Rose Tyler

Ugh I'm not looking forward to that at Christmas. People that aren't involved just don't get it. I'm tired enough of hearing "What'd you major in? Psychology? You'll have plenty of patients right here!" without grad school questions too.

I'm applying now... 1) Funding, as people have said, and cost of living 2) Feel of the campus - when I stepped foot on campus at my undergrad institution it really felt like home and I haven't regretted my decision so I think if I could experience that again it would be impossible to ignore 3) Research fit - I only applied to POIs that I felt would be a good match for me, of course, but some areas of research are more interesting to me than others 4) Location - A few of my schools aren't far from where my brother, sister-in-law, and niece currently live so if I got accepted into any of them I can't say the chance to be closer to them wouldn't play into my decision

I had a late letters at a couple schools (clinical PhDs) and they contacted me to say that my application was incomplete until the letter arrived. One of them the letters were submitted online on the deadline but they didn't link to my application until a day or two later. One of them had to be mailed and they gave me a couple of days to get it there.

I know some of my programs have interview dates posted already and some don't, but does anyone know about how long in advance programs contact with interview offers? I'm just curious about how much warning I'll have to set my affairs in order.

Good luck! I'm not very knowledgeable on the impact of GRE scores. I know in clinical programs I've seen percentile cut-offs at 40 and "usually accept applicants above" at 40 and 50. My GRE score is really not good so we'll see how that affects my chances. Also just found out that one of my referees never sent letters that had to be mailed. I think I'm already screwed.

I do. One professor emailed me back and said she submitted it today (I checked and it's there) and the other one asked me to resend the notification again. I did and emailed her that I did, just to make sure. She received it and hopefully that'll be taken care of today. I'm significantly concerned about the letters that have to be mailed because I don't know if that was taken care of or not, but luckily there's only two of those and one of them insists that I don't need to send anything else. I felt better when I heard two of my professors talking about a student who emailed them yesterday to submit letters that are due today. Edit: I emailed the school that said I was missing a transcript and "additional requirements" over a week ago and just got a response today saying that all of my materials have been received and forwarded to the department for evaluation. I'm not entirely sure how that's true, but I'll take it.

Good luck to everyone with a deadline today! I'm going crazy. One school still has my transcript marked as not received even though I sent it weeks ago. I should have sent another one but by the time I realized that there was definitely a problem, it was break. My second choice hasn't received two of my letters. I resent the notification to both referees a week ago and emailed them yesterday about it. I haven't gotten a response back yet, but one of them is out of the office so I don't even know if she'll see my email in time.

I'm freaking out hardcore right now because it's deadline day and one of my schools--my second choice, go figure--doesn't have two of my letters. I'd been checking on it online but I wasn't sure there was anything wrong until Saturday when my third referee turned in all of his letters at once and his changed to be marked as submitted. I resent the notification email a week ago because I figured that would be enough to remind them but apparently it wasn't. Now I'm kicking myself for not just emailing them directly in the first place. I did so yesterday, apologizing for not getting in contact early and letting them know the letters haven't been marked submitted, but I got an "out of office" reply from one of them. She was on vacation for the holiday and while she'll be back today I don't know if she's going to get my email in time. I'm so thankful for this forum. At least I know others are or have been in the same boat. I vented to a friend who's applying next cycle (she doesn't know much about the process from what it seems) and my SO but neither of them can really understand.

If your personal statement is strong, I really don't think they'll think twice about one mistake. Don't sweat it. I had a moment of panic when, last week, it hit me that "VA" stands for "Veterans Affairs." For some reason, I wrote "Veterans Administration" on one SOP and I've been kicking myself.

I was just about to come make the same thread. One of my recommenders (and not one I could replace as he's been my professor, adviser, and head of the only lab I've worked in) waited until yesterday to submit all of his recommendations. It was horribly nerve-wracking but now I can breathe easy on that count. The problem is one of my schools is missing two letters. One of them is marked "started" and the other one hasn't been touched at all. These professors have submitted all their other letters so I know they're on top of that. I resent notification emails to both last week but still nothing. I want to email them today because the deadline is tomorrow but I'm also afraid they'll get angry with me that I didn't let them know before now. I just thought they might be waiting like my third professor, or that maybe the system was inaccurate. Now that one of my letters has been marked "submitted" I know that last theory probably isn't true.

For the record, I'm not applying to Canadian schools because I don't want to move but... Based solely on the odds of applicants versus acceptances, the odds of getting into an American clinical program are slim to none. I apply to programs because I think I'd be a good fit and I think I have a chance. If I applied to Canadian programs, it would be the same thing. I'm applying to nine schools, only five of them doctoral, and my three referees are writing my letters for all of them. I think the difference is American schools don't generally ask for an entirely different letter for each school so the letter only needs to be written once and then sent to each school as required. I think the norm of how many schools varies. I know one girl planning to apply for Fall 2016 that's only applying to one program because it's the only one she'd want to go to. I think a lot of people try to go for as many options as possible. How many that is could be limited by their area of research.

Thanks. I always feel annoying but it has to be done. Only one of them hasn't submitted anywhere so I emailed him yesterday just to ask that he's getting the online submission links. He said that he's doing all his letters this week. Didn't do much to settle my nerves.

I can't stop thinking about it either and I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do if I am. I could move back home but I live in the middle of nowhere so the odds of getting a job at all are slim. Getting relevant experience would be next to impossible.

Congratulations! That's fantastic news. I'm waiting on all my LORs to be in and it's killing me because I don't really have any control over it. And now we're on Thanksgiving break so the next time I see all my profs in person will be after the due dates.

500 characters? That sounds insane to me. The shortest requirement I had was 500 words, but that wasn't too difficult because the personal statement and research statement were separate.

I'm still applying too but I think you've got a good shot. It looks like a diverse range of schools. Pretty sure Madison and Purdue are both heavily research-oriented, but I know Louisville is balanced. I can't speak for Canadian schools.

Thanks, guys. I tried Googling my printer to see what the resolution would be but I couldn't figure it out. I'll scan it when I get home and see how it works.

I'm so not ready either, especially because my school gives us a week off for Thanksgiving and I'm going away most of the week before. I'm also way overthinking the applications that are asking for unofficial transcripts. One of them wants a "scanned copy of the official transcripts" and wants it "scanned at a maximum 300 dpi." Does anyone know what that means and how I can find out if my printer is capable of that? I have a copy of my official transcripts but I don't want to open it unless I'm sure I'm doing it right.

I'm at a "November is looking a lot closer than expected time to panic" portion. I asked all my recommenders and, hopefully, that's settled. I just have to drop by one of their offices this morning and leave a copy of my SOP/CV. I have a rough draft SOP for each school with a December deadline (masters are later so I'm not as concerned about those at the moment). My goal is to fill out and send applications next week, followed by GRE scores and transcripts. The way I see it, if you're competitive for those programs and they're all a potential good fit, then it could give you more chances to be admitted.

Relationships can end for a lot of reasons, not all of them about diverging life decisions. Worrying about what could happen if you got into a relationship and then had to move for career reasons is putting a lot of pressure on a relationship that doesn't even exist. The most important thing is finding someone that you enjoy being with and then communicating about major decisions like this. I'm in a long-distance relationship and I have been for almost a year now. It's not always easy, but we make it work. We're both in undergrad at different schools. I have every intention of going to grad school next year and she knows that. I wish that I could include her in my application decisions, but my choices are surprisingly limited by the type of program and my research interests. I do intend to ask her input if/when I get offers. She, on the other hand, is applying to go teach English in another country for three years. She asked me about six months into our relationship if I would continue dating her if she did that. I said yes and while that was a huge decision for me to make so early in our relationship, I don't regret it. I agree with not putting your life on hold for your career because it's likely that you're career will never actually be "done." Do things for yourself now and don't wait. Moving might end a relationship or it might not.

I'm working on my personalized statements of purpose for each school that I'm applying to and trying to include information on which professors I'd most like to work with and why. I'm worried that my responses are a little too standard. To the effect of "I'm interested in working with this professor because they do work in this disorder and I'm interested in researching that same disorder." Should I attempt to mention specific articles or ideas for research directions that I have? In one paper, a POI mentioned that more research could be done with a certain population that I'm interested in studying. Should I bring that up? On that same front, I'm having difficulty getting access to some professors' papers. I mostly use Google Scholar to find articles (searching by author) and then hope that my university library has access to some of them. One professor in particular doesn't seem to have many papers listed on Scholar published before 2000 and I can't access any of the ones that do show up. Sorry if I'm over-thinking things. Crunch time is coming up faster than I realized and I'm starting to feel a little frantic.

I think it also depends on the phrasing. If 800-1,000 words is just a ballpark, then that word count is fine. But if they say "1000 words maximum" then it would probably be best pared down.

I agree on emailing again. Things happen and emails get lost in cyberspace. I have one LOR set and I'll probably be asking the other two professors tomorrow. I found out a couple days ago that my academic advisor, who was going to be my third letter, left the university without even letting me know so I've been scrambling to figure out who I'm going to ask. It doesn't help that the professors here who are more clinical-focused all have bad reputations.

I agree that it's possible to go from a masters program to a doctoral one, but choose wisely. I was going to apply to a general psychology masters (because the description said that it was ideal for students with an intent to pursue doctoral education), but the program coordinator told me to apply to the clinical masters instead. Though there are other schools where I'm applying to general masters. I second that you might want to consider PsyDs, though be aware of the differences. I think they also have a tendency to be more expensive, but I'm not sure. As Delta mentioned, in some states it's possible to become a Licensed Psychological Associate with a masters degree.