TheMercySeat

:raises hand meekly:
I had to literally reteach myself everything.
Everything.

I work in research. I get paid to calculate Cohen's d, eta squared, and Bayesian probabilities by hand. I use R and SPSS to do everything else from CFAs and binary logistic regressions to ANOVAs.
I haven't had a math class with exception to stat since... 2008.
I don't know wtf the square root of -54 divided by 72 to the 5th exponet plus Z cubed is.
Sorry everybody.

TRAITOR!!! Academia is the ONLY noble route. Only people who are privileged enough to afford college are worthy of your effort and talents.

...Kidding, of course!!!!

As somebody that works in education research, those are probably a proxy for SES...

Dirty little trick...

Did it/or do you think it helped your chances of getting into a PhD program? 
It absolutely helped me get the interviews!
Profs saw that I have several publications and presentations.
...then they realize that my experience is applied, and not experimental, and so after the interview, they select students who are still working on their BA over me in some programs.
In my experience, the options around where I live are either:
(1) if you're independently wealthy, you can volunteer in an experimental lab.
(2) if you want a paid position, you will have to do applied work that is either (a) clinical, ( b ) marketing-related, © related to assessment development/psychometrics. These positions are typically grant funded on point a, and sometimes for point c. 
(3) My lab experience was enough to override my garbage GRE Q!
 
 
How close was the lab you worked in to your actual research interests? 
Not in the least bit! But it gave me spectacular quant/psychometrics training, which also captured the attention of many programs. 
 
About how many positions did you apply for? 
Oh jeez... like 20 a week. This was during the depths of the recession, mind you. Some programs told me that I was 'overqualified' because I had a MA.
 
What are interviews for these like (if they are done)?
If you can handle PhD psych interviews, then they are generally a cakewalk!
For academic positions at a university and government positions, I generally met with the professor and a research assistant.
I met with the entire research staff on a 6 hour long Odyssey for a nonprofit research job, which was the exception to the norm. 
 
What is your advice for someone applying to these positions? 
(1) Ivy league schools were trashy! They would call me in two or three times for RA interviews, and I would never hear from them again. At least PhD programs have the decency to send a minimum of impersonal stock mail/email rejections!
(2) The non-ivy private universities and state universities were classy! They notified me when I was not accepted post-interview, and they were kind enough to ring me with constructive feedback ("overqualified"... blah!)
(3) Also note that you can have all of the publications and presentations in the world, but that will not 100% guarantee a spot in every program. Some admissions committees were glaringly political in my experience, and it was clear from site visits who knew the right people and who did not. People who do not even have a BA/BS still have a shot at beating you out, even if you annihilate them in publications and presentations. POIs will still introduce applicants as 'blah's student,' and if you are not 'blah's student,' then you will probably be at a disadvantage. 
(4) Tying into an earlier point, not all professors respect all forms of research. For example, despite studying the same phenomenon, some experimental programs were condescending towards the fact that my experience was applied, and not 'pure' lab work. My work was on multimillion dollar grant in collaboration with government scientists and six professors at top tier psych departments throughout the country as part of an innovative training program for people who decide whether or not we should nuke other countries... you'd think that they would give me some credit, given that such a project is a tad bit more complex than a single PhD-level researcher working on a low stakes 100k NSF grant.

funny.
Most people I interact with on a daily basis -especially those who went to my university- don't act like that where I'm from...

Perhaps it's normalized in your community.

Edit: at least we can mutually down vote differing opinions here, yeah?

I think you nailed the first step in asking, and in being honest with yourself on it being difficult!
Granted I'm in social sciences, so I don't know how generalizable my response is, but buckle up tight! If your field is anything like mine, you're competing with my colleagues from UCLA and Princeton who have been (unsuccessfully) trying to get a professorship for the past year or two.


I'm no professor, but the new professors that I met who recently graduated were also recently rewarded grants-- as in, they are traveling to their new university as a PI on a grant. On that note, being able to effectively write grants might be a step in the right direction because you're essentially bringing money into the program.

I will be 28, and I hope my incoming cohort is younger!

I'm single, so it's not like I can bond over what it's like to be a parent with other students. All silly insecurities about age go out the door when I work with people who are in their 30s/40s and working on grad degrees at Ivy league institutions.

I'm going to assume that you are comparing a better-reputed R1 to a less well-known R2, because R1s don't always have a better reputation in a given field than R2s. The other thing I'll say is that your career interests may shift, sometimes considerably, over the course of graduate school. I started out also wanting to be a non-academic research scientist, and this fall I'll be on the market for academic positions - my first choice would be an R1 or R2 university, actually.
 
Other than asking about placement of recent graduates, the other thing you can do is attend an R2 in a large city and/or nearby connections and work those connections in graduate school while earning your degree. I did go to an R1, but it was in a big city with a lot of think tanks and social science-oriented nonprofits in and around that city. Even though I wasn't even trying, I ended up making contacts with people at several organizations that hired psychology/public health/social science PhDs to do research for the org through various assignments (data collection, supervising undergraduate interns). A lot of my colleagues in doctoral programs at my university did consulting work for nonprofits and NGOs, and a few of them turned that consulting work into full-time jobs - like one friend who works at (UNESCO? UNICEF? I think UNICEF) now after doing consulting work for them for a couple years while finishing up.
 
If you went to an R2 in a small or large city that had that kind of nonprofit/NGO/think tank infrastructure nearby, you could start doing freelance consulting work for them in graduate school and network your way into a full-time job. Even if they didn't hire you, that kind of nonprofit work can really help you when looking for other non-academic research jobs, because it shows you know how to function in a non-academic setting. (The same goes of for-profit: if you decided you wanted to work in market research, an internship at a company in your city can go a long ways towards helping you get a job.)
 
Firms that hire a lot of researchers will actually be knowledgeable about reputations of departments - and actually might find themselves concerned with those reputations. As pointed out, top think tanks like RAND and AIR tend to hire people coming from top programs. So do consulting firms, like McKinsey and BCG. But there are LOTS of think tanks out there, lots of non-academic social science research organizations and not all of them care about "prestige." They're going to care about the work that you do and your output. So tailor your research agenda towards something that could be applied and of interest to think tanks* and publish early and often! Also give lots of presentations at conferences and when you are there, find people who work at non-academic jobs. There are a lot of them, especially at the big conferences like APA and APHA.
 
*I don't mean find a think tank and make your work align with theirs; I mean don't do something abstract or theoretical if your goal is outside of academia.

Been on ~10 interviews for psych programs, about half of which were at R1 institutions. Have not met any ivy leaguers who are either (1) prospective candidates or (2) current PhD students. 
 
I work for a social science research firm and nearly all of my PhD, BA/BS, and MA/MS level colleagues have ivy league pedigrees.
Do they all become disgruntled with academia and head for the hills? If so, I don't blame them one bit because I have a few acceptances, and I already feel like doing the same. 

sorry, i guess my comment was out for more general "industry-type" jobs but i just noticed that you're specifically inquiring about research jobs, just outside of a traditional academic setting (e.g. university). then yeah, i totally agree with you. sometimes the pettiness of people in places like that irks me because they seem to marry the worst of both industry and academic jobs. the prestige of your university suddenly becomes a thing, the prestige of your lab is also relevant, whether your advisor is well known or not... sigh. i only once worked in a place like that (a research company that's somehow indirectly connected to my uni) and it.was.HELL.
 
still, let's just assess the situation objectively. you're in an R2 university now. can you transfer to an R1 university with all the goodies and perks of where you are? if yes, go. if no (which is the most likely possibility) i guess you're gonna have to work twice as hard to make up for the lack of academic "pedigree" so that's more conferences to go to, more networking, tackling on more ambitious projects... basically just make yourself a candidate that's too good to say not to. like a molten lava cake! 

PM me. ;P

i've always been under the impression that if you're not interested in an academic job, then the kind of opportunities you will have access to are mostly be limited to things like how well can you network, how much previous experience you have, etc. you know, regular 'job' stuff. i find it difficult to believe that any person in a non-academic setting will look at your CV and say "oh yes, this candidate is a member of such and such lab with publications in such and such high-impact factor journals". or at least that has been my experience in my musings with jobs in the "real world" (<--- stoopid "real world" jobs, the only reason i don't hate your jobs is that they pay well.. )

I'm stuck between a big name uni with stronger funding and a no-name uni with a newer program in a stellar location with some impressive opportunities :x

I know I'm in VERY competent hands with the former, while the latter grants me more autonomy to carve out my future. Yikes!

Celebrate: beer.
Recuperate: beer.



Kidding!
I was mid conversation with my mom and checking my email when good news came in... 10 PM on a Sunday, of all times.


"What?! What happened?! What's wrong?!"
"I think... I just got accepted?!"

Leaving a job that treats me well to sustain myself off of a PhD stipend in hopes that there will be a job for me in 6 years.

I need a drink.

Leaving a job that treats me well to sustain myself off of a PhD stipend in hopes that there will be a job for me in 6 years.

I need a drink.

Leaving a job that treats me well to sustain myself off of a PhD stipend in hopes that there will be a job for me in 6 years.

I need a drink.

First of all, that professor sounds like a dick.
 
I wouldn't apologize again. Just make sure you refer to him by his preferred title ("It was nice talking to you, Dr. Ego-trip"). Apologizing again would just bring the attention back to that issue. You've already apologized; no need to do it again. 

Hey Grad Cafe-ers.  I just visited the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and am on a plane back to Reno now.  I wanted to put some unbaked thoughts about U Illinois down and share them.  These thoughts are from the perspective of a 23 year-old male who grew up in a liberal outdoorsy town.
 
 
I will have a hard time living in Illinois.   No mountains.
 
The nightlife is stereotypical.  I went out Thursday night to two bars, met a few cool people and also some weird ones.  There are maybe two non-college-fratboy options.
 
The food is bad.  The beer is good.
 
People are generally not fashionable.
 
People are very kind.  I had great conversations with a current Agricultural Economics PhD student, Dr. Ali Toosi, and Dr. Firouz Gahvari.  They care.
 
According to Dr. Toosi and Dr. Gahvari the main advantage of the Illinois MS Econ program is that it is designed as PhD preparation.  The MS program would last two years with the option of continuing directly into the PhD program.
 
The facilities are spartan compared to my alma-mater, the University of Portland.  Perhaps this is a difference between public and private college.
 
There is a significant Chinese-born population.  They do not associate with Americans.  They are isolated.  50% of MS candidates are Chinese-born.
 
Overall I left with the impression of an excellent program but sub-par living standards.
 
 
 
Whew.  Text me or post on this thread if you want to talk about the University of Illinois and living/studying in small Midwestern towns.
 
-Ryan

I contacted Iowa State University.
I have been recommended for admission by the department.

Because (to reference one program I got into) their website didn't show how dysfunctional the department is and how unhappy the students are? Larger elements of fit (culture and values) can't really be communicated via a website, either.
I was extremely picky/limited with POIs, and so I blantantly disregarded other factors when applying to programs.


Perhaps your experiences were different, but I learned A LOT from site visits and interviews that were not communicated on the program's website. I even had one POI badmouth another program and other professors without prompting.

I can keep the reasons coming, if you'd like.

I, for one, remain underwhelmed with that -.08 correlation!!!
For such a high-stakes exam, I think it is reasonable for one to expect stronger correlations. It looks like things get a little funky after 1st year GGPA, too.

The financial burden argument makes no sense... There's a simple solution: universities can scrap the general GREs and use the subject GREs. Such a policy change would save students $35.

Consider also that women and minorities have lower means on all subscales of the GREs. If the GRE truly predicts graduate success, then wouldn't it be a lost cause to let women and minorities into graduate school? How can one justify having nonwhites and women in higher education?

Because (to reference one program I got into) their website didn't show how dysfunctional the department is and how unhappy the students are? Larger elements of fit (culture and values) can't really be communicated via a website, either.
I was extremely picky/limited with POIs, and so I blantantly disregarded other factors when applying to programs.


Perhaps your experiences were different, but I learned A LOT from site visits and interviews that were not communicated on the program's website. I even had one POI badmouth another program and other professors without prompting.

I can keep the reasons coming, if you'd like.

First, you need to get off your high horse. We actually did discuss the predictive validity of the GRE, including the analysis of a Quant psych student who worked for ETS. Before reading the article you posted, I had simply never seen high predictive validity for the GRE before.

However, how did they control for selection bias? Good schools who can demand higher GRE scores typically have superior resources and training for their students. Due to reputation, they also tend to attract the best, most ambitious students.

Second, you act as if you are immune to bias, which is a blind spot in itself. Let me guess - you did well on the GRE? People who do well on the SAT subsequently put more stock in it and people who do poorly on the SAT do the opposite (what you assume of us) . I highly doubt that you went into researching the GRE's validity as a bastion of purely objective, scientific thought. Your own bias doesn't change the numbers - which look good here-but it does mean you are being a sanctimonious ass.

funny.
Most people I interact with on a daily basis -especially those who went to my university- don't act like that where I'm from...

Perhaps it's normalized in your community.

Edit: at least we can mutually down vote differing opinions here, yeah?