green90

After being gone 5 hours, my housemate returns, asking if I finished my SOPs. "I hadn't even started when you left. I'm applying to 15 programs." "Yeah, so?" "So that's not enough time to even come up with a generalized final version, let alone modifying it to each school/POIs." "Oh, that's easy - you just go to your POI's webpage and copy and paste their research interests as your's in your SOP," said my housemate, who is completing an unfunded (money-mill) MA.

Definitely less hopeful, but I've heard of people getting waitlisted about this time or later, who were later admitted...

Has anyone been rejected from U of Minnesota from any program other than clinical/child clinical? And, yes, I did check the results.

And how many students per year from Wake apply to PhDs? Where do they apply? Where are they accepted?

A 100% record? How long has that program been around?

Yeah,it'd be difficult. I'm not sure impossible because I don't have your GRE scores, LORs, SOP, and CV in front of me. You'd really need to be strong in those areas to compensate.

Many Canadian universities (e.g. McGill, U of British Columbia, Toronto) have reputable programs that are on par with any US program. And, at many Canadian psych programs, you must have a master's to apply to the PhD - you're probably more likely to get through quicker at these schools. These Canadian universities are just as prestigious and great (i.e, produce great research) as American universities.

I see you're from Russia--if English isn't your first language, that could make the GRE more difficult. And I thought I read on some program webpages that they take such things into account (if they are aware of them). I could be wrong--I'm not too knowledgeable on international applicant processes!

Exactly my point for crapshoot! There are no gaureentees!

We agree more than disagree. A few things were not clearly communicated because I was being concise: 1) I said "...getting rejected from a school you SEEM overqualified for," (vs. ...school you ARE overqualified for). Which simply means, based on scores alone, holding everything else constant, you guess that your app will be competitive in that applicant pool. 2) I don't think there is a safety school, either. However, among the list of schools to which you're applying, you probably consider some more of a stretch than others (e.g. Yale vs. North Dakota State). Hence, the shorthand term "safety school," used to describe those schools you see as yielding a higher probability of admission (vs. guaranteed admission)--provided your research interests are equally compatible with the POI's from each school. 3) By crapshoot I do not mean arbitrary, but difficult to predict when and where you will be admitted. Sometimes the most unlikely of candidates will get into Some Really Big Deal School because his/her POI sees him/her as a good match. After you have crossed a certain minimal threshold for scores (to where you can reasonably assume your app won't be eliminated in the first round based on qualifications), you may think your interests are a perfect match for a certain POI, but how that POI actually perceives you, as far as a match, can be surprisingly different from what you anticipated--hence getting into schools you did not anticipate and being rejected quickly from ones you considered more plausible.

Lol! Though I didn't apply to Eastern Michigan -- that (being rejected from a school you seem overqualified for...just because it is clinical) happened to me! Literally, my safety school was the first to reject me! My qualifications were above and beyond them...a few weeks later I got an interview from a top program. I never believed what people said--that clinical admissions was a crapshoot--till then!

Haha lol...I get what you mean by people trying to be helpful but not getting it...My roommate is a public policy MA student. When he got home one day, he asked if I'd finished my SOPs. I reminded him that I was applying to 20 schools, hadn't started on any of them, and that he had only been gone five hours, which wasn't enough time to write up a working draft, finalize it, then craft it to each school and POI because the app would be tossed if my research interests weren't a match...to which he replied "That's easy. Go to the POI's webpage and copy and paste the research interests they have listed into your SOP. That's what I did."

No I haven't. Since the faculty overlap so much in that program (i.e. work in multiple departments), I'd imagine we would hear from them at about the same time.

Is anyone applying to U of Minnesota Personality, Individual Differences, & Behavioral Genetics?

I've already decided I will say that I was accepted into Some University, but my POI's grant funding was cut last minute so they're unable to fund me this year. People just don't get how competitive psychology doctoral admission is...even if you tell them. I'll be honest with close friends and family, though.