition was (i.e. one of the responses I got was "damn, they're definitely going to accept you and then you'll go there instead!"). I didn't have any problem answering this question on applications or face to face.

I'm currently being co-advised and am in two fairly big labs (7-10 grad students each + post-docs). I have a 45-minute weekly meeting with each of my advisors, and a 1.5 hour weekly lab meeting for each lab. I was concerned at the beginning that, as a first year PhD student, I would be at the bottom of the list for my advisors' time, but the reality is that they realize that new students need the most guidance, so I'm actually at the top. The 45 minute meetings are definitely enough for me - we have time for a progress update, asking a handful of questions, and usually talking through parts of the most interesting paper I've read in the previous week (I usually send it to my advisor a few days in advance so she can read it too). When I have small/practical/non-theoretical questions in between, I usually send them over email and get a quick response. That being said, my Masters supervisor only had 2-3 grad students and he was terrible at finding time to meet with us. I requested a biweekly 30-minute meeting and he straight up refused, saying he didn't have time. I don't think that the number of students a professor has correlates with the time that they're able to spend on you - some profs are good at working with students, so they take on a lot, while others are just not good mentors.

I'm not in clinical, but here's my data point. Last winter, I went to 4 interview weekends at great schools, and I was really surprised at just how few of my fellow interviewees were still in undergrad. I would say at least 80% of the people who were at the interviews had some sort of experience after undergrad - usually paid RA/lab manager positions, occasionally Masters degrees. There was some variation amongst schools though; some departments seem to prefer students with more experience and who are a little older, while others are more welcoming to bright eyed young'uns. It's something you could probably gauge by looking at CVs of current grad students (or asking the current grads / admissions person yourself), but either way I wouldn't let it stop you from applying to a school you're really, really interested in. Just know that you might not get in on your first try and have a backup plan in mind!

If you have questions about Harvard or decide to apply, feel free to PM me (I'm there right now).

Now that I go back and look at it, you're right that I was unnecessarily harsh. Throwaway wasn't the right word - what I meant was that those generically nice letters that say "this student is super smart and wrote a great essay for my class!" are unexceptional. Most students applying to grad school can get those, and in fact most DO use them for at least one of their letters. It's possible to get a substantive letter from a teacher, but it's almost always from a small seminar class or independent study or something like that. I don't really know anything about how admissions committees work, but based on the fact that almost all students have the generic-nice letters, I'm guessing that they just earn you a checkmark - "got a letter that said good things". It's like the "got a reasonably good GRE score" checkmark - you need to have it, but it doesn't really add to your application. This is totally, fully conjecture though. As a sidenote, I applied with two totally generic-nice letters (a prof I'd done only a couple months of research with and my supervisor at work), and one properly substantive letter from my Masters advisor, and that was apparently enough to get me into a handful of great programs.