Rose Tyler

Mine was "Prospective applicant." I should remember to add the intended semester to my next round...that's a good idea. I think I finally have a workable SOP if anyone has a moment to take a look. I'm also willing to trade. I think I'm about as far as I can get obsessing over it on my own.

I started mine about a month ago. Every few days I pulled it out and made changes. Most of it has been rewritten at some point, some paragraphs multiple times. I'm finally starting to feel like I have a workable draft and hope to share it for feedback soon. It seems so simple, but it's probably the single hardest thing I've ever had to write.

4/5 responded, three of them are accepting students and one of them is definitely not. Responses only took a couple of days and it's only been a week on the one that hasn't responded. All very encouraging.

I've been contacting POIs for the past week, but only for doctoral programs. I'm also looking at masters programs and I'm not sure how to approach those. Most of the ones I'm looking at don't seem to be as strict as doctoral programs in mentorship and research match. Should I contact the professors that I'm a match for and ask them if they're accepting students into their lab (if that information isn't available on their website, of course)? Should I contact the grad secretary and ask if a program works under a strict mentorship model if the website isn't clear?

1. I made some specific comments on a particular professor's paper, basically outwardly wondering what would happen if the paper was expanded upon, but other than that I haven't asked any questions besides whether they were taking students. 2. All of the professors I've emailed so far have responsed (though email) except one and I started less than a week ago. I'm actually surprised how fast they've been responding. In a good way. 3. I'm deferring to KW on this one, but I think that if all of a professor's research is with children then if you want to focus on adults that probably wouldn't be a good fit. I also want to work with adult populations so I've been avoiding professors that work entirely with children and adolescents. If they're focus is children but they've worked with adult populations in the past, then an email might be worth it but I'm not sure on that.

I'm getting ready to apply to clinical programs now so I'm not sure I can offer anything in way of advice, but I just wanted to disagree with this. I've heard mixed things about emailing POIs, but I decided to go ahead with doing it anyway. It's only a waste of their time if you're emailing them with questions that are clearly answered on their or the program's website. For instance, I'm not contacting POIs that say they're taking a student on their lab website. One program has a list of accepting professors on their admissions page, so I'm not contacting those either. I am sending a concise paragraph to the ones that don't list that information. I'm already getting responses. So far I do have one professor that responsed with "I am definitely not taking a student for Fall 2015" and that's one less professor that I have to worry about. I have a couple programs that only have one or two professors I'd be a match for, so if they're both closed to incoming students then that's one application that I've saved. Only time will tell if it makes any difference. As for the SOP, I've noticed that each program has different instructions and while most of them do have a lot of overlap, others ask for different things. I have one school asking for four separate essays on their application. My advice is to work out a rough draft, figure out what you want to say, and then personalize it for each school. At the very least you'll probably have to talk about the professors you want to work with and why you would be a good addition to their lab(s) and the program. Also, start studying for the GRE early. I didn't and now I deeply regret it.

Villanova, Wake Forest, Western Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, Virginia State, Ball State, North Carolina-Wilmington, and Western Kentucky.

I hear you. I just realized I can't even apply to one of my top choice programs because one of my scores is below their posted cut-off for percentiles. Never mind that my score is only one point below their averages. On the subject of the AWA section, a lot of the schools on my list didn't even report those averages with verbal and quantitative so I'm not sure how important they are in the scheme of applications.

Good luck to you too!

Today marked the last first day of classes for my undergrad and it's terrifying, but exciting. I've been researching schools that I want to apply to since last winter, but it's all very intimidating. I'm not sure if I can be competitive. I'm mostly looking at clinical doctorate programs but recently I've been looking into more masters and wondering if I should focus my applications on those instead. My GRE scores are slightly lower than last year's averages for most of my doctoral programs and retaking is not an option. My GPA is strong. I've got a year's experience as an RA in a research lab. One university-wide presentation, but no publications (not for lack of trying). Three solid LORs if I can ever decide who to ask for the third. I've been working on my SOP for two months but I just can't seem to get it right.

A combination of Excel spreadsheets and the calendar that came with my phone. I might have to look into Google calendar, though, because it aggravates me that I can't make separate calendars on my phone. I just really like Excel.