mb712

How they treat people online wasn't my criteria for labeling them as disgruntled. Their constant complaining about school, the field, and everyone around them was my main reason for calling them disgruntled.

Sameish, except last non-stats math class was in 2005. It's difficult to cram a bunch of essentially useless math back into your head after 10-15 years. I studied, I'm actually really good at math & had great ACT/SAT scores pre-college, and I'm disappointed in my quant score.

I'm willing to confidently guess that psr is a collection of disgruntled PhD students, whereas the happy ones have less of a reason to lurk around forums and even less of a reason to attempt to scare off/mock PhD student hopefuls.

I wish I hadn't reached my up-vote limit already today.

Political scientists are the spin doctors on tv? Hahaha, what. I actually loled at the (Ph)D joke.

Haha! A similar thing happened with a good friend of mine who just finished law school. On my first admit: "Do you get scholarships or anything?" "Um...they pay a stipend on top of tuition coverage..." "*insert a lot of expletives here*"

The blatant and wildly inappropriate racism in many threads is what always stands out to me. Pack of winners that hang out over there. You know how that saying goes, "if at first you don't succeed, hang out on a forum and talk shit about how everyone else in the field is obviously stupid & ruining your life." Wait...

My dad was absolutely floored when I told him how Ph.D. funding works most places. He had sat me down wanting to talk about my loan and repayment plan, as any account father would be dying to do, then just sat there eyes wide. Then he contemplated graduate school for himself haha

"Psychology? Cool! Hey I think my coworker might be a sociopath, want to meet him?" No... Also, "So, you aren't going to have any kids?" (I'm only in my 20s, damn!) And my favorite, thanks to political psychology: "Oh so you're one of *those* people who like politics." I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

I hope schools make their decisions before SPSP.

I've been told GRE scores are mostly just a way to filter out people before applications go to the department. I can't imagine they would take the time to interview you if they were going to reject you based on something they already knew, but who knows.

Just to echo what others have already said, sooooo many people get rejected across the board during their first application cycle, especially in a field that is as competitive as social psychology. It's nothing to be ashamed about! Try to enjoy SPSP, it will be such a great experience to be around so many fantastic researchers - plus it's a great networking opportunity! If nothing else, have fun for me since I cannot go.

Somebody a couple pages back said they were in at Vanderbilt.

Just over here slowly rotting away while waiting to hear back from places haha.

Your friend isn't the center of the world. If a faculty member is given a better opportunity, why shouldn't they take it? Their job isn't to hold the hand of graduate students. You know what would be even cheaper labor? Not paying hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to fund graduate students and instead using free undergraduates. If schools really thought so poorly about graduate students, they wouldn't waste the money on them. It isn't like money is flowing freely in academia. If people think graduate school will be a walk in the park or think that programs will treat them like kings, they weren't going to make it very far anyway.

3) Yes, definitely. Even something like an internship/volunteer work for a clinician would not only boost your resume but also give you a good idea of the kind of work a clinician does which may or may not persuade your decision to pursue clinical psychology. (I did something similar, it swayed me away from clinical. On the other hand, my coworker in the same position fell in love with clinical work and is applying to clinical programs this application season.) 4) Go about what? Co-authoring a paper? If that's the case, once you get settled into the lab and get a feel for how things work, be honest with someone in charge. Tell them you would like to contribute the most you possibly can, and that you're also interested in any publication opportunities. You'll very quickly be able to tell whether or not this is a possibility for you at your current lab. Since you're working with limited time, this may not be realistic but it's worth asking.

This. Data on completing graduate school and scoring an academic gig are definitely important. The "nobody cares about you at all, programs are using you and faculty are spending their time purposefully trying to screw you over" thing is just being dramatic about a personal experience.

Somebody is already all over this: http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i6/Satellites-Supper-Poster-Couture.html

Just because you've had a bad experience doesn't mean everyone else is doomed to fail too.

I should make academic posters into baby blankets for baby shower gifts. This thread has given me all sorts of unexpected ideas! Haha

Looks like they're saying career and money aren't the two most important things to them. I don't see how that's a sign of a young age. It seems like a sign of different priorities.

I'm game! Methods training is important to me as well, I have a significant amount compared to a good number of undergrads but I would really like to end my education with as much quant training as possible. Bring on the classes! I'm also looking forward to getting a feel on how accessible/welcome interdisciplinary work is, as political psychology is my desired domain. The TA/RA balance is something I also need to map out. Along those same lines, the amount of support/training given to TAs is important to me. I don't want to be in a situation where I'm not doing anybody any favors by blindly leading a class without some sort of guidance to start my first TA gig.

I haven't had any interview or visitation weekends yet but your post made me excited for them! Haha. Glad you had such a good time

I think you guys are onto something. People with graduate degrees shouldn't just frame and hang degrees, they should also display rejection letters from graduate programs, journal rejections, grant rejections, etc. Like a "look at all the crap I've had to deal with but I'm still here!" kind of message.

"Really slow" made me do some sort of hybrid between a laugh/groan/sigh. Feels painfully slow.