sackofcrap

I went to BU and I loved it, however, as the poster above me said, it is very expensive to find an apartment in Boston. The city is fantastic. I would say that the expense is worth it, but you just have to know that it will be expensive. Penn State would definitely be a cheaper living environment.

I agree with this. I think the reason they are rejecting you is because they don't think you have many more years of work left in you. If it were me personally on the admissions board, I might be willing to give you a chance, but I can see why other people would be skeptical of it just for practical reasons. It's a little bit different between a masters and a PhD, just for the simple fact that a PhD is going to take so much longer to finish.

I went to BU for undergrad and studied Psychology, now I am in a different program for graduate school, but I may be able to help if you have questions.

In my particular field, I have not found it to be a problem. I am in a graduate program for educational/school psychology. A lot of the people in my program, did not study psychology or education as undergraduates. We have a kid who was pre law, a girl who was studying health science, and lots of other random stuff. However, you have to take into account that the people in my program who have degrees in other areas, didn't come directly from undergraduate to this graduate program. Many of them went out and worked for a few years beforehand and then applied to graduate school. I'm sure that helped to offset the fact that they had degrees in other things.

If you're talking about monetary value, I think it's still very valuable. If you have a PhD, you can get a job at a university and they still pay well, last I checked. It depends on the degree you get, but if you get a degree in something like psychology, then you can always be a practicing psychologist and that still pays well. I would say the same for many other social science / humanities PhDs. There may not be as many jobs as there used to be, but they are still out there. So, monetarily speaking the degrees still hold value. As far as educational value, they hold a lot of that too. They also can hold a lot of value to society, but that would depend on the field, I suppose. The research you do can benefit society at large.

Imagine the stress of people who work full time and actually attend graduate school as well. I have seen it done!

Personally, I think that would be kind of an exercise in humiliation.

Hmm, that's interesting. I will have to keep it in mind. It's not enough to make me change paths, based solely on work setting, but it is a factor to consider as to whether or not I will eventually get my doctoral degree after getting my specialist degree. For now, the plan will be to get the specialist degree and work for a couple of years, then decide if I want to go back and get the doctorate. I know a couple of programs that streamline the doctoral process if you already have the specialist degree in school psych, so it only takes 3 years and not the usual 5 or 6. I will just have to see. If I grow to love the public school setting along the way, then this will all be irrelevant

Currently I am in a school psychology specialist level program (EdS, SSP, whatever they call it in your state). I am looking to the future because I like to plan ahead. I have always had it in my mind that I might one day want to get a doctoral degree in psychology. I have always been most interested in children and child psychology. I love school psychology. The only problem that I have with it is the seemingly limited practice location (i.e. public schools only). I have been thinking about different settings where I might want to practice. I know that most school psychs practice in public schools obviously, but I also know that some practice in hospitals and I have found that to be really interesting. When I picture myself as a doctoral level psychologist, I generally picture myself working in a hospital. I have some experience in that sort of setting and I have found it most appealing. When I picture myself as a specialist level psychologist, it is in a school. Anyway, I guess my question is, do school psychologists with a specialist level degree ever practice in hospital settings or is that only for doctoral level school psychologists? Does anybody know? I am trying to start thinking about various factors that may influence me to pursue or not pursue the doctoral degree at some point in the future and I believe locations where I can practice will be one of them.

I have a person just like this in my program. Drives me insane in class. And they are blissfully unaware of how annoying they are. I have talked about it with some of my other classmates. We just let it go on because really the person is just being annoying, but isn't necessarily hurting our education in any way. They just talk a lot and always have to answer the question and always have something stupid to ask.

I don't think it matters all that much, unless you are trying to get into a phd program afterwards. If you are going for a job, I don't think it's that important, as long as you get the degree.

My semester is over and my grades finally posted today. Somehow I managed to pull off straight As, so I'm happy with that. My plan for next semester is to pretty much do what I have been doing this semester. Next year, I am hoping I can get a TA position so I can get a significant cut in my tuition! I also have already started to apply for scholarships.

I think you will be fine. I would definitely try to improve that GRE verbal score as much as you can. I would suggest checking out a GRE book from the library and studying the vocabulary in it. The GRE verbal section especially can be very predictable. They tend to use the same words a lot, so it is definitely beneficial to study the specific words that they have in those GRE practice books. Your GPA is perfectly fine. Also, it is good that you have teaching experience. As far as top and mid tiered schools, I just find that kind of funny when it comes to this profession. I don't think there really is any way to say what is a top or mid tiered school in the field of school psychology at the EdS level. I have not seen any rankings for it or anything like that. Schools can be great in one thing and suck in other subjects.

I have felt this way at times during my semester. My program can be unorganized at times as well.

Some guy named Jose gets more mail at my address than I do. Almost every day it's something different. It's out of control.

I would think it would be hard to do this without offending your professors in the process!

You might be interested at two professors at WUSTL. Arpana Agrawal's research focuses on epidemiological and genomic approaches to the study of substance use and addiction. She is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study how genetic and environmental factors work together to shape our liability to use cannabis and become addicted to it. Ryan Bogdan’s research examines how genomic variation and environmental experience contribute to individual differences in neural phenotypes, behavior, and psychopathology (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use disorders).

I tend to spend time with my cohort a lot. There are quite a few of us though (comparatively speaking). We see each other at least once a week outside of class, usually more, but of course not everybody shows up. Some days it will be me and a few of the girls, other days it will be other people hanging out.

Hi. I was out with friends a few days ago and they brought up that school psychologists might qualify for loan forgiveness of student loans. I was wondering if you guys had heard about this or knew more about it. Would you just be able to be forgiven for the graduate loans or would undergraduate loans qualify too? What are the requirements for it exactly?

I can't wait for this semester to end. We are getting so close.

I understand exactly where you are coming from. i moved really far away for my program and now I wish I hadn't because I really do miss all of my friends and family. I love the subject matter, but I wish I had chosen a different location.

Are you saying that you are already a PhD student in Literature and you want to now become a PhD student in History?

I am in the middle of the most difficult part of my semester. Once I get through midterms, I think things will get easier for the rest of the semester...until finals!

I'm frustrated with some of the requirements in my program. I am attending a state school and most of the people here are locals. I am from out of state. I feel like some of the program requirements are more tailored towards locals and don't really fit out of state students. It makes things harder for me, I believe. But, I guess I will just have to learn to work around it. Next semester can't come fast enough for me.

It depends on if you are applying for EdS or PhD. Last I checked, USNews doesn't have a specific category for School Psych sub doctoral programs.