Gepetto13

Well, there's always next year.

Well, finally got the rejection from Stony Brook. At least they didn't send it on April Fool's Day...

Has anyone heard from/about SUNY Stony Brook's Social program? I know they are sometimes late in their time-table for grad admissions, but aside from one person, I have heard/seen of no activity about them.

Just remember it's also your (or any student's) right to hold on to an offer until April 15th. They take their sweet time, we can take ours...

Could the people who applied to Oxford PM me?

So then when writing a personal statement for a quant program, one should focus on researching statistical topics? Or would it be good enough to state that experience at work has lead one to become fascinated with methodology and statistical methods for psychology research? And to want to learn those methods and, perhaps, improve upon them?

Well, many stipends are around 20k a year or less. So for graduate school, you have to tough it out. After that, there are opportunities other than academia depending on interests. I personally know several PhD's in psych (social, cognitive, clinical, and quant) who don't work as professors and, frankly, make substantially more than they would as faculty. And they are happy! Their main jobs are in the research domain, but without the worry of getting tenure (though you never enjoy the benefits of a tenured professorship.

It depends on what it is you want to do with your life. Most people end up doing a PhD because it's a field they love and genuinely want to be expert in, regardless of money. There are bad times during it, as well as many high points…and you don't necessarily have to end up in an academic position once you graduate. If you've gone to a decent program and have done well, plenty of companies need honest to goodness researchers that have actual skills. (Trust me, I've seen some people for home regression is advanced statistics…and this is in the professional world). 2% is very low admission…that's pretty much what clinical programs have (or used to have). Other areas are better, but remember 2% is per department - not overall. If you apply to 10 or 15 schools, your own personal probability of being admitted somewhere is not 2% (provided you are honest and truly qualified to gain admission). My sense is that quant psych programs have the best chances to get in (as well as finding work) as there are few of them and nobody wants to do it. But that's lot of math.

Well that's good to know. I did take Calc I and II, though that was years ago. And, I've taken graduate level psych-stats and research methods courses. So maybe I'd be OK…. But in a program like this, can you do a dissertation (or most of your research) on substantive interest areas where you apply advanced stats/methods? Or do you have to come up with new/novel methods?

I guess the question is can someone who has taken a couple of statistics classes before and has an analytical mind/background actually get into such a program?

I noticed someone posted an acceptance for Oxford - Experimental Psych. Whoever you are, could you please PM me? I'd like to ask details of the applications process and funding. Thanks!

Well that's better than nothing! Worse comes to worse and you have to apply next time, your POI will remember you.

Didn't think of that...that's actually not a silly question. One of them may not be writing the strongest letter (while still not a bad one).

13 posters? That's a lot. A publication would obviously help, though you may be applying to programs where the research fit isn't that great? Do you have anyone on the "inside" somewhere? A friend? A friend of your advisor?

That sounds awesome! It's my first time to CA but won't be doing much (if any) traveling. Though I do plan on seeing/talking to people I know at SPSP, etc.

Yeah, I agree with others. I know it's hard to not be upset by it, but many good people get rejected across the board (I was last year, and may well be again this year, but I also am limiting myself geographically). SPSP is a good opportunity to get your foot in the door with the grad students of POI's - maybe even put together some collaboration on a study. (I can guarantee almost no other applicant is shrewd enough to do that...so you'd have a leg up). Also, sometimes it's hard to know what POI's are currently working on because what's listed online lags a bit, and publications take a year or two from start to finish. So seeing what their students are doing gives you an idea into their current interests. You can also talk to some of them yourself if they are there and you have a genuine question for them. And if you are presenting a poster at SPSP, all the better - talk yourself and your research up and it's possible you'll be remembered if you stay in touch with interested parties.

Yes, waiting is the worst part...by far.

This thread seems to have fallen into silence...any updates from anyone? Anyone going to SPSP later this month?

For those of you who are ambitious and applied there, the word on the street is that Columbia U has sent out all invites for all areas of psych (regular psych, not clinical/counseling, etc).

I used to be afraid of Stats, too, but now am over it. In fact, I do professional research for a living right now. R is tough, but SPSS isn't so bad. SAS is still the best if you can get a hold of it. The key to all these things is understanding (or visualizing) what it is you need to do. A good teacher/mentor will take a lot of anxiety out of the process because they will actually explain things clearly, and several times. Then, once you get all these things, it's a piece of cake. The harder/more complicated techniques can be intimidating, though (e.g. ordinal logistic regression, mixed models, etc). But even those can be mastered.

There might be something to it, but there's really no way to verify. But I can tell you (from experience and faculty admitting it) that if you apply to clinical programs, just being male makes you stand out as the vast majority of applicants these days are women. It doesn't give you a huge push as you still need to meet all the other requirements (gpa, gre, good letters, research ideas, etc). So you can't be unqualified and still get in.

Exactly. My advisor said that the more stats you know, the more interesting questions you can ask...because you can collect data in multiple different ways and be able to effectively analyze it.

Check this out: http://www.apa.org/research/tools/quantitative/ I'm applying for social this time around but if no luck, next time I'm doing a combination of social and quant programs.

I think quantitative psych is an excellent idea! My undergrad advisor had a quant psych degree and, i think, it's probably the least popular program to apply for. So potentially less competition (although your quantitative skills really need to be up to snuff). Plus, you can pretty much do research in any area of psychology as you'd really be a methodologist/statistical person and can work within any theoretical framework you like.