socialpsychg

Yeah, I'm aware of at least one developmentalist who's doing related work to what I'm interested in. But Program 1 has around 9-10 faculty, and I can say I'm interested in doing research with basically all of them. I've been heavily leaning to Program 1 really hard - practically verbally committing, even. But I'm having trouble pulling the trigger - the grass is always greener on the other side, perhaps? I guess a better question for my situation would have been: What steps should I do to be certain on my choice? I figured putting it down some pros/cons on text might help, and it has, but there's still this uncertainty that I guess most of us face. So maybe I can't be certain - and I should just commit. I had a period of 1-2 weeks where I was set on Program 2, but my recent visit has really plunked me down in Program 1. Alright, new question! Should I withdraw my waitlists? I'm kind of curious to not do either and see if I get accepted (and then decline). I'm not particularly worried about screwing someone over or wasting people's time, as I'm always tied to email on my cell phone or computer.

I'm currently deciding between two choices. I feel heavily slanted toward the first, but I feel I don't have enough information to make a firm decision. 1. The first is top-ranked in my field, and I felt I had great research fits with both my POI and other faculty in the area when I visited. Additionally, the program has a highly collaborative environment, so that I'd be able to work with multiple well-known faculty (and consequently, get multiple good LORs in the future). 2. The other one, however, has a POI that's more well-known in my field, but the social area at her institution is...not so good. There's only 3 faculty in the social psych area - one may be denied tenure soon, and the other has a very bad reputation as an advisor. Thus, collaboration would be much less likely. There is also no contingency plan if something falls through with POI 2. I'm also less familiar with her work, as much of my research background has focused on the stuff in POI 1's subfield. In contrast, her work has been much more generalist and broad - so I've often heard of her work, but haven't read through it as much. Lastly, I haven't had enough contact with her to form an impression. Despite being her top choice, I've been waitlisted. Although she had planned to fly me over to visit in late March, the visit was canceled when the prospect of my acceptance became dimmer. I have also tried setting up a phone call since then, but she's been unresponsive (or forgetful). I've heard great things about her advising, and she's had a more established record of placement (which may be attributable to her later stage in her career). Looking at their H-indexes (a rough measure of research impact and productivity) shows mixed results. Although POI 2 has a H-index about 50% higher, re-calculating it so that it only counts work since the start of POI 1's career shows a different story. In that case, POI 1 has a slightly higher h-index. In short, I know that I'll have a good future at Program 1. But I don't feel as if I have enough information on Program 2 (if they choose to accept me) to make a rational decision. In this situation, I don't know if it will be possible to - especially since I haven't visited the campus and decided for myself. Even if I do end up talking to POI 2 and really clicking with her, I don't know if a 30m-1hr discussion can rightfully compare to a weekend visit + phone calls.

I'm fairly certain the top 5 Ed Psych Program would be better placement. Even if you're in the top 30 or 40 in social psych, placement into a research university doesn't seem that assured.

I would start a dialogue with his current students to see what the work expectations are like exactly, etc. Ask how they handle it, what happens when they don't live up to his expectations, etc.

Agreed. Although intuitively I don't think rejecting is too bad if you're not re-applying next year. Try to be purposely vague, and hope the person doesn't inquire or dig too deeply.

Ouch MrHippo - Your ratings make it look like you were set!

Does anyone know the % of applicants who get it on their first (second, etc.) application, and/or the relative % success of people who apply as undergrads, 1st years, 2nd years, etc.? I'm trying to do some post-hoc rationalization, and stats would quell (or aggravate!) my current state of melancholy.

Despite knowing that I didn't put in as much work as I should have (compared to my grad school apps), I'm still a little disappointed that I didn't even get an HM. Anyone else feel similar?

I don't know your relationship with your recommender, but I don't think the prof would mind if you explained the situation. After all, the letter is written - s/he just has to re-submit it, right? If their institution email address no longer works, perhaps try contacting the dept secretary - she might be able to track the prof down for you.

Agreed - I didn't have any other obligations in the summer, so I studied about 1-2 hours a day for about a month and a half. In the last week before the exam, I studied 8-12+ hrs a day. Your GRE will be looked at alongside your GPA - so I think studying excessively is good.

Looks good to me.

I very little to contribute about Comparative Lit, but I took one course (short fiction) at *PM sent to OP* as a first-semester freshman. An international PhD student taught it, and her English was indecipherable and she was incredibly disorganized. Independent of subject matter, it was one of the worst-taught classes I've taken at UNIVERSITY. What does this mean in terms of picking a program? Probably very little. But perhaps you should investigate the number of international students at UNIVERSITY (if you would rather have less foreign peers). I personally felt that my instructor was ill-prepared (in terms of both how to teach and in having a clear curriculum) for teaching undergraduates, and you might want to investigate if my situation was an isolated case, etc.

I'm sure they would prefer you told them. Just say you've accepted an offer at another institution, and that you'd like to withdraw your name from consideration. That way, if you ended up getting accepted, they won't waste a day - a couple days to learn about your situation then.

I've heard at least at some programs, they've switched to a rolling accept system. As accepting more than you can afford can lead to a large cohort (and no money to pay for them), they'll send out initial offers, see how that pans out, then send more offers from there.

I have never heard that. Even a cursory review of faculty and grad student CVs will show that is not the case (speaking from a social psych perspective).

I actually did the opposite of the "I always knew what I wanted to do" intro. My intro began with a disclaimer of sorts, proclaiming that my enthusiasm for social research was not produced by any single cause. It then went on to introduce how my interests were gained from the accumulation of research and coursework I've done over the years. Judging from my success so far, I don't think that's the worst way to go about it. However, my credentials/LORs may have offset this intro if it was actually a bad way. Also, reading that post just seemed horribly depressing, for ways I can't particularly articulate. Perhaps it's the sense of lowliness us budding researchers really are in the grand scale of things.

Isnt' Peace and Violence a subsection of the Social Psych program? I got phone interviewed in January in Social Psych, and was rejected around the end of February. Also, I have heard over the forums that several POIs have told prospectives that the budget was really small this year for new students. In fact, I believe I even read that they weren't taking anybody (although I have trouble believing that personally). If you search around the forums, you might find the posts I'm talking about. I think most of them are in the big Social Psychology topic.

I've told my parents that I have a better understanding of the field and career trajectories than them, and they've (mostly) deferred to my decisions (although they still push me to go to school closer to home). Have you tried that argument?

And if so, who was your POI?

Have you tried making a list of pros and cons for each school? Sounds kinda obvious, but it helped me map out my preferences and inclinations better. In your situation though, I would definitely not re-apply.

Honestly, this is a question that you're better off figuring on your own. You know the procs and cons better than us, and you'll have to judge yourself. Based purely off how positively you've described both schools though, I would pick School 2.

30-45 minutes can be manageable - it depends on how much more expensive (and convenient) getting an apartment may be.

Thanks for the finger-crossing! It turns out my suspicions were correct - UVA is currently thinning down a shortlist of 12 down to 3 (acceptances going out in the next 1-2 weeks). And I'm one of them!

My opinion is that you express your strong aversion to having another LDR. You're not unfairly pressuring him all - the psychological harm of doing long distance again is too much. It's not like you're making him drop down to some no-name school - as you said, it's the top ranked in the field. You need to confront him about it, as your career choices are just as important as his. I disagree that his "just in case something happened" reason was evidently not the only reason he applied to that program. As it's shown here - he ended up liking it so much that he would be willing to put up with another LDR for it. I wouldn't call it a big red flag in terms of commitment, necessarily - I was in a similar situation as him this year. I applied to a program were my girlfriend would be given no grad school options - If this gives you any insight into why he might have applied (and is now tempted to go), here were my reasons: 1.) Just in case something happened between us (but not necessarily because I was not as committed; it was for pragmatism's sake - if the GF didn't get into any program, etc.) 2.) It was one of the better fitting programs, and it was very prestigious 3.) More applications = more options I'd like to think your boyfriend was in a similar frame of mind, except the fit of the Chicago program turned out to be much better than he had originally thought.

You might want to cut out the identifying information from your post.