iopsych

It depends on the school and when they can get all the faculty together. I think the majority make their first round decisions in late January or early February. However, you could go a pretty long if you are on the waitlist. There were a couple of schools I did not hear from until after April 16th and one I never heard from period.

from what I understand and I have heard from people at Teacher's college that is not a traditional I/O program either. They are more focused on the O and Social Psychology side of I/O. I am sure you are already aware of this, but I just thought I would let you know they seem to place a lot less emphasis on the I side. Although I do not know how they deal with the statistical and Quant side. I will tell you this however, having a strong background in Quant. and Psychometrics really makes interviewers ears perk up, from the two jobs I have applied to thus far.

Most of those you named don't have I/O programs, or have smaller ones. The only school that has a big I/O program that you mentioned was Maryland. GW has a smaller program, that last I heard was still very focused on the O side. Here is a list of the top 10ish schools from my POV, in no particular order. Now others may see it differently, but from what I have seen these are the schools that are the most active research wise and I would say that as long as you get a 1200+ and around a 700 in Quant., you should be fine applying to these schools. USF George Mason Michigan State Penn State University of Minnesota UCF University of Maryland Bowling Green Texas A&M Portland State University Illinois

Paige could answer the big ten question better than I could, but from what I hear some of them are fairly balanced while others tend to push harder for academia. I am fairly certain Minnesota is very balanced as the founders of PDI are from Minnesota and from the people I know at Penn State, I hear that is also a balanced program. Brand matters to a certain extent, but is not extremely important. If companies are aware of your school's reputation for producing students that will always help. I was thinking along similar lines when I was applying, be near a big city, better chance of internships. But what I failed to realize is that with a PhD you aren't competing for jobs and internships on a local level, instead you are on a national level. It is different from law school where you should go to school in the city you want to live in. Firms and organizations hire people nationally. Most schools really won't encourage an internship until you are ABD anyway, so getting an internship in another city when you are finished with all your classes and comps really wouldn't hinder your progress unless you need your advisor breathing down your neck. I can't think of any schools that have direct ties to organizations (even the one's in big cities). PhD programs tend to separate themselves from practice more than master's programs. Getting a job in industry when the student graduates is not a problem, so there is no need to develop an internship type relationship with organizations. The best contacts you will have will be your advisors (and the one's at PSU, MSU, Minn., etc. will all have very good contacts), students that stay in contact with the program, and people you meet at conferences. Trust me: If you want an internship and you are at one of those schools you will not have a problem finding one, but you will start to realize that having an internship is not always necessary. I chose a very applied lab and almost everything we have done (developed and validated assessment tools, implemented performance measurement system within an organization, etc.) is more in depth than you would get at your typical internship anyway.

I am not sure what type of cities you are looking for, but USF in Tampa and UCF in Orlando are also viable options in a city with excellent programs. I think it is also important to decide what you would like to do when you graduate. If academia is a strong possibility I think it would be a mistake to throw out schools like Michigan State, Minnesota, and Penn Sate because they are in college towns. Those schools publish and present at SIOP a lot more than some of the schools on your list, which would be very important when applying for tenure-track academic positions. But as I said earlier your GRE will make you very competitive anywhere. I know that some schools can put applicants with a +1300 GRE up for fellowships that pay near 20k per year. This makes the decision process a lot easier because the program doesn't have to fund you, the university will. Edit: I try to come back here every year and help students applying because I could not find much help when I was applying. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

I would say you have a very good shot of getting in everywhere you apply. Schools love the GRE, to top it off you have research experience and publications going in. Question; why the wide variety of programs? You have some traditional I/O psych programs(Mason, Maryland), some programs that are mostly O (George Washington) and a social psych program. Not interested in the big ten schools?

what do you mean by it being a dying breed? The reason there are not that many I/O programs is probably because the field itself is rather new. That would be like calling human factors a dying breed because there are very few human factors programs. I/O really wasn't much of a field until after world war II, whereas social psych has been around for much longer. Could you elaborate a little more on what the person meant when saying it was a dying breed, from what I have seen it is more the opposite, a lot of schools are starting I/O programs. One plus you have if you want to go into academia with an I/O degree is you can bounce back and forth between business schools and psychology departments. I think it would be rather unlikely that a person with a social psych. degree could get a job in a business school and same for an OB degree in a psych school. You also have the option of going applied in a field that is still hiring, even now, in the economic bind our country finds itself in.

Semester Applied: Fall 2007 Major/Minor: Psychology, Minor in Business Admin. GPA: 3.46 GRE: Total 1280; Quant. 720, Verbal: 560 Internship: Yes, year long with a consulting firm doing applied research Research Exp. One year, applied research Relevant Work: 0 aside from internship Honors: None Thesis: No Publications: None Posters: Poster for Psych. Dept. Nothing Special Conferences: 0 References: Three I/O PhD's from Consulting Firm, Worked with each for about a year Applied To: Central Michigan, Depaul, University of Missouri-STL, Saint Louis University, Clemson, Auburn, University of Central Florida, Accepted: Central Michigan, SLU, Auburn, UCF

Was the advisor referring to the attrition rate for that PhD program in particular or overall. In the past 4 years we have had about 30 students enter our program and have only had 1 drop out (and that person already had a master's and decided he would rather work). I realize that my program may not be representative of all programs, but I find it extremely hard to believe there is a 75% attrition rate for PhDs.

No Problem. Like I said you very obviously know more about the particular curriculum at TC than I do, so that is good if it is balanced. You also may end up liking I, the last two areas of interest you mentioned (Training and Diversity) are I topics, haha. I was not suggesting that you would end up doing nothing but job analyses, I was simply saying those skills are extremely important to have and while you may not want to work at a job where that is all you do most jobs would prefer you have those skills in case a job analysis is ever needed, perhaps to develop a new selection or training system. As far as industry, what are you looking for? Most individuals who work in applied settings either work in applied research, or as a consultant (whether that be internal or external) and all of them usually come from an I/O background, especially in external consulting, so I was not really referring to how academics would rank them. Keep in mind a lot of the large organizations (Microsoft, Chase, Bank of America, etc.) are represented at SIOP so the individuals recruiting from those types of organizations (if you wanted to go internal) are also familiar with the quality of programs through such conferences. But you also have to weigh in your personal preferences, because you will be dealing with your cohort, the faculty, and the university for the next 4-5 years. That is a long time to be somewhere you do not really like. Good luck with the decision! I was in basically the same shoes as you 3 years ago, did not have many contacts to talk to and knew no one going into the area, so I feel like I should come back and help out others now that I have some experience, so feel free to ask any more questions you have.

My thoughts: - If you plan on going applied you are really limiting your area of expertise by going to an O dominant program. (I am not completely aware of the expertise you obtain at TC, but if you can come out of a program saying you have expertise in selection, training, job analysis, methods, etc. and you also specialize in leadership and motivation (examples), you have a much more tangible skill set to potential employers). I am not trying to knock O, but as far as direct impacts on organizations O is still very theoretical, whereas I has very real value added. - As far as teaching goes, I think everyone is nervous the first time they stand in front of individuals. I myself was thinking how can I be teaching people 2-3 years younger than me....You quickly find out despite the fact you know very little, you know much more than they do. I am an instructor of record for a class out of our area of expertise (social based class) and I am doing just fine. You realize everything you have learned can apply in other areas. -The cohort thing could be a problem to consider...you will be spending a lot of time with them. -If I were you and wanted to go applied I would go to George Mason. It carries a ton of prestige in the field and despite the fact you think TC carries with it the university prestige. I/O is a very small field and everyone in it knows GMU is a very good school. Also keep in fact you would most likely be in more debt at TC than at GMU. - Keep in mind this is just my opinion, I would strongly suggest you consult with others (perhaps professors in the field, etc.). I hope this helps.

Hi All, I am prepping for comps this summer and a friend of mine pointed me towards one of her friends blogs/google pages that she used as a study guide for her comps. I remember a few people asking for information regarding things they may read to prep for their upcoming first year and I thought I would just give you a link to this. She has a separate link for each competency as specified on SIOPs page. Have fun!!! and I hope the application process is going well! http://sites.google.com/site/appliedpsych2/home

You can get federally subsidized loans up to 9k per year as a full time graduate student and can probably find some type of funding over the summer. I would recommend trying to get by on your stipend and the 9k because if you go over that you have to go into unsubsidized loans which accumulate interest from the second you take the loan. If you can make it with subsidized loans they will not begin accumulating interest until 6 months after you graduate, which could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

UCFs Master's program has traditionally been on a separate campus from the doctoral program but as of next year they will be together on the main campus. This offers a lot more opportunities that many of the programs you mentioned will not have. The faculty at UCF are top notch. There are 3 SIOP fellows on staff, which is the highest honor academics in I/O can receive. Keep in mind this is just my opinion, but I would recommend staying away from schools like Barry, for the basic fact that they tend to be much more expensive than state schools like FIT and UCF. Also I feel like an MS in Org. learning really limits what you can do because individuals that obtain their masters in I/O usually deal a lot with training and selection which it does not sound like Org. Learning will cover (although I am not familiar with that program).

There really is not a good ranking system. You could look at US News, but they tend to rank older programs as better. The most updated ranking system on SIOPs page is from about 10 years ago and a few of the programs are no longer in existence (Tulane) or are very good programs now that were not in existence then (UCF). This is where knowing individuals in the field helps out. They usually have some insight into which programs are flourishing and which ones are floundering. The best way to rank would be to look at the amount of research they are putting out into top tier journals, the number of conference presentations, and the number of SIOP fellows a school has as professors. I believe the two schools with the most SIOP fellows as faculty are Michigan State and UCF (I think they both have 3 faculty members that are SIOP fellows). Other than that look for match between your research interests and the professors at the school. Rankings don't really matter that much. Once again it is what you make of it.

We haven't really thought through exactly what to control for although that would be one good idea along with whether the professor/student is in the business school. Those are just the raw numbers I put on here.

Here are the top 20 programs at SIOP based upon representation: I only used PhD I/O psychology programs according to SIOPs website. Keep in mind this is for 08,09,10. Each poster/symposium/panel, etc. counts as one. For example if USF had 4 individuals on one panel that would count as one for them. If there was also one person from George Mason on that panel that would count as one for that program also. 1. University of South Florida 2. George Mason University 3. Michigan State University 4. University of Central Florida 5. University of Houston 6. University of Minnesota 7. Texas A&M 8. University of Maryland 9. Pennsylvania State University 10. Portland State University 11. University of Georgia 12. Bowling Green State University 13. University of Illinois 14. Clemson University 15. Purdue University 16. Florida Tech 17. Wayne State University 18. UCONN 19. Akron 20. Oklahoma I also thought I would give you the top 5 schools with the most representation at SIOP this year too (I don't know if anyone has this data yet): 1. Michigan State University 2. University of Central Florida 3. University of South Florida 4. George Mason University 5. University of Maryland

We are using poster presentations as well as symposiums/panel discussions/special events, etc. Basically anytime a person affiliated with a particular program/university is presenting at SIOP. We are using data from 08,09,and 10. I don't know if we could tease out the side with the info we have. We just have the subcategory the person chose when they submitted the poster/symposium to SIOP, but I agree that would be useful. Publication information would also be useful, but I think SIOP presentations attack it from a little bit of a different angle, because you get to see research that is currently going on at the universities whereas publications can take 3-4 years to get into journals after revisions, etc.

Hey everyone my classmates and I are working on a potential TIP article and have the data from each SIOP since 08. We are essentially trying to see who the most active schools are as far as research goes. We are breaking it down by university, but if each presentation/poster has more than one author from the same school that only counts as one. I have only finished a handful thus far but here is the list. 1. University of South Florida 128 2. George Mason University 127 3. Michigan State University 126 4. University of Central Florida 114 5. University of Minnesota 101 6. Pennsylvania State University 91 7. University of Maryland 85 8. Bowling Green State University 63 9. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 59 10. Central Michigan University 32 I thought all of you may find this information useful when applying/deciding where to go as you can't always be sure how active each university is with research. This is all the data I currently have. If anyone wants me to look at a particular school let me know and I will try to get to it.

Tell Adam Myer some guy who frequents IO forums says hi, haha. I will have to catch up with him at SIOP. He is a good guy. Good luck applicants!

From what I have heard a very strong score stands out on either end. But really strong quant. scores are preferred, at least in I/O and HF psych. which is a very methods and statistics oriented type program. Perhaps different concentrations prefer different types of applicants, but I/O and HF seem to really prefer strong quant. scores 700+ type.