Gepetto13

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.

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?  

I just heard from my POI from ASU today. She scheduled me for a phone interview and an in person meeting at SPSP. She also said that due to funding issues, she doesn't know if she will be taking students for next fall though. While this is all informal, I figured I should share the news in case that it is useful to some. 

I still think one thing to consider is that you're only applying to very competitive tier 1 research schools - perhaps there's improvement to be had with scores, LORs, or whatever, but I think you should consider applying to a few tier 2 research schools next time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Exactly.  The reality is that a large part of this is who know you, and who they know. Merit comes into play, of course, but it's not just merit.  Plus, different programs/professors will not interview/admit candidates for very questionable reasons that have nothing to do with any objective criteria. It's not exactly peachy in academia...

I think the problem is that many more people are applying and professors need some way to distinguish applicants.  At top programs, it's a combination of pubs, recommendations, personal statement (fit with interests) and then grades and everything else.
 
When you're being funded, I think departments want proof that you can produce something for them - hence the pubs.  It used to be that you didn't need any pubs to get in, but now that's only true for lower tier PsyD programs (where you pay tuition) or clinically oriented PhD programs (where you pay some tuition; not the top tier clinical PhD programs). 
 
It's kind of sad, isn't it?  That you basically have to have no life as an undergrad (so you can kill yourself doing research) to get into grad school in psych.  But to be able to truly understand psychology - and come up with good research ideas - you need to have some sort of life experience and understanding of what goes on in the real world.

This depends, though by and large the interview means you are on the very short list.  Treat all interviews as if it's up in the air, but don't get too nervous.  Be yourself.