socialpsychg

I'm curious - has anyone NOT gotten an email yet? And if so, what do you think this means?

One way they account for differences between undergrad institutions is to use GRE performance (and Psych GRE performance) as a way of anchoring divergent evaluation standards between schools.

One person (originally on the waitlist) was accepted and is visiting in several weeks.

A metaphor may be apt here. Mentorship in social psychology is like working in a garden. At first, you'll work in your advisor's garden, tending to his plants. He'll help you figure out how to plant things just right, how to bring them to fruition, etc. After you've gained enough experience working with him, you'll go and start you own plot. To put this in more concrete terms. You get into graduate school, and you sign on to work with one of your advisor's projects (or one of his ideas). Over the course of your first year or two, you'll also develop your own ideas about what you want to do - most research ideas will be bad, so it may take time before you land on something worth pursuing. Some people start off with their own research ideas right away, while some begin later. It's usually the case that you'll start with at least one project directly from your advisor, though. Depending on how collaborative your dept is, greater or lesser amounts of swaying away from the main research interest is okay. I'm in a very collaborative department, and they're much more open here for me to pursue divergent interests than at other schools, where it's more often an 1 student:1 advisor model.

UVa has admitted 8 people, and all but one visited about three weeks ago. To my knowledge, none of them have made a decision (one way or another) yet. UVa is expecting an incoming class of 3-5. Priority is being given to the new faculty (Sophie Trawalter and Ben Converse).

Ah, my mistake. Now that I think about it, that was true for last year as well. When we visited, there were 2 accepts, 2 waitlisted when I visited. They could have switched to a full interview setup.

The h-index, e-index, and the article below may help (if you're in social psych). They're all estimators of citation impact (and the last one takes into account career stage as well). http://psp.sagepub.com/content/36/10/1283.full.pdf+html

The answer is: It depends. I work with an advisor who's put forth a controversial theory (with multiple adversarial theorists at odds with him). He welcomes challenges to the theory, and feels it's just part of good science. But, we've heard through the grapevine that students under other theoretical camps do not fare as well. A good way to ascertain which one a POI is would be to ask what current grad students are doing (or not doing) when visiting schools.

Penn State accepts straight up, no interviews. I believe their visiting weekend last year was one of the last, around the beginning or middle of March. Hopefully that gives you some sense of comfort.

To add on with anecdotal evidence, I know that Heilman invited three applicants to interview, and accepted none of them last year. A highly disproportionate number of applicants had come for the newest faculty member at the time (Jay Van Bevel).

Hi, first year grad student in social psych here. Just wanted to drop a message about things I've learned about the application process from the other side (that I didn't get from this site last year). I remember that the predominant focus when I was hanging around here was about individual difference factors - GPA, amount of research, etc. That's all important. But, I would say equally strong situational forces include fit, need, and priority. Research fit is fluid, and even established POIs may change interests over time. Need fluctuates with a POI's workload, and priority fluctuates depending on the need of other faculty in the dept. For example, beginning assistant professors are given MUCH higher priority from a much smaller pool of interested applicants than more established professors. Contacting POIs at the beginning of the application season can give you an estimate of these factors, but it's important to keep that in mind regardless. Things can change. Just because you may not have heard from a particular POI does not really reflect much on you. In addition, admissions do not necessarily work with clear goals in mind (1 student for Professor X, 2 for Y, etc.). For example, I know professor Z has not been able to accept any of his applicants. But if Professor X's one accept declines, than professor Z gets to accept his first choice (and Professor X does not get his second choice).

Hi, UVa grad student here. I just wanted to pop in and mention that Prospective Weekend just happened at UVa (across all areas) this weekend. Social psychology applicants were accepted, developmental applicants were accepted, clinical applicants were interviewing. I do not remember about the other areas (e.g., cognitive, quantitative), but I think they were accepted as well. Just because you were not immediately accepted does not mean you are not a waitlist or that you are not your potential advisor's first choice. Newer faculty were given higher priority than more established faculty. If you have specific questions about particular advisors (in social), just send me a PM. Good luck on the whole application process!

Agreed with the poster above me. I had top credentials when I was applying, and I had registered for the Psych GRE. However, I realized that due to the time crunch (classes, preparing grad school applications, NSF fellowship), I wouldn't have had time to study as much as I'd like to for the exam. I asked around within my program whether it would hurt my application if I didn't take it at all. The consensus there seemed to be that it could only hurt if I had a bad score, and wouldn't do anything if I had a good score. My impression was that the Psych GRE is most helpful for people who don't have strong psych backgrounds (showing that they know psych well), and is simply used to weed people with otherwise strong credentials out of the pool.

I started in the beginning of June, and I'm kind of the first incoming student in my area here. It's a little more daunting than starting normally, since there's no support group of other first-years yet to really get a grounding with. Ny not having started the stats sequence that first years go through yet, I'm also a neck deep in doing data analysis that I don't understand (i put myself on a project where the data was already collected). The more experienced grad students that are around (and for my lab, that's all of them) understand the situation, so they've been helpful in answering my (many) questions as well. Hopefully that helps!

I'm a fan of Zotero (a firefox addon) because it was made with the internet in mind (and it's free!).

I'd like to recommend the H.A.L.: http://www.timbuk2.com/tb2/products/backpacks/hal-backpack I have the smaller counterpart, but it works great.

Depends on the funding situation, and is usually on a case-by-case basis. Many grad students will work anyway in the summer, regardless if they're paid or not. Many psychologists, for example, rely on undergraduate samples - which dry up in the summer. I notice you've tagged yourself as developmental, so you'll probably avoid that pitfall. That's something you'd want to mention after you've been accepted or admitted. I'm sure most would be up to giving you something to do, especially if you're willing to work for free.

My approach in this kind of situation to take the route of moral relativism. My more conservative peers simply hold different values than I do, and that's completely okay. Ideologies are rigid, and often extremely resistant to change. In particular, this TED talk by psychologist Jon Haidt really helped me reconciliate the notion that similar people may hold completely opposing political views. While liberals are more concerned about fairness and reducing harm (and not notions of ingroup loyalty, adherence to authority, or purity), conservatives hold all five values more equally. Although I grant I'm still inclined to fight on issues where the other person may be misinformed (as in the rape case mentioned above), other issues I'll let slide - gay marriage, abortion, foreign policy, etc. (Note: I'm pretty tired, so I mostly skimmed the other replies. Hopefully I haven't said anything redundant, misinformed, etc.)

If you can, have at least 4 (or was it 5?) programs and their GRE codes on hand for when you take the GRE. They give you free score reports then, and if you squander them, you can't get them back. Definitely make sure you check the schools' codes carefully - most programs will want you to send the reports to the Graduate School, while others will want it sent directly to the Psychology Department.

Agreed.

Oh, agreed on that. However, it was mentioned that the two historical sociologists treat their students well - does that mean that their placement record has been good too (although the rest of the department may be worse off)? If you haven't already, an investigation into which specific advisors have had good placement records at Yale may bring more light to the situation.

Hello, I'm finishing up my undergrad at Rutgers, and my friend is at Temple's dental school right now. So at least, I hope to illuminate what living there would be like. The area of Temple does appear dangerous from what I've heard - just recently, some guy shot another guy right outside of my friend's building. The area is not exactly separate from the whole criminal element. Although Rutgers is more of a small city than a small college town, it's also fairly close to both Philly and NYC. I'd wager it'd probably take about 1.5-2 hours to get into Philly, and about the same to get into NYC via train. Although Temple would integrate you more for daily life in a city, you can make a weekend (or even a day trip) to Philly or NYC rather easily at Rutgers.

Honestly, you know your interests best. If you can't decide rationally (as you mentioned, all three have their pros and cons), go with your gut.

Social Psychology PhD at University of Virginia!

Ha, you're right - I pulled the trigger and picked program 1 (UVA). Although at first I harbored a grudge over being waitlisted, she had noted to me that it was purely budgetary (as others were in greater need of advisees than her). I think I gave her more thought than I should have because she was the advisor to three POIs I was thinking about applying for (and one I actually did apply for).