mb712

I actually laughed at this. I guess my third reviewer was not the worst third reviewer out there!

E/E, E/E, and... G/VG. Not awarded. I'm highly interdisciplinary and I can easily tell which discipline my third reviewer is from. Naturally I'm letting it consume me and reading way too much into it. Plus I think I'm stuck in a never-ending eyeroll due to the review ending with telling me they actually don't know how my application could be any stronger. Did anybody else have reviewers basically tell you what letter writers said? I felt really uncomfortable reading one of the first two reviewer comments because it gave specifics from each of my letter writers. edit: typo. Tired.

An hour total. I felt the exact same way as you this time last year and I'm currently about to finish my first semester of graduate school. Try not to completely drive yourself crazy over this! (I know, easier said than done.)

(Assuming everything else is decent-outstanding) You can get into Iowa and Nebraska with those scores and GPA, probably CU Boulder too but I'm speaking from more direct knowledge in regards to the other two. People may disagree with me on this but I wouldn't suggest taking it again especially if you don't think you can afford it. I took it twice, the second time being rushed and last minute while panicked about my first scores, and although I raised my quant score a little, my other two scores dropped a little. In the end I just sent my first scores.

A letter for one of my programs was over a week late and the university didn't care. I was told they didn't even "organize the package" until a month+ after the deadline, when faculty got back from winter break.

The Skype convos were good. The first one we talked a lot about their research plans since this person is a relatively new faculty member and the second one we talked research in general. Maybe an hour in total. I'm not going to speculate about why either situation derailed but I would like to think it's a positive sign to receive that kind of communication early on, regardless how it turned out for me. Potential PIs wouldn't waste their time just to humor some random applicant if they didn't think it was worthwhile!

It's possible and not unrealistic. It's also not a good idea if you're planning on going into academia. "Publish or perish" starts in graduate school now and if you shorten your time in graduate school you're likely competing against applicants who have had an extra one or two years to publish.

The first three months were total hell, but I honestly feel pretty good right now. In undergrad this is about the time in the semester when my panic set in so I'm pretty excited about finally feeling decent. Three more weeks and I can say I survived semester one.

I completely agree with this. I did ask a few people explicitly if they were accepting students, but most others I just emailed saying I was applying and wanted to introduce myself/let them know a little more about me. I also told them how my interests fit into their interests, and asked a couple specific questions I had about their work/something else on their website/CV.

I had weekly email exchanges with a POI for almost three months then got rejected. Also emailed a few times and had two Skype convos with another, also rejected. On the other hand, I got basically a "yep, please apply" and nothing else from two of the schools I was accepted at. Application season was a rollercoaster ride for me haha

I heard from my January 15th deadline school by February 1st, and my February 1st deadline school by Valentine's Day. I didn't hear from December 1-15th deadline schools until the end of February. But, n=1 (and 75% of my applications were to psychology programs, 25% to political science). I have no idea if this is typical or not.

Survived the first week, now I'm worried about getting my ass kicked in one of my seminars this semester. I have been trying to settle into a new city half way across the country while doing orientation and starting the semester which I thought would be manageable... I probably should have moved a little earlier than I did, but I also didn't want to give up the last two weeks with friends and family. My cohort seems cool which is great since it's a small cohort. I'm nervous but optimistic, hopefully I can say the same in another couple months!

I think a majority of people who start psychology Ph.D. programs just have a bachelor's degree of some sort (as opposed to having a MA/MS as well). It's perfectly legitimate. UCLA is a top institution with a great psychology department, a Ph.D. from UCLA will do you well anywhere.

I'm not exactly seasoned, I start my Ph.D. program this month, but have an idea of what I want to focus my research on so here's my advice: 1) Listen to the people above. 2) Build off of an existing theory and don't try to pull something out of thin air. The research I've started is "original" (it's not a novel idea [is anything?] but it's something that hasn't been published on) and the way I arrived at the topic was combining a theory from a different subfield with a way to respond to cynicism about my subfield from a graduate student in my field. Bizarre, but true. It snowballed into some hypotheses, a research proposal, and now some interesting results that I think I can build off of for my graduate career. Soak in what people are you are talking about, in and out of the classroom. You never know when somebody will say something that gives you an epiphany moment.

Some advice I was given was to make sure you phrase the research fit part of your email as your interests fitting into theirs, not their interests fitting into yours. It sounds trivial but you are essentially trying to prove why you're a good fit in their world, not how they're a good fit into your world.

I guess it's all relative. Compared to other psych fields, clinical could potentially have the best job prospects since you won't be limited to an academic or research job. Otherwise, APA seems fairly optimistic (and this was written mid-recession): http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/03/cover-sunny.aspxas does the Bureau of Labor: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/mobile/psychologists.htm

This may not be entirely universal and very dependent on the rankings of programs you apply to, but, it seems like GRE scores are most frequently used as a filtering system then an indication of whether or not you deserve funding. So I think the answer to your application throwing out question is "maybe, potentially." In a hyper-competitive field like clinical psychology, GRE scores will matter. On the other hand, since there are SO many applicants that all have decent-great stats, research fit is going to matter that much more. My completely subjective advice is to still apply but make sure you're applying to places/faculty with excellent fit. GRE scores will still matter but they might not matter as much if you can demonstrate great research fit in your SOP/keep up communication with faculty. As far as my experience, I applied to programs in two fields with quite a variety in rankings with a GRE verbal score that was good, writing score that was decent and a quant score that was passable . My rejections were 1) the top ranked school I applied to (probably immediately filtered because of my quant score) & 2) a few programs all across the board (as far as rankings go) that I either didn't exchange more than a couple emails with a POI or was reaching pretty far to relate my research interests to theirs. My acceptances were 1) the second highest ranked school I applied to & 2) a few programs all across the board that I either kept up conversation with a POI or fit into the program perfectly. I could be wrong but I don't think it's a coincidence that some places, regardless their ranking/average GRE scores of admitted students, were willing to take a shot on me even though I had an average quant score. This is also where my subjective advice above is coming from so you can take it or leave it.

This isn't really fair to you, but it seems like a lot of social psychologists just get annoyed with economists and economist theories specifically, at a higher degree than annoyance with theories from other disciplines. I would echo the post above, be careful how you approach things.

Political, so I'll be doing a lot of cognitive research (that looks like social research) and hopefully incorporating some cognitive neuroscience. Apparently I like to be difficult/do all the fields, haha.

This also might be helpful, both the linked website and looking through publications in the journal: http://www.apa.org/about/division/div44.aspx

I took the GRE twice because I wanted to raise my quant score, which I was able to do, but in the process my verbal score dropped a little. Keep in mind that risk is always there, at best you have to pay to send two sets of scores and at worst you don't do as well the second time.

I've never once heard someone explicitly say applicants should directly address one bad grade or a W. The advice I was given was to address a weird situation by passively mentioning it via learning experience banter. So, if you want to address a couple Ws, find an eloquent way to say something along the lines of "during my undergraduate career I was able to learn what it takes to successfully complete classes and get the most out of classroom settings which has been reflected in my performance as a master's student." So, you're kind of addressing the Ws, if someone is concerned about them and checking your SOP to see what you have to say, but you're not bringing extra attention to the situation.

I think a lot of people here are clinical or social, which are basically the two most competitive graduate fields that exist. So, you're going to be met with a lot of (rightful & warranted) cynicism when asking these types of questions. Just keep that in mind, and I say this as someone who applied to a lot of social psych programs. I have a friend who got into a top 10 I/O program with stats a little less impressive than yours and one year of research experience. He also had research interests hat fit perfectly with people at the program so as someone said above, fit is important. In my personal opinion, I think it's always good for people in psychology to have research experience before graduate school not only because you probably won't get in otherwise, but also because graduate school IS research and unless you're clinical then your career will be too. What if you start and realize you hate research or it's just not your thing? Something you may want to consider: instead of emailing faculty this fall to ask if they're accepting graduate students next year, email and ask if there are RA opportunities available for recent graduates. You might luck out and find an I/O person who has work you can do for a year until you apply for graduate school. You could even start emailing now and see if anybody in your area has an opportunity for undergrads that you can take on in addition to whatever you're doing for your thesis. FWIW, I don't think it's outlandish for you to apply this year. It's competitive, yes, but it will always be competitive. If you're confident in your interests and talk to faculty you want to apply with and they give you the green light, no harm in trying, right?

This might be a good starting point: http://lgbtpopulationcenter.org/web-resources/

I/O is out of my comfort domain but it looks like the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology has all sorts of helpful information on their website: https://www.siop.org/ Otherwise, use keywords related to the topic in I/O that interests you to do Google Scholar searches and find people who are researching that topic/similar topics. Alternatively, SIOP has a list of graduate programs in I/O: http://www.siop.org/tip/backissues/tipapr02/02gibby.aspx Youcan look through faculty pages at the schools on this list and find out what they're researching and if anything interests you.