moralresearcher

I've been told to ignore calls by my advisor, other professors, grad students, etc. etc. etc. so that you don't sound all flustered and excited. Give yourself time to do a happy dance and freak out a little that you're being contacted (after all, getting your existence acknowledged is half the battle) and then call them back. If you do answer, chat for a couple of minutes and then say you have to go to work/class/whatever and ask if you could set up a different time to talk further when you are both available.

I'm graduating this spring with no debt and *gasp* savings (which will probably be blown on moving expenses, but whatever). It's possible if you get scholarships (and no, none of mine were need-based aid) and work while in school and live within your means and stick to a budget.

I didn't really have anything worthy of uploading, so I thought it would be better to not submit anything than to submit something other than absolutely awesome since it was optional. I did submit my CV.

Dreams, huh? I would like to get a tenure track appointment in psych (or dual in something, depending on how interdisciplinary my research gets) at the school where I did my undergrad, because I love the weather in my home city (I absolutely abhor the cold), and my entire family is here, and I would like to put down roots near family when I raise my kids, although I wouldn't mind working at a school near the beach on the West Coast. I want an office with lots of windows, because I hate fluorescent lights, tucked in some corner (and not right next to the department secretary, because I need quiet to work) with a lot of trees outside, with lots of books and files that are in a state of organized semi-chaos. I want a bowl of candy on my desk (which I think I want to be black for the moment...) and a mini fridge stocked with yummy drinks and snacks (because I eat when I work). I want pictures on my walls of beautiful sunsets. I want a lab full of students who ask questions incessantly and with whom I enjoy spending my time. I want colleagues who have enough overlap in interest that I have several collaborators in my department, but I also want to have collaborators scattered here, there, and everywhere so I can go visit and get out of my routine every once and a while. I want to be a wildly-cited author and an expert in my field. Can you all tell that I'm a planner?

JEALOUS.

Yes, it is pretty arbitrary, and yes, everyone is pretty much in the middle. Alas, the normal curve. I think I like Lauren's scale the best... I think I have the best stats there. I want the whole thing to be over already.

I laughed out loud at this description. LOVE IT!!!

I completely ignored my age in my SOP and am hoping that they don't notice my birthday or the fact that I did undergrad in 3 years when they look at my application... I will have just turned 21 the summer before I start if I get in this round. I figure, I found out what I wanted early adn took the shortest route to get there. I don't really see anything wrong with that, but then, I've always been one to try to skip ahead.

Yeah. He won't let me read it unless I get in somewhere, but he gave me the word bubble lol

*Disclaimer: this post makes me feel sick, but not as sick as reading all previous, incredibly kick-ass, intimidating posts.* -3.8 overall GPA, 4.03 major GPA (we do +/- and I've gotten 1 - and 3 +s) -Decent GRE (89 percentile for verbal--and my actual score was the lowest verbal I've gotten (compared to practices), so I could retake it if I don't get in and improve my score) -1.5 years of research experience -1 poster presentation done, one coming up -1st poster presentation won 3rd place (but it was in a session only at my university, not a conference) -I got a travel grant from the Honors College at my university to present 2nd poster at a conference -My advisor did an independent study with me where he taught me a general survey of grad-level stats, which he mentioned in my LOR, apparently a lot, because the word bubble he gave me had stats/analyses/etc. frequently and large. -Pretty decent fit with the schools I'm applying to -I was a TA for a research methods course -I'm the Lab Manager for the lab I'm currently in (a promotion I got too late to include in my apps, but whatevs. I can mention it in an interview if I get one) -My main LOR is pretty confident I'll get in to at least one program, and my 3rd thinks I'll get at least 2 offers.

I'm the same way. My advisor, mother, best friend, and pretty much everyone else I know keep telling me to chill out, but I don't think they realize how stressful this process is (well, my advisor does, but it's been a while for him... and I don't think he's as high-strung as I am). I figure I should really stick to the and wait to freak out until at least Valentine's day, but time seems to be passing slower and slower every day (it doesn't help that I had a 6 week (SIX!) winter break with nothing to do but obsess). Only time will tell if the worry was warranted. And even if it was, I'm not positive it's worth it (what do I get from worrying except worry lines?), but that doesn't really help me not to worry. Oh well, cest la vie, I suppose.

First, I will scream. Then I will probably cry tears of joy and relief. Then I will call my parents, advisor, and best friend. Then I will scream some more. Then I will inform other important people of the good news. then I will start planning everything. Then I will go out to celebrate....probably with ice cream. At some point I will probably request to be pinched or something to assure myself I am not dreaming.

I think both are important, but depending on the people who are also applying, having a (seemingly) good score doesn't mean much if your percentile rank isn't very high, something that is common for quant scores because all engineering/math people tend to score 700+, which postively skews data and affects your percentile rank. On the opposite end of the spectrum, few people do better than 700 on the verbal, so lower scores there have better percentile ranks (for example, I scored 70 points higher on quant than verbal but was ranked 20% higher on verbal). Also, from what I understand a strong writing score doesn't help you much--AW is really only looked at if it is exceptionally high (perfect) or really bad.

Linda Skitka.

The problem with having hard and fast GRE/GPA rules is that sometimes the applicant pool has a weirdly high or low score compared to past pools. Also, with the GPA--grade inflation/deflation definitely plays a part. I took an advanced statistics course where the average grade was an A (bordering on an A+, not something that should happen in such a difficult course), as well as the perceived reputation of the school you come from--private schools look better than public, your US News rank throws its weight around a bit, etc. So they rank people by the other applicants. My advisor said that something several programs do is take your GRE score and divide by 200, then add your GPA. (For example, I got a 1310 and have a 3.8, my score would be 10.35. Typically 10 is considered competitive and 12 would be perfect). They then rank the applications based on that number and read LORs and SOPs. If you have exceptional LORs or SOPs, it can bump you up the list over someone with lukewarm letters and a generic SOP.

I'm not sure, I know she's social (stereotype research), so maybe for everyone?

You could be wait listed still... it's not over till you get a rejection.

Haha I wish that I wanted to live in Chicago... I'm interested in the city itself, but I'm not looking forward to the weather (if I get in). In fact, I gave up all hope of liking the place I live when I started trying to find potential advisors and realized they all live in the snow and work at schools that are incredibly difficult to get into. I know it's still really early, but the fact that others are hearing back from some of my programs is starting to really freak me out, but I'm trying really hard to remember that it is still REALLY early (the redundancy is a bi-product of the waiting-induced crazy).

I'm into moral decision making, forgiveness, and perceptions of fairness (as well as how emotions affect all of those things and tangentially, psych and law). I applied to Cornell, Yale, WashU, University of Illinois Chicago, University of New Hampshire, and Kansas State. I haven't heard anything back yet.

I applied to Cornell Social--what was your sub field? Should I be worried?

My advisor's roommate from grad school is on the adcomm for UCLA's program and they called/emailed people for recruitment last week. Sorry if that's bad news for you.