FinallyAccepted

hiring freeze

Well then for that amount, I wish someone would provide me better feedback for why I wasn't accepted. My application is not obviously terrible, so I wish $75-100 would merit an actual e-mail, rather than a mass mailing. Sorry. Rant done.

Can I ask (I've never gotten a great answer), but what exactly do application fees fund? Is it really used to pay people to look through applications? Is it really used to offset the cost of travel to interview weekends for those invited? Even the schools without interview weekends have pricey app fees, so it can't be that. I'm just curious because after 2 years of applying (20 schools total) x 3 transcripts sent for each school that needed official transcripts x GRE scores for each school (minus the 3 that saved my scores from last year), it really adds up. I know the app fee is the only thing that goes to the school, but that's generally the most expensive part. Anyone have good insight?

spring awakening

Psycho killer

I didn't read letters, but know my LOR writers would have really done me a service with what they wrote. Last cycle, one asked for my #1 POI so she could call them on the phone. This cycle, one of the other LOR writers sent an unsolicited e-mail to a POI at the school she got her PhD from, though she didn't know the guy. If they're willing to do that, I'd imagine they'd write me good letters from the get go, but would have loved to know exactly what they put.

I can't speak to Sociology, but it seems like in Psychology, the questions haven't been asked in a way to stump the interviewee. You could always try to refresh your sociology knowledge by looking at a sociology textbook. (In the sociology forum, does it seem like that's generally what people have asked about during interviews?) Focus on your strengths. If they're interviewing you, they must have found something interesting about your application, knowing your undergrad is not in sociology.

Depends on your program and depends on your school. Schools may help you foot the bill for an in-person interview, and some may not. Hopefully they would be understanding about the difficulty of purchasing international tickets if they don't help you pay for it. Have you already been invited? They should provide that kind of info when they invite you.

University of Washington social psych has been sending out invites the past 24 hours. So I come home and have a missed call from an unknown number in Washington.... Washington, DC. *sigh*

YES, it seems to be really dragging. So my husband watches the Results Search now, too. So I'll get random e-mails throughout the day about how many clinical and how few social results are posted. At least I'm not in this alone, right?

Oh I don't think it was meant to be, either. I was just saying that this thread might still be helpful for the experimental folks since not many social, cognitive, developmental, etc. interviews were posted on that link. When I said "us" I referred to experimental folks, not the readers of the topic. It would still be helpful for the clinical and counseling applicants.

That would be really helpful for Clinical people, but Experimental people don't really seem to post there, so not much info for us unfortunately. All non-clinical psych at Oklahoma State: 2/6-2/8

Ghost town

The silence is all fine and great, but it's the silence when everyone else is hearing something that CAN be problematic. Many programs haven't said a peep yet, but if a program you applied to has already sent out all of their invites to a program's interview weekend, you can probably assume that you're not on a short list. So you can't judge based on the university or other social psych programs. You can only really compare to other people in the same program with the same POI. So yes, the silence is due to the reviewing process (for the most part).

I agree completely. The fact that the letter is already late with no correction in the foreseeable future makes me think you should look for another writer. If he/she comes through, then no harm done, but if not, you don't want to be without one of your required letters. Being short a letter that causes your application not to be considered seems worse than a late letter from a person who may not know you as well. I would also double check with the schools specifically, and ask how long after the deadline they will accept a late letter. If you can afford to wait, fine. If not, you need to start looking asap.

That could definitely be a way of doing it, too.

Poster with Social Psych Interview from University of Washington: I'd very much appreciate if you PMed me your POI. Thanks very much.

When I posted my result in December, it applied to all experimental applicants, which is what I said in the comments section, but I could easily have put my POI if it had been relevant. POIs knowing that you posted you have an interview with them would be something to think about, if it would matter to them and they're searching GradCafe. But in terms of looking up stuff you've said, I don't think your results search posts are tied to your account. You don't even have to log in to post results. I was wondering if there was anything obvious that I was missing about doing that. Then we (hopefully not "we" in that I will get in this year, but "we" as the collective group applying for psychology graduate schools) could in the future, potentially have years of data when looking through the results search. Not just that interviews were given, but that POI-a tends to request at the end of December, whereas POI-b in the same department waits until mid-January, making all of those applicants freak out. Let's keep thinking of reasons why it might or might not work and start a new tradition if it does. I felt this would have been so helpful last year when I applied the first time.

Stranger danger

We probably wouldn't even need this thread/topic if people included POI on the Results Search page "comments" section, and then it would still be anonymous for people who wanted it to be. Hmm... Is there a reason why people WOULDN'T want to include POI on the Results Search itself? Maybe as a group we should try to do that if we're comfortable (and yes, as a student of social psychology, I know how pointless it might be to put out an all-call requesting this to the group; bystander effect, anyone?). It seems like it would resolve a lot of confusion, no? Or am I just coming off as a know-it-all?...

Truth zone

You might post this question in the Computer Science forum since there might be more people familiar with your question and how financial aid works for the specific types of programs you're applying for. for the programs I'm applying for, everyone expects to be funded, so you need to get perspective from those more familiar with YOUR program type. But if you NEED the scholarship, and couldn't attend without it, what's the harm in saying you need it? You wouldn't want to be accepted for a program you couldn't attend for financial reasons. If you DON'T need it, then I'm not sure, and that's where you might get advice from others in your field.

You could alwas use the results search to look for the programs and schools you're interested in to see what the GPA and GRE scores were (by clicking on red diamond) for those who got interviews or were accepted. It could give you an idea of how similar you are in terms of numbers. Some university websites also have average stats (for GPA and GRE) of admitted students so you could compare with that as well.

Acceptance rate