MissData

Great questions!
RE Interviews: Typically, what we've done for international students is to schedule Skype or video call meetings with the potential students. Usually who ever the student indicates they would like to work with reaches out to them if they'd like to interview them. I think everyone is looking for something different in interviews but mostly I think faculty are trying to understand research interests, work style (e.g., time management skills, degree of independence), and interpersonal fit (i.e., do you seem to get along?). I think one of the biggest mistakes is for potential students to present strong negative feelings about any type of activity or research topic. It's can be off-putting for the faculty to see such a strong negative response to something that you (likely) have little experience with. I think expressing an openness to a variety of topics and ideas is really important in the interview. 
 
RE Ohio State: I loved Ohio State, it is a really fantastic school, and unlike many other schools Psychology is treated very well on campus. The psych department has a lot more resources and nicer facilities in comparison to some other departments around the country. The Quant PIs work generally independently, but there is a lot of cross talk. We have a regular brownbag on Mondays, and the faculty present, the students present, and they bring in external speakers. That is a really great opportunity for people to get to know each other and a lot of collaborations start in that meeting. In terms of collaborations, Paul de Boeck and Mike Dekay are working together on some stuff (and they are kind of co-supervising a student who is working on that project), I know Paul and Jolynn work together on stuff, Jolynn is working with one of Trish's students on a project, Andrew is working on a project with a social student. So yeah, it's not everyone on their own, the community there is pretty great. And the students have a great culture that breeds collaboration. I worked on projects with other students outside of my lab at OSU, and that was really rewarding. There's also opportunity to work with people outside of quant. I attended the Judgement and Decision Making brownbags, and found great collaborators there. Honestly, I thought I would not like Columbus. I'm originally from Seattle, and the idea of being in the midwest was not super appealing. But I loved it there. It's a great place to be a grad student because there's a lot going on in the city (without it being overcrowded) and the everything is incredibly cheap. It is very comfortable living on the student salary in Columbus, so it's nice not to be constantly worrying about money. If you're interested in Quant and Mathematical psychology I would recommend checking out Trish Van Zandt, Brian Turner, Mark Pitt, Mike DeKay, and Jay Myung as potential PIs. 

I would say that the faculty are looking for the same things in their potential students, whether they are international or domestic.  It seems that the interview largely serves as a way of determining fit, that is, does your personality mesh with your potential advisor's personality?  Five+ years is a long time to work together, so you want to get along well.  And that goes both ways, so you are evaluating the school/program as much as they are evaluating you.  Otherwise,  interview days give you an opportunity to get to see the school and the program, so it is tricky for international students who don't get to see the campus or meet with graduate students, etc. What I've seen for international students is that they do a skype or phone interview with the advisor they want to work with.  Some schools might do it differently, but it's definitely a much abridged version of interview day.  I would imagine that it is much harder to make a decision about a place you haven't seen, so I would encourage you to reach out to graduate students and talk with them via email or skype once you get an interview.  Also, just as an FYI, for quant, domestic students are typically invited and the school pays for their travel and accommodations.  
This is a great question, don't feel like an idiot. I think the biggest pitfalls for interviews is not having strong responses for "why do you want a phd (in quant)?" and "why do you want to attend [program]?"  Those questions should be easy to answer, but some interviewees are caught off guard and it can look kinda bad.  Also be sure to have questions for the faculty.  Basically, you have to show that you're interested in the program and that you're also trying to gauge your fit with the program.  They usually want to extend offers to students who they think will accept. 
As far as faux pas (not sure plural for this)...one thing that occasionally comes up in psychology is applicants disclosing their own mental health struggles, either in personal statements or in interviews.  I think that there is a way to broach this topic in a way that is okay, but I would generally steer clear of that unless you are asking about certain accommodations or resources.  Otherwise it is the somewhat obvious things like don't say anything offensive or rude and try to seem confident without being arrogant.  I honestly can't think of many instances of students doing things that automatically hurt their chances for getting an offer an an interview.  

I agree 100% with MissData and xolxs, and in fact I had started writing a response almost identical to xolxs before I saw it posted.
 
My only addition is regarding research interests during the process of application, coming from a place where I had a very strong mathematical and statistical background, but no exposure whatsoever to the quant psych field or research.
Before applying to programs, I spent about 2-3 weeks reading through many programs' websites and professors' research interests, trying to understand the type of research that they did. Although at first it might seem overwhelming, after some time you start to see common topics coming up repeatedly, themes, and understanding the types of questions that people in this field are trying to answer. For instance, some people focus on methods related to the development of psychological/educational assessments (for instance, how to make sure that the assessments accurately measure what they are supposed to), methods for longitudinal data (for instance, how to identify groups of people that follow similar developmental trajectories, or how to deal with missing data which is common in longitudinal studies), methods for non-randomized research designs (for instance, how to compare the effect of an intervention on groups of people who are different to begin with). These are just some (and somewhat simplified) examples. Reading papers from the potential PIs can be very challenging (the papers are sometimes very technical and difficult to understand), but it gives you a better idea of the types of questions that they are trying to answer and what you would be doing if you entered the field. I think this is an important part of the application process, because it really challenges you to think about what you want to do. 
Like the others already mentioned, nobody expects you to show up to an interview with a research proposal, but it's important to start thinking of what types of questions you want to answer with your research (and if your research interests change once you start a program, that's fine as well; that's very common).

Hi Everyone! I'm a new faculty at UCLA in Quantitative Psychology. I graduated this summer (August 2018) with my PhD in Quantitative Psychology. I also got a Masters in Statistics along the way.  I applied for grad school a while back (started in Autumn 2014). When I applied I applied to 5 schools Ohio State, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill, Arizona State, University of British Columbia. There was a 6th school but I forget what it was. It was kind of a "back up" which I had been warned not to have, and I got into Ohio State before the application for the last school was due, so I decided not to submit there. I got interviews at 4/5 of the places I applied, and was accepted at 4/4 of the places I got interviews. 
My background when I was applying was in social psychology. I had worked in a social psychology lab, done my honors thesis in that lab, and stayed an extra year as a lab manager. That lab managing position gave me the opportunity to present some posters at conferences and get additional experience with data analysis. I majored in Psychology and minored in Math. 
I am happy to answer questions about my experience as a graduate student, applications, interviews, life as a grad students. I'm also willing to share my perspective from the faculty side of things. This position is very new to me, but I did have the opportunity to review applications last year and am familiar with the process from the faculty side. 
Our other panelists will be joining us on October 1st. I hope that we can get some questions posted over the weekend so that they have some material to cover when we get started on Monday!

In my experience people come in with differing experiences in quant, and so some have very defined research interests and some are not really sure at all. I had pretty defined research interests when I applied and then only really applied to work with people who did that thing. Alternatively, there was a person in my year who really didn't have a lot of exposure to quant but had a really strong math background and was very open about being unsure of his research interests. We both got in at our top schools, and I think have very similar careers ultimately. The important thing is that faculty see you as "trainable" so often times that either comes with clear resesarch interests or a skills background that makes it seem like you'll pick things up quickly. Even if you're not sure exactly what you're interested in, it's really good to be aware of the breadth of topics covered in quant. I would recommend picking up journals like Psychological Methods and Multivariate Behavior Research and trying to find papers you think are interesting. 
A little personal story that I'll share: When I was interviewing to grad school, I got invited to a school I applied to where I had a very specific person I wanted to work with. When I got off the plane one of the grad students picked me up. When we were driving around she asked who I wanted to work with, and when I said who it was she said "Oh well they're not taking students." I totally freaked out (internally) and felt like I had to take a 180 on my approach to interviewing. I couldn't figure out why they would have invited me if my potential PI wasn't taking students. So then I was trying to figure out who else I would want to work with there. When people asked me about my research interests during the interview I essentially said "Well I don't know that I'm sure exactly what I would like to do, because I've been really interested in everything I've been exposed to in quant. Like I haven't run into anything that I'm *not* interested, so by contrast it's hard to nail down what I *am* interested in." I think an answer like that alone would not be sufficient and would seem like you're avoiding the question, but they would always follow up and ask what I had been exposed to and I spent quite a bit of time talking about mediation/moderation, IRT, bayesian statistics, latent class analysis, generalizability theory, etc. Which made it clear that I at least knew some of the things people are working on it quant and wasn't just B.S.ing. 
 
RE GRE scores. My understanding is that often your scores have to just be over a threshold and past that I don't really know how useful they are (though sometimes they're used for university funding decisions). A 150 in verbal does seem pretty low, but it seems like you make up for it with the Quantitative score. You have to remember that you're not being compared to all Psychology students, you're really only going up against other Quant people. I couldn't find any statistics on Quant Psych GRE scores on average. I think if the rest of your application is strong, then you'll likely not have any issues, but if you're kind of in the middle ground then you may want to consider retaking the test. I think it will also really depend on the faculty you are applying to. I have a colleague who looks for people who are strong writers because they believe that it's easy to teach people about statistics but it's hard to teach people to write. Most of their graduate students were previously English majors or some variant of that. That faculty might be unlikely to consider a student with a 150 Verbal GRE score, whereas others might just focus on the Quant score. There's a lot of individual variability. 
One thing I will say. Compared to other areas, quant get relatively few applicants. So you are practically guaranteed for the faculty to look at your whole application, rather than relying on cutoffs and metrics to narrow down the field (cause it's already pretty narrow). So think about the whole picture, and if the verbal GRE score is your only major weakness, I'm sure you'll do quite well. 
 

Hello everyone,
  I am a quant psych student currently in my dissertation (last) year. When I applied to schools, I applied to 10 programs (among them were UCLA, UNC, ASU, Notre Dame, UVA, Missouri; a few others) and got into 9 of them.   My background when I was applying was both in psychology and math/stats. I had a MA in Psychology and a MS in math with concentration in stats, both from a relatively small university. At the time, my thesis project during my MS in math/stats was what best prepared me to understand the field (and it was very helpful during interviewing). For my thesis I was doing a small simulation study testing different ways to handle missing data. Other than that, when I applied, I had no publications, no knowledge of the PhD lifestyle, and I had never been to a conference.   I used this forum when I was applying to grad schools a few years ago, and I found it very helpful. More than anything it seems like there is very little information about what quantitative psychology is, and I had very little idea of what it was when I started considering entering this field. All I knew was that I liked math and psych, and this was a way of combining the two. Reading through GradCafe (especially reading responses from people who were in the field already) was very insightful, especially when they gave concrete examples of the types of projects that people worked with, the types of questions that they were trying to answer, the types of jobs that one could get after (in academia and industry), etc.   I'll be happy to answer any questions that I can regarding the field and what we do. My answers are based on my experience only, and do not reflect on my program or my mentors.

Hello, 
I am a third year graduate student at UNC.  I did my undergraduate degree at UNC in psychology and linguistics and it was there that I was lucky enough to be introduced to quantitative psychology.  I then worked for a few years before applying to phd programs.  I completed my MA in history quantitative and theoretical psychology at Simon Fraser University and then applied to schools again.  I applied to 5 programs and received 4 offers.  For the last year I have served as a pre-graduate school advisor and I have a strong interest in helping folks navigate through the application process.  
My interests in quant include measurement and analysis of longitudinal data. My substantive interests are relatively strong as well and include adolescent substance use and other topics in clinical psychology.  I work with applied researchers and find their work to be a source of inspiration, but keep in mind that not all quant students are as interested in the content of psychology.  I do not have a strong background in math and was worried at times that this would make it difficult for me to do meaningful work.   I've found that this concern about knowing enough math or stats is a common source of anxiety for applicants and students in quant.  While having a strong math and/or stats background is excellent preparation, my opinion is that you can absolutely be successful if you come to graduate school without it.  
As MathStat86 said, GradCafe was really helpful to me for learning more about quant and especially for connecting with other applicants.  I like the GradCafe because you can hear the opinions/experiences other people have had about graduate school and the application process in an unfiltered way. That being said, you have to weigh the advice appropriately and that caution should be applied to anything I say here.  I am only talking from my experience and observations and you may find your own experience to be quite different.  

Hi Everyone!
I wanted to take the opportunity to start a forum for students interested in Quantitative Psychology, particularly those considering applying to graduate school during Fall 2019. I hope this can be a place where students share and discuss their experiences applying, and currently enrolled students can impart some wisdom on the incoming class. I personally benefited quite a bit from using GradCafe when I was applying, so I want to make sure the practice carries forward!
Additionally, I wanted to say that we have a group of current graduate students and faculty who have committed to doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) October 1st - 7th. So each "panelist" is committing to logging on at least once a day and answering questions about quantitative psychology. Each of the panelists will introduce themselves providing as much detail as they feel comfortable with (Quant can be a small community and many of the panelists are current graduate students, so they may choose to remain anonymous). I assure you however that these panelists have been selected based on their previous experiences and expertise in quantitative psychology! Additionally, please understand that each of us are expressing our individual views and these views do not represent those of our universities, departments, or areas. 
From now til October 1st, I hope this forum can serve as a place of discussion and community to the incoming students in Quantitative Psychology!

Hi Everyone! I'm a new faculty at UCLA in Quantitative Psychology. I graduated this summer (August 2018) with my PhD in Quantitative Psychology. I also got a Masters in Statistics along the way.  I applied for grad school a while back (started in Autumn 2014). When I applied I applied to 5 schools Ohio State, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill, Arizona State, University of British Columbia. There was a 6th school but I forget what it was. It was kind of a "back up" which I had been warned not to have, and I got into Ohio State before the application for the last school was due, so I decided not to submit there. I got interviews at 4/5 of the places I applied, and was accepted at 4/4 of the places I got interviews. 
My background when I was applying was in social psychology. I had worked in a social psychology lab, done my honors thesis in that lab, and stayed an extra year as a lab manager. That lab managing position gave me the opportunity to present some posters at conferences and get additional experience with data analysis. I majored in Psychology and minored in Math. 
I am happy to answer questions about my experience as a graduate student, applications, interviews, life as a grad students. I'm also willing to share my perspective from the faculty side of things. This position is very new to me, but I did have the opportunity to review applications last year and am familiar with the process from the faculty side. 
Our other panelists will be joining us on October 1st. I hope that we can get some questions posted over the weekend so that they have some material to cover when we get started on Monday!

Hi Everyone! I'm a new faculty at UCLA in Quantitative Psychology. I graduated this summer (August 2018) with my PhD in Quantitative Psychology. I also got a Masters in Statistics along the way.  I applied for grad school a while back (started in Autumn 2014). When I applied I applied to 5 schools Ohio State, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill, Arizona State, University of British Columbia. There was a 6th school but I forget what it was. It was kind of a "back up" which I had been warned not to have, and I got into Ohio State before the application for the last school was due, so I decided not to submit there. I got interviews at 4/5 of the places I applied, and was accepted at 4/4 of the places I got interviews. 
My background when I was applying was in social psychology. I had worked in a social psychology lab, done my honors thesis in that lab, and stayed an extra year as a lab manager. That lab managing position gave me the opportunity to present some posters at conferences and get additional experience with data analysis. I majored in Psychology and minored in Math. 
I am happy to answer questions about my experience as a graduate student, applications, interviews, life as a grad students. I'm also willing to share my perspective from the faculty side of things. This position is very new to me, but I did have the opportunity to review applications last year and am familiar with the process from the faculty side. 
Our other panelists will be joining us on October 1st. I hope that we can get some questions posted over the weekend so that they have some material to cover when we get started on Monday!

Hi Everyone! I'm a new faculty at UCLA in Quantitative Psychology. I graduated this summer (August 2018) with my PhD in Quantitative Psychology. I also got a Masters in Statistics along the way.  I applied for grad school a while back (started in Autumn 2014). When I applied I applied to 5 schools Ohio State, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill, Arizona State, University of British Columbia. There was a 6th school but I forget what it was. It was kind of a "back up" which I had been warned not to have, and I got into Ohio State before the application for the last school was due, so I decided not to submit there. I got interviews at 4/5 of the places I applied, and was accepted at 4/4 of the places I got interviews. 
My background when I was applying was in social psychology. I had worked in a social psychology lab, done my honors thesis in that lab, and stayed an extra year as a lab manager. That lab managing position gave me the opportunity to present some posters at conferences and get additional experience with data analysis. I majored in Psychology and minored in Math. 
I am happy to answer questions about my experience as a graduate student, applications, interviews, life as a grad students. I'm also willing to share my perspective from the faculty side of things. This position is very new to me, but I did have the opportunity to review applications last year and am familiar with the process from the faculty side. 
Our other panelists will be joining us on October 1st. I hope that we can get some questions posted over the weekend so that they have some material to cover when we get started on Monday!

Hi Everyone! I'm a new faculty at UCLA in Quantitative Psychology. I graduated this summer (August 2018) with my PhD in Quantitative Psychology. I also got a Masters in Statistics along the way.  I applied for grad school a while back (started in Autumn 2014). When I applied I applied to 5 schools Ohio State, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill, Arizona State, University of British Columbia. There was a 6th school but I forget what it was. It was kind of a "back up" which I had been warned not to have, and I got into Ohio State before the application for the last school was due, so I decided not to submit there. I got interviews at 4/5 of the places I applied, and was accepted at 4/4 of the places I got interviews. 
My background when I was applying was in social psychology. I had worked in a social psychology lab, done my honors thesis in that lab, and stayed an extra year as a lab manager. That lab managing position gave me the opportunity to present some posters at conferences and get additional experience with data analysis. I majored in Psychology and minored in Math. 
I am happy to answer questions about my experience as a graduate student, applications, interviews, life as a grad students. I'm also willing to share my perspective from the faculty side of things. This position is very new to me, but I did have the opportunity to review applications last year and am familiar with the process from the faculty side. 
Our other panelists will be joining us on October 1st. I hope that we can get some questions posted over the weekend so that they have some material to cover when we get started on Monday!

6am EST on a Tuesday is pretty standard. Though, the government doing anything before they are expected to, very unstandard. We'll see which one wins out.

Sorry for the delay. Here's my answers to your questions. Please feel free to follow up. I'd also like to add that my case is just one, and I know people who've come from many different kinds of backgrounds and gotten into great programs.
 
Background:
I did my undergrad at the University of Washington. I did two years at a community college, and then transfered there my junior year. I got into the honors program in the psychology department, which pairs you with a faculty and you work in their lab for two years and do your own independent research project. I worked with a social faculty member there and did my thesis on goal congruity theory and it's applications in increasing women's participation in science, technology, engineering, and math. I completed a BS in psychology and minored in math. After I graduated I spent a year as the lab manager of the social lab that I worked in while I was an undergrad and collaborated on a few social and one quant project. I made a point to present posters at conferences like SPSP, and some undergraduate conferences.
 
GRE/GPA Scores:
Quant: 162
Verbal: 169
Writing: 5
GPA: 3.78
 
Deciding:
Going in, Ohio State and UCLA were my top two schools. There were multiple people at the schools that I was interested in working with and they are well regarded programs. The May before I interviewed, I gave a talk at UCLA and made a point to contact the professor I wanted to work with at UCLA and asked if we could meet. We met and got along great. I really like her approach to mentorship, and she has a good track record and her work is really interesting to me. The other two schools UNC and UBC were easy for me to say no to. The adviser at UBC was AMAZING, but their funding packages were not livable in Vancouver. All of their students were living with family in the area, which was not something I could do. UNC, though the program is amazing, paired me with an adviser I was not interested in working with, and I don't agree with their method of when you TA versus RA during your time there. I think if they had paired me with a different adviser I would have seriously considered it. The students there obviously loved it, and a lot of the faculty there are great and doing very well. Not to mention Chapel Hill is a really low cost of living but fun area.
In the end UCLA versus OSU came down to the adviser. I had applied for the NSFGRF (which I highly recommend everyone look into). When I didn't get it, I got a really short email from the prof at UCLA essentially saying "Too bad." But, my adviser at OSU sent me a long email noting how my experience this year would set me up well for trying again next year. He was so supportive when I felt so defeated, I knew that was how I wanted my relationship with my adviser to be. I am a person who needs support when I need it and distance most of the rest of the time. My adviser does that very well, and it made everything very easy. Additionally (and this wasn't THE deciding factor but I think it's important) my adviser at OSU nominated me for an incredibly competitive fellowship that gave me a much bigger stipend than the usual and a lot of reduced TA time, whereas the prof at UCLA nominated me for a Diversity Fellowship that was not as competitive and there were other options for what she could have nominated me for. It made me feel like my adviser at OSU had a lot of faith in me, whereas maybe not so much at UCLA. In the end I'm very happy with my decision, I don't feel like I burned any bridges, and I hope I get a chance to work at those other schools in the future. It's a tricky deicision and I highly recommend sitting on it for as long as you can. There is a date that you must respond by, but don't let anyone pressure you to answer before then.
 
Reaching Out:
Like I said above, I actually met with one of the professors before I applied. It was mostly luck that I was giving a talk at that school, but I definitely think that set me above and beyond. I emailed Dr. Hayes before applying, and he has since noted that he really only seriously considers the students who emailed him before. I also emailed my POI at UBC just to see if he was taking students. I didn't email UNC because I wasn't very invested in going there, but my mentality about it was that if I got in there it would make the offers more competitive from other schools. I emailed ASU, my POI said he was not taking students, but that the program as a whole was taking students (they didn't actually), so I wasn't particularly hopeful.
My general recommendation is to contact them before hand. Ask if they are taking students. Ask what papers they have out are most representative of their current pursuits. Make sure you're very polite, but also remember that they are looking for curious minds, so make sure to ask more than surface questions. You can always ask about details of the program that aren't available online. I asked most of my POIs if the programs were supportive of students pursuing a Masters of Statistics/Applied Statistics/Biostatistics because that was something I was interested in doing.
 
Hope this helps!

You'll love UW. I did my undergrad there and work in the psych department right now. I'm sad to be leaving, but they don't have the kind of quant program I've been looking for. Welcome to Seattle and the Husky family!

Well, this week is/will be full of milestones. I sent my first "I'm sorry I don't want to go to your school" emails, and received touching responses from both the director of the program and my POI. I got a really stellar fellowship at one of my top choices (thanks UCLA for having a janky system), and I just finished packing my bags from my last interview.
 
This whole process has been a little surreal. People told me it was going to be the best/worst 3 months of my life and they were kinda right.
 
Thanks everyone for being supportive and helpful with my questions, and I hope you all get acceptance letters from all the schools you want.

Well, this week is/will be full of milestones. I sent my first "I'm sorry I don't want to go to your school" emails, and received touching responses from both the director of the program and my POI. I got a really stellar fellowship at one of my top choices (thanks UCLA for having a janky system), and I just finished packing my bags from my last interview.
 
This whole process has been a little surreal. People told me it was going to be the best/worst 3 months of my life and they were kinda right.
 
Thanks everyone for being supportive and helpful with my questions, and I hope you all get acceptance letters from all the schools you want.

I heard from my POI at UCLA today and I've been soft accepted. I'm so happy I think I might explode a little.
(Quant department BTW)

I heard from my POI at UCLA today and I've been soft accepted. I'm so happy I think I might explode a little.
(Quant department BTW)

I heard from my POI at UCLA today and I've been soft accepted. I'm so happy I think I might explode a little.
(Quant department BTW)

Them: "So which one is your safety school?"
Me: "None of them are safety schools. They are all top programs and anyway, there's no such thing as a "safety" when you're applying to PhD programs in this field."

"So have you gotten accepted yet?" (when it is still December from my parents)
 
I mean seriously? I am stressed out already and you have to ask me that?

"Scared of getting a real job, huh?"

"Why are you applying there? Doesn't [insert name of completely random local/regional school] have a good program?"

"RELAX. You'll get in everywhere!"

My least favorite line ever