ginagirl

CorruptedInnocence, good for you for seeking help. I hope you find it useful to you and congrats on the acceptance! You should be proud (though I'm sure you are, just preoccupied )

I'll give the best comments I can given the formatting as it shows here. 1. I think 1/2" margins are fine 2. I don't think you need to say "attended for freshman year"- the dates are listed and that should be sufficient 3. You can write "01/2010-Present", but instead of "Candidate for...", you can write "Bachelors in ____ , expected May 2014" 4. Instead of "In progress of.." you can write "Currently..." (ie, "Currently examining how the properties...") 5. For the course projects, it wouldn't hurt to add the semester after each course name (ie, Chemical Engineering Lab I, Fall 2013) 6. General Microsoft Office as a skill is sufficient. These should address your specific issues- let me know if you don't understand any of my suggestions, and I certainly welcome anyone else to disagree with my suggestions. I can continue to look for general edits, as can anyone else posting!

If you have the time to commit to studying and feel you could improve, I would say go for it. If you think you did a lot of prepping already and don't know how much better you can do, just work on making sure the rest of your application is as strong as possible. I know people say sometimes GRE scores aren't that important but it personally made me feel better to take it a second time and know I did the best I could.

I was under the impression that there was a universal April deadline. Is this not true? Would the program say otherwise if that wasn't the case?

I don't have any personal input, but I know this was just recently discussed here: Seemed like a bunch of things to mull over. Best of luck!

Definitely! It's a big decision and having all the facts and time to digest them is the only thing you can do. Best of luck!

Compulsive email checking (and having a small heart attack with every email *ding*) and eating too many bagels. I feel like gradcafe is going to report me for refresh button overuse on the admissions results page. On a more serious note, I will start running again to release all the pent up nervous energy!

also there is a somewhat relevant discussion going on over here:

Crucial BBQ- I concur. One of my LOR writers has always said she will refuse to write a letter for someone she doesn't believe is well-suited for grad school, and I think that is the way it should be overall.

I'm unsure if Canis' reasoning is related to your specific field or not, but as my boss says "There is more than one way to skin a cat". If you love the program and are willing to deal with lack of funding to have a better shot at being admitted to their PhD, I don't see why you shouldn't go for it. Waiting until next year to try again is only beneficial if you know you will be able to improve your application. Otherwise you'll end up in the same spot. It's such an individual decision though, and is not one-size-fits-all, by any means.

Although I'm not in Psych programs, I have gotten similar news. At first I was discouraged, but now I see it as a second chance to prove myself to a great program. My suggestion is emailing the department, expressing your appreciation for the offer to the Masters program, and asking about statistics of Masters students reapplying for the PhD within the department (what percent of Masters students reapply within the department and how many are usually successful). Then you can decide what you want to do given what they say!

I'm also dealing with a bit of radio silence on programs I would have expected to hear from. I'm just trying to be patient for another week or so and then I will probably contact some of the programs to see where things are. It's only been 4 weeks since the deadline for some of my programs so I'm trying to believe it's a bit early still.

I can't necessarily speak for the reason behind the interview (mainly because every program is different) but chances are they are interested in you and are interested in getting to know you better OR they are trying to sell their program. I like to overprepare, personally, and would suggest reviewing the information about the department, why you feel you are a good fit, where your strengths/weaknesses lie, your preparation for the program, etc. As far as attire, it never hurts to email the department to ask. It's better to know what they expect than to be worried about what to wear and be uncomfortable when you arrive and realize you are under/overdressed. I would assume they are expecting business casual though, if you are hesitant to email them this close to the interview.

As I see it, they deal with this every year. Not everyone they give an offer to will accept right away, and I would venture to guess only a small fraction accept immediately. I know it feels weird from this side (and I may be in this situation too) but just remember they are used to this. The best thing you can do is maintain contact, ask questions, and let them know as soon as you have decided!

In my opinion, and if it were me, I feel that this is a solid, respectful thing to say to your current school of interest (if they are indeed asking for an immediate response from you). It would be crazy for them to revoke your offer simply because you want to make sure you understand all of your options. It sounds as if you are still very interested in the program and your POI, and they should respect you for wanting to make an informed decision. I think it would be fine to say something to the effect of "I feel that I want a bit more time to be sure this is the correct option for me", and not necessarily to mention you're waiting on a specific school's response. If you have any more questions about the current school of interest that you can ask your POI, that may further reinforce your interest. Also as a note, they are required to give you until Apr 15 (or is it the 1st?) to decide, so don't feel pressured or guilty about "misleading" them. Congrats!

How simple that is, and yet I didn't think of it. Thank you!

I have a general question about reapplying within a department for a PhD. Does receiving a masters from a program make you extremely likely to be allowed to continue to their PhD program? I am applying for mainly PhD programs as this is my end goal, but am getting a lot of my acceptances downgraded to only masters tracks. I am trying to consider if getting a masters acceptance at my top choice school would be preferable to attending another school in a PhD track right away. Thoughts? Does anyone have experience with this?