jordy

Me too! *LOVED* her. When did you email Sandra Murray? I contacted her in August and she said she wasn't sure, so I'm assuming it was after that. Guess Buffalo will be sending me a rejection letter any day now. Boo.

Wow, that is fast! Thanks for the data point - one is definitely better than none right now *resumes intense staring at phone*

So does anyone know how long this process generally takes once they start meeting? Assuming profs come into the meeting with their top picks in hand and knowing how many students they have funding for? (not that every program does that, I just know that some do). Anyway, information anyone?

Same! It's not just you. Every time I see Social/Personality Psychology on the results page I have an "AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" moment for the split second before I see it's not a program I applied to. Yeah...I'm a little wound up lately...

I don't have a wonderful score either. But I have other aspects of my application that are very strong, as I'm sure you do too, and I made informed choices about where to apply based on the overall perceived strength of my whole application. I wouldn't worry too much digits, because many programs consider all the information they have on you. Yes, there are ones that weed out everyone under a certain score, and I suppose I kind of understand if it's a department that gets 650 applicants. But there are also plenty that don't do this.

Most likely. Faculty in my undergrad department have been telling me that many departments consider percentile to be more important than the score itself. Since the majority of people do worse on verbal and better on quant, your score discrepancy probably isn't as big in percentile terms (I don't know the figures off the top of my head). At any rate, quant is more highly valued in psych anyway, and that's a good quant score so I'd think you're OK.

Haha. Yeah, it seems to me (and this is merely anecdotal of course) that quite a few people I know haven't heard of Canadian schools or didn't bother to look up there. That surprises me especially because UW is such a strong program these days with several famous researchers! Ooh, I forgot they ask for this! I was so happy to see that spot on the app. Add me to the bajillion other casualties of freshman year

A lot of mine seem to give out interview invites before SPSP for visit weekends in mid-Feb, so if I hear nothing by SPSP weekend I'm going to flip out!

I just think it's a ridiculous hoop to jump through (and also not merely because I didn't do as well as I would have liked). It's been shown that it is a rather weak predictor of success in graduate school, especially compared to other aspects of an application. My lackluster geometry skills don't speak to my ability to perform the kind of statistics that matter! Grrr I hate the GRE.

Ugh, I know. And while I'm glad to have found this site so I can at least plan a window for my freak-outs, sometimes I half-wish that I hadn't because I end up having the results page open in a tab all day and hitting refresh every 5 minutes! I think we all need a drink. Or a massage. Or a nice, long coma that can only be broken by a phone call from a POI offering admission to our favorite program. A girl can dream.

Ditto. I'm hoping my LORs paired with having made wise choices based on fit/previous research experience will land me somewhere, because my GPA isn't gonna to do it!

Ah, I see. A reliable source indeed! Thanks for sharing that; I feel much better knowing they are sensible about these kinds of things.

Yeah, he told me the same and I know Rholes is for sure taking someone. Well here's hoping there is indeed more than one spot between the two of them!

It does? I'm looking at my status page right now (and the department admissions information) for A&M and I don't see that anywhere. Can you be more specific? Also, on A&M's "check status" page, down where it verifies GRE scores, they manually recorded both my scores from the first time I took the test, even though this didn't include my higher quant score (I took it twice: the first time both Q&V scores were exactly the same, and the second time quant was higher and verbal was lower(!?!?) but the total was the same both times). So basically, at least from what I'm seeing, they don't appear to do this in thegrad school Hopefully your right though and that the psych department considers all scores!

Eastwick/Rholes. You?

Ohio State does this. They have a recruitment weekend in mid-February where accepted applicants come meet the faculty, tour the labs, etc. That's the only one I know. I realize this doesn't help you since you didn't apply there, but maybe it will help someone else. Congrats on Harvard!

I agree that it is up to you whether or not to share this information, though also that it could be uncomfortable in a certain context. I'm starting to think about how I would handle that if I wasn't exactly comfortable....I suppose something that could work in this case is to say something general and then steer the topic a little ("Oh, a range of programs, but mostly ones that also have a focus on [subtopic]", or something like that). Hmm, would that give them the hint that you aren't exactly comfortable with that question? I admit that even if I wasn't bothered by the question, I was a little surprised. It seems like a personal question...like "So, are you seeing other people?" (Luckily, things were going very well during my visit, and at the very least I was clear that I reciprocated the interest...)

Only one of mine asked this. Not entirely surprisingly, it was the Ivy. On another note, I went for an informal visit/interview at my favorite program (by invitation, following a great phone call with POI) and most people (except the POI) asked me this directly. They didn't seem to have an issue with it, and I didn't feel uncomfortable telling them. Now I'm not so naive to think there isn't a possibility that it could have a negative effect, but based on the tone and context of conversations, it seemed like a genuine curiosity rather than an attempt to weigh my value as an applicant. If it did have some practical purpose, it seemed much more likely that they wanted to know how "easy" it might be for them to get me to accept, rather than an assessment of what kind of student I am (though it could possibly convey how wise you were in your choices; you can make certain inferences about someone who blindly applies to only the top 10 programs versus someone with a well-thought out range based on research interests). After all, these programs have the same sufficient information about you to make their own decisions. Plus, I would think that if they like you, they are just as curious about who *you* would choose from among a range of offers, just as we want to know about the application pool. Just my thoughts.

OK, *whew!* I applied to work with Sandra Murray but not Mark Seery, so that puts me a little more at ease, at least for a while. Congrats though on your interview there and good luck! That's interesting/cool that they want to have a Skype interview- I saw that somewhere else on the forums too. Let us know how everything goes

Oh I hate stuff like this! I keep getting emails from "Favorite University Graduate School" only to open it to find a Happy Holidays message, a message flaunting the university's achievements and famous grads, or a "Things to do in XYZville" type site. I know they know exactly what they're doing by sending those!

I've had 3 nightmares in the past month in which the admissions committee at my favorite program is tearing my application apart and were insulted that I applied there because I suck that much.

Hey first post here from a long-time lurker Congrats on your interviews! Can I ask who you applied to work with at SUNY Buffalo? I applied there too and haven't heard anything.