pewtered

I second this. With the exception of clinical programs, it's fine for either gender to just wear nice looking pants with a button down shirt. The suit during interviews I can understand (even though it always stands out), but don't wear a suit to the party, especially if it's only grad students.

They haven't had multiples in the past, though I suppose it's possible.

Brown is notoriously late about sending out invites; they usually have their interview in late February.

I agree with the above posters and will add that while sometimes a different undergrad degree isn't a big deal (and might even help), in this case you won't have much chance being admitted. I know various cogneuro programs that have admitted people with diverse backgrounds, but usually it encompasses the natural sciences, mathematics and computer sciences. As it turns out, in many cogneuro labs these degrees are fairly relevant. In comparison, school/counseling and even social psychology are less relevant for a PhD in cogneuro. You definitely need more cogneuro focussed research experience to compensate for your current psychology experience.

In my cohort (Psychology, PhD), 25% were straight from undergrad and at least one person was wait-listed for quite a while before being accepted. Obviously that percentage is based on attending, not accepted, although most people I met on the interview circuit last year had post-undergrad research experience. Research experience and letter of recommendation from the person(s) with whom you did the research are highly (if not the most) important factors for getting into a program; if you have a lot of research background and good recommendations, regardless of post-grad work, it will work in your favor.

When my current position is up, I'm moving all of my stuff into my new apartment in a new city (plan is to disassemble all my Ikea furniture and pack into a Uhaul). Then vacation for a WHOLE MONTH! Vacation = being at home having my mom cook for me and going to the beach and finally putting an "Auto out of office reply" on my e-mail.

Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) sends around a monthly newsletter with job postings in it. I think you can go to their website to register for the newsletter. Beyond that, I recommend finding the website of PIs you're interested to check for job postings. If the PIs don't have a website, just e-mail them about potential positions. Depending on the lab you apply to work in, who you know can help or it can just be based on your qualifications.

I can't speak to specific tenure issues, but going to the same place runs into a couple problems. The feeling I get from people is that they believe undergrads who go straight to grad school at the same place don't necessarily know what they want to do and are just applying to the same place because it's what they are comfortable with/it's what they think they want to do (I'm not saying that people can't know what they want to do, they are just perceived that way). Another factor is that regardless of the truth, people will probably think the person had a slight edge getting into the grad school because they were already familiar with the people in the department. Regardless of actual chances of admission, there is a moderate difference between being accepted at a familiar versus new place. Think of the faculty sitting around deciding who they want; at a school where the department is deciding on someone they already knew and one faculty has to say "I really want this person" it does mean something different than at a school where the department only knows the individual based on a 30 minute interview. Not that the person would automatically be rejected from the non-undergrad institution, it just means more coming from somewhere where the people are less familiar with the individual. Recommendations mean different things when your whole string of recs has come from the same person. If someone applies for a job, and has a recommendation who was their post-doc adviser, their grad adviser, and their undergrad adviser, the people reading that rec are going to be like "Oh yeah, he/she is Dr. X's favorite student/person ever, Dr. X could never write anything bad about him/her". Not that people write bad recs, but they know Dr. X will never say anything bad because Dr. X has been the person's adviser forever, obviously they love the person. Finally, the field itself is incestuous and everyone knows everyone. The more people who know you, the more overall support you basically have from the field itself. If a lot of people can say, "I've worked with him/her, he/she is awesome" it's just generally more beneficial. If there were a cohort of five professors who study ABC and four of them had worked with someone (and could recommend them), I'd imagine professor number five would be wondering why he/she hadn't worked with the person. Anyway, sorry for the long run on, but I think in most cases it's best to get a wide range of experiences with different advisers, schools, etc.

Unless it's an amazing, amazing school, go elsewhere. Almost everyone I've spoken to has implicitly indicated that they frown upon individuals who go to the same institution for undergrad and grad. If you've already been working elsewhere in the meantime, that might change things a little. Otherwise I recommend getting experience somewhere else, which includes getting more people in the field to know you and back you up as a good scientist.

Depends on the school. I know some that have made offers and some that have not, both that had interviews a couple weeks ago. If you want to PM me the schools you are concerned about, I might be able to offer a little more concrete advice.

"Also, living not right next to campus made it easy to get completely out of touch with campus life, with it being a big city and all. Not good." "So yeah, stay away from the whole place at night." These are two conflicting pieces of advice, so I thought I'd throw my 2c in. I would live east and deal with the commute because downtown Louisville has little to offer in the way of grocery stores, shopping, restaurants. I know several people who commute daily and don't routinely run into too much traffic. This requires you to have a car, but I think a car is a necessity in Louisville. I wouldn't walk around at night alone probably anywhere in Louisville (downtown or elsewhere) because it isn't a big city that has tons of people out all the time. So in that sense it isn't safe, but I think it's just your run of the mill situation for smaller cities that don't have a lot going on.

I interviewed at Penn last month and was accepted 2 wks ago.

I'm not from Philly, but I'm also considering UPenn. Though my field is different and the stipend slightly higher, Philly seems totally do able on a Penn stipend. Just a cursory look at craigslist seems to indicate that you can get 2BR for a really low price - which becomes even lower when you share with another person. I stayed with a girl who pays less rent than I do, and I live in a smaller city. Out of all my offers, it definitely has the best stipend to cost of living ratio.

To play devil's advocate, depending on the field an MA can be less than appealing. I don't know the field of the unhappy MA poster, but in psychology, it can be equally (if not more) advantageous to work as a research assistant than doing an MA, mostly because all you do is research, and you get paid (instead of having to pay). As a research assistant you get opportunities to present posters and publish papers, and I would say end up with a pretty good shot at graduate school. Additionally, most psychology programs I am familiar with still make you complete an MA as part of your PhD pursuit, even if you already have one. So, if the poster was responding to a situation like this, I can understand where they are coming from, and hopefully it means more that they are discouraged with the system than looking down on MAs in general. But I do agree it's probably just a visceral reaction to not being accepted.

Check out this site for clinical phd: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=57