VulpesZerda

I've traveled to 48/50 states - and yes Alaska and Hawaii are the two missing, hopefully not for long. So amazing to see this beautiful country's national parks and historical sites. I could talk about this to no end, so I'll leave it at that Other than the US, I've been to Canada a few times, and Costa Rica once. Couldn't recommend it more, so gorgeous! My friends and I went to all different corners of the country over 10 days and it was incredible. I've never lived anywhere outside of my hometown! Unless you count my attempt at dorm life for two semesters. You know, gotta get that "college experience". Or not

Thanks! Unfortunately I'm attending a pretty expensive school for undergrad so finances are a huge factor in my grad school choices. PhD is still my top choice, but I'd feel strange not applying to something as a back up. So I suppose I will look into well-funded/cheap programs. I know there is a MPH at a state school in the next city over from where I live, but I don't think the program focus is what I'm looking for. Would have been a nice plan to live at home and save some money, oh well! Thanks again.

My main goal is to get into a psychology PhD program to study health behavior promotion/disease prevention. I've been thinking about applying to MPH programs that have behavioral science tracks as well, but since I come from psychology, I don't know much about the funding/financial burden of MPH programs. I know that most psychology master's aren't very well-funded. What about MPH? About the same, better, maybe worse? Of course I know this varies from program to program, but I'm just curious about what people here have experienced just to get me started. Thanks!

Thanks for the insight! I do have that list done, fortunately. 12 solid programs/POIs. My summer program has GRE classes two nights per week so I should probably study more on top of that I'd imagine.

Thank you!! That's funny you say that because I already started a little. I just watched a talk he did on his most recent research. After my finals are over I will do some reading. Thanks again!

Good news that I wanted to share - today I was accepted to one of these programs. I guess I was giving up too early! I'm very excited to go from a random liberal arts college to a prestigious university and see the differences. Any advice on how to prepare? I leave in June :-)

Thank you for that link. Although being a professor would be the obvious career choice, I plan to do applied research, and am hoping there are some other possibilities to explore. We will have to see how it goes. A LDR sounds fine to me, to be honest. As long as he is on the same page as me commitment-wise, I don't see it being detrimental. We don't see each other as often as most couples we know as it is while living 10 minutes apart (2x per week).

Good points, thanks again. I suppose more than anything this situation will just motivate me to try extra hard to get into that top-of-my-list program that is 1.5 hours away. If that happened, the problem would more or less go away! :-)

Thanks for the replies! I would assume career prospects will be good in our area...lots and lots of colleges that I could potentially teach at one day (too bad none of them have a PhD for me, lol). And I think it would be nice to live here post-graduation to be close to my family, too. I think moving with me for grad school is definitely one of the better options. I'd get to see him frequently, and would go to whatever school I want. He just thinks that's an extremely unreasonable request, given that his career dreams are more along the lines of moving up the ladder in one company, aka never quitting his job. So, looks like it's either going to be a LDR, or one of us altering our career goals. Unfortunately it's not fair to choose who gets to have theirs stay in tact. We're so happy in our relationship that I don't really see breaking up as one of the likely scenarios, but I suppose no one wants to think about that. Thanks for your insight! That's very nice of him! I made the assumption that my SO would do that...but I guess he doesn't want to. That makes me look like the bad guy for leaving him behind, though. Although he has known for quite some time that I would be applying to graduate school. I talk about it constantly. That's awesome advice and really makes me feel better. Even though there are certain programs that I really want to apply to, maybe my side of the compromise should be considering his input and altering my list. I think I would have tried to go about this in the way you did, by seeing if he was interested in certain locations, but unfortunately, our home town seems to be the only place. And there is simply no research match in the entire state that I live in. So I'm not sure where he is going to "draw the line". Thanks again!

Personal situation...hoping this is an okay place to ask about it. No one in my real life knows what to tell me! Right now I'm narrowing down my selection of programs for 2015 admission (PhDs). Some of my good matches are pretty far away, and some are a distance I am happy with (1.5 hours). I'm worried that my potential one acceptance could be at the program that is geographically furthest, which would set me up for a six year LDR. My SO is not interested in moving...I think he's scared to leave behind his tiny family and his friends. Would it be stupid of me to decide where I apply based on another person's input? I don't want to miss an opportunity to get in. I value my career and relationship equally. I can't seem to get the words out of my mouth when my advisor asks me about certain programs. I want to say "oh, no, great match, but too far away for the SO" - I just feel like he would give me "that look" because I'm young. My SO and I have discussed our future together, but we are very young. I wonder if 22 is too young to expect someone to drop everything and move across the country with me. We have been together for nearly five years, though. Plus, my mom is begging me not to go and that's just making it all worse. I'm looking to see if anyone has been in the situation?

Anyone ever see the reality show Chrisley Knows Best? Definite emphasis on the "guilty" there. It's soo bad but I can never look away!

This was me, too. Same exact things. Skipped class a lot, especially Spanish. And when I did go to that class, I would start trouble because my teacher was crazy and I knew we would end up wasting the whole period going back and forth. One time my friends and I looked up her address on whitepages during class, then showed her a google satellite image of her house LOL she had no idea that doing this was possible and told us her husband had a gun! I also had an outside internship senior year which gave me freedom to sleep in until second period often (we only had 4 periods). Not a nerd. Just never challenged. I'm glad I had fun in high school though, because I think I got it "out of my system". Now that I'm in undergrad prepping for grad school, I am a completely different student. I take everything very seriously and I think it will pay off. I think it would have been a waste of my energy to stress out about high school work, cause it reallllly didn't matter. Despite my antics, I got into every college I applied to, so it all worked out!

This is exactly what I study! Of course there are many factors that play a role here. But I like to approach it from a social angle, so thinking about things like social influence, peer pressure, attitudes/beliefs about the behavior. Adolescents are particularly interesting to me because their frontal cortex isn't developed so they have all these crazy impulses. I like the Prototype Willingness Model. I think about behaviors such as: going into a tanning booth, texting and driving, smoking, and even flossing your teeth. As far as my unrelated interests, I have always loved star-gazing and have gotten much better at it lately. So now that I'm pretty good with constellations and planets, I'm digging a little deeper into astronomy and bought some cool books. Lots of it goes way over my head, of course. My mom thought I was going to be a marine biologist. I have always loved animals, especially those of the sea. I'm still an undergrad and am lucky to be in an amazing course right now that's all about life in the sea and current environmental issues related to the sea. Environmental issues are very important to me and as a psych major I always think about how we can get people to care about the environment more?! Let's see...then there's the birds. I am often called a "bird nerd" because of my bird-watching obsession. My favorite aspect of this hobby is learning bird calls/songs. Just love it! And to tie all of these things together, I love photography. So I (try to) take photos of the moon/sky (astrophotography) and of the birds, too!

Well that's an exciting idea! Thanks, and yes hopefully other people have thoughts on this. I'm just hesitant because it's getting quite close to summer. I know a lot of professors that I have great fit with--they're the ones I'm sending my grad school apps to later this year. So maybe I shouldn't bother them? I'm always afraid of coming off as annoying instead of eager with these things.

Thanks for the replies! That makes me feel better. I guess I just didn't realize how competitive REUs were - I had never really heard of them before my junior year. Ah, makes sense. I had a hard time finding a perfect research fit, but figured it wouldn't matter too much...I'm willing to cross into other areas! Well, that's actually the reason I applied to these things. Many of them said that they want to take students who don't go to large research universities and therefore lack opportunities. I attend a very small liberal arts college--barely any research going on. All the experience I have is a result of me driving into the city and volunteering in labs of two teaching hospitals (both of an Ivy league school, at least that's going for me lol). I thought I was a good candidate just because I really don't know what it's like to work in a real university research lab.

Did anyone complete one of these research programs during one of their undergrad summers? Or, has anyone who's on an adcom ever come across such experiences on CVs? I've been able to find threads on StudentDoctor discussing SURFs, but none on here (I like it better here ). I am asking just because I applied to 16 of these this year as a junior-->senior, through various channels such as the CIC and Leadership Alliance, and I'm currently sitting with 13 rejections and 3 still deciding. Crazy competitive, and super depressing. My school won't fund any summer research and I was so focused on the SURF apps that I failed to apply to any outside grants. I really got my hopes of for these summer programs, and spent months working on the apps!! I'm just frustrated and disappointed and wanted to vent/see if anyone has ever been in my shoes. Thanks

I have both of those! I got the Insider's Guide my freshman year and am glad I did. I want to get a more recent version of the Graduate Guide whenever that comes out with this cycle's data. I've been told I could get it online, but I prefer to attack it with sticky notes haha.

Yes, there are basically two psych labs here. One is experimental and the other is clinical. I've been helping out in the experimental lab on and off as needed since fall 2012. Not much comes out of it but two grad students listed me as authors on posters. I am collecting my data for my senior thesis in this lab as well. With my two external experiences, I have gained skills such as data management, interviewing, and neurocognitive testing. They're affiliated with a university (an excellent one!) but they're at completely offsite locations. It's really hard for me to find experience at my school so I think I'm lucky that I found these labs! Thanks for your help. I basically rely on gradcafe to find out what I need to do since no one at my school ever applies to grad school lol

Okay, that's helpful, thanks! My university is a very tiny teaching school, so there's not much name recognition. Hoping that doesn't hurt my chances too much... I actually am applying to health psych programs but I doubt any of his work will be recognized within my area because he does mostly basic research. Thanks again!

Thanks for the reply!

I'm trying to decide who my LORs writers will be for this fall. I am applying to PhD programs for Social Psychology. I have two professors in mind, but there are only four full-time psychology faculty at my college, so my third will come from an external research experience. My first research experience was of high interest to me and the PI teaches at a school I am applying to (in the psychiatry department). This position ended in January. I did a lot for them, and enjoyed it. Then, an affiliated lab needed a new research student, so I moved to this next position... ...with a very well-known endocrinologist. Random, I know. The work I'm helping him with has nothing to do with my research interests, but he is an internationally recognized expert in his area. I've been told by the fellows I work with that he can call a medical school and demand they accept someone. I'm not applying to medical school and this sounds like an exaggeration, but I'm trying to get across just how big this guy is. Something tells me it would be a bad idea not to ask him, but then again, I don't know how an endocrinologist can help me with my psych applications. I'm not sure which of these two potential LORs would benefit me more. Any input?

Upon browsing program information today I've read a lot of statements about the possibility of enrolling as a non-degree student in the PhD programs. This always comes with the disclaimer that doing so will not guarantee any future acceptance to the degree program. One of my favorite professors found her way into her PhD program by doing this. She had her heart set on the program that rejected her. So she started taking classes and the faculty were blown away by her. Anyone else ever hear of success/have success in doing this? I'm just thinking about different back-up plans I may need to use because of the low acceptance rates.

Reading through this thread is making me feel better about a possible LDR in my future. Whether or not it has to happen will just depend on the job market, I suppose. I find it interesting how many posters here are dating/married to other PhD candidates! My boyfriend is not the academic type at all and stopped after an associate's degree. He sure knows a lot more about psych research than the average IT guy thanks to me

Hi all, I've been lurking around these forums throughout my undergrad (I will be applying for 2015) and finally decided to join and ask a question. There are two applied social psych programs that I'm very interested in applying to. In both programs, it appears that many of the faculty whom I share research interests with are working off of the same grant, so all of their interests are more or less the same. Most of the articles I've read are collaborations between multiple POIs and one of their students. I love all of their work (about 4 profs at one program and 3 at another). My question is, how do I choose who I want to work with when I apply? I don't want to offend anyone by listing them as a second choice. I also want to make sure I actually have a chance of being accepted, so I don't want to rule out any of the POIs when I apply. Thanks for any input!