Jay's Brain

Just some words of encouragement from someone who went through the rigorous ordeal last year:
Stay positive! Don't ever give up and, remember, perseverance goes a long way towards your success! All of you have made it this far from diligence and hard work. You may not be the student with the 170/170/6.0 GRE score, perfect GPA, and a gajillion papers in high impact journals. Don't worry, because that person doesn't exist. The only person you need to compare yourself to is yourself. If you've done all you can to get yourself to this point, there's nowhere else to go but up

Good luck!

 

Just some words of encouragement from someone who went through the rigorous ordeal last year:
Stay positive! Don't ever give up and, remember, perseverance goes a long way towards your success! All of you have made it this far from diligence and hard work. You may not be the student with the 170/170/6.0 GRE score, perfect GPA, and a gajillion papers in high impact journals. Don't worry, because that person doesn't exist. The only person you need to compare yourself to is yourself. If you've done all you can to get yourself to this point, there's nowhere else to go but up

Good luck!

 

Just some words of encouragement from someone who went through the rigorous ordeal last year:
Stay positive! Don't ever give up and, remember, perseverance goes a long way towards your success! All of you have made it this far from diligence and hard work. You may not be the student with the 170/170/6.0 GRE score, perfect GPA, and a gajillion papers in high impact journals. Don't worry, because that person doesn't exist. The only person you need to compare yourself to is yourself. If you've done all you can to get yourself to this point, there's nowhere else to go but up

Good luck!

 

And...I'm back! Wow that first month of graduate school flew by in a hurried succession!

The 4 years of funding is the guarantee from Western, correct? There's still a possibility for you to apply for external funding? 

I guess the only thing that you may have to consider is how course work will align with you. I have a few people in my cohort who are technically in their PhD1 but have to complete a few Masters courses to compensate, because they were lacking in the area. I assume after the first year that hump goes away, but always good to check what the expectations are year by year. 

There does seem to be some flexibility from what you're saying, and if the PI is encouraging it, then that might be worthwhile to do the MSc like you said

Eh, let's face it: the GRE(s) test how well you take the GRE. You have to take it, you will be judged on it, it sucks, but it's the way the world (read: grad school admissions) works. At least until it -- one day -- get's overhauled for being rather discriminatory and biased towards high SES.

Hey y'all,

I was part of the Fall 2015 applicant pool last year, and found this to be a very useful tool to bounce ideas and questions off of other Canadian applicants and graduate students. It's a stressful process, so that's why I decided to start this thread with the same intentions of catering to the Canadian community on Grad Cafe. 
Little background...I was accepted last year, received offers from 3/5 programs, and will be starting my MA in Clinical Psychology next week!

Feel free to message for your Psychology graduate program questions and comments!

 

Hey y'all,

I was part of the Fall 2015 applicant pool last year, and found this to be a very useful tool to bounce ideas and questions off of other Canadian applicants and graduate students. It's a stressful process, so that's why I decided to start this thread with the same intentions of catering to the Canadian community on Grad Cafe. 
Little background...I was accepted last year, received offers from 3/5 programs, and will be starting my MA in Clinical Psychology next week!

Feel free to message for your Psychology graduate program questions and comments!

 

Hey, I fell into the same boat as you during my application process last year. My story is a bit more complicated perhaps. I did my GRE three times. First time my scores came out decent, but I wanted to try again. The second time fell apart completely for me. The final time, my Verbal score went up and my Quant score went down. Ultimately, after all of that, and through advice from my then undergraduate supervisor, I decided to stick with my first set of scores. 

So beyond wasted time, energy, and money I now go around these forums giving people hope and reassurance about their scores haha. When you do your GRE, you have the option of choosing which scores to provide to your schools of interest. It's called ScoreSelect. So rest assured that you can choose how to show your scores. 

Ultimately, how you do on your GRE and how that affects your overall application does depend on your program. Most schools don't tell you how they check your GRE, but consider all other aspects of your application. If the GRE is the only thing holding you back form an otherwise stellar portfolio then you have nothing to worry about! A lot of applicants (myself included once upon a time) consider the GRE the end all of the application. If it was, then a lot of great students won't make the cut. It's only there to supplement whatever else you have. 

Be confident, and make sure you stand out in all other aspects. Good luck!

Don't let your age or international status stop you--I had a colleague in undergrad who changed his career path and chose to go to clinical psychology around your age, and he too was an international student in the US. Clinical Psychology is a practical field--even if there's biases towards recruiting fresh, young, undergrads, there's absolutely no reason you should be afraid to try and pursue a career as a clinical psychologist if your goal isn't academia. In terms of who you should talk to, while research fit is a given, have a look at the other people they've recruited into their labs. Some of the supervisors I looked at had labs with multiple mature grad students, so if your fear is age bias, then apply to supervisors who clearly don't exhibit this.
Consider Canadian grad schools as well--the school I go to, while having higher fees for international students (though as I understand it, those fees are still lower than some domestic tuition costs in the US), they will adjust their funding packages accordingly so that international students will receive more money to offset the larger tuition costs.
I wanted to address this point last--it was actually the reason I made this account because I sympathize with what you're going through. I had to make a similar decision as well, though my situation is certainly not the same as yours. My mom also told me not to worry about trying to support her and my dad, and to pursue my dreams. Her rationale is that she did not want to become a burden to me. I imagine that your dad feels the same way, but with dementia, I can see why you are very concerned.
At the end of the day, what you will have to ask yourself is what will you regret more:
If you postpone your dreams further to take care of your father, will you regret it? Even subconsciously, do you want to see your parents as the reason you didn't fufill your dreams? Would you regret the thought that your father might think he was burdensome to you?
Or, if you go to graduate school, will you regret not taking care of your father? Would you regret not being there?
To give another person's perspective, my undergraduate supervisor told me that before going to undergrad, he was the primary caregiver to his grandparents (despite having living parents and older siblings). They encouraged him to go to college and he did. His grandparents were put into a home, and they died. It was very upsetting, but he knew his grandparents wanted more for him so he honored their wishes.
Your father wants more for you, and I am certain your mother did as well, but its definitely not clear-cut what you should do, as this decision is made on a case-by-case basis. The two cases I presented to you (both mine and my undergrad supervisor's) resulted in us going to grad school--unfortunately, in a forum like the grad cafe, you're probably not going to find many people who chose to postpone their education indefinitely because the users drawn here are those already attending or planning to attend graduate school.
And regarding your older sister--maybe its worth talking to her and laying out how you feel? I am not sure of your relationship with her, but if she' understanding, then she may agree to care for your father, after all, you have already cared for your mother.
My final advice is to seek more wisdom and perspectives from others regarding this issue, however don't let things like age or being an international student stop you. There are people who are international students who are sufficiently funded--you just have to be selective in which schools you apply to. Even if its difficult to get into a school with full funding, once they accept you, they will fund you. These schools won't waste an interview on someone who they can't afford to keep.

You'd be surprise how much leniency supervisors give when they see you are passionate about a specific topic, as long as it 'fits' in even the most loose sense within their general scope of research they are generally okay with it. You can contact a supervisor who's umbrella research is in the general area of your interests.... it doesn't have to be so specific because then you will rule out a lot of potentials. Likewise, you don't have to outline any concrete or specific research that you want to conduct again as long as it's relevant to what they are doing generally they would be happy to have you (so long as you meet the requirements and you know what your'e talking about and you aren't just saying 'everything' when they ask what your research interests are etc. etc.). I mean of course there are exceptions but in my experience it hasn't been the case... I'm in a cohort of 9 and 6 of them (including myself) are doing things something very different than our supervisors research however, it's within the scope very generally.. one girl is researching terrorism and her supervisor studies sexual offenders, another is researching evolutionary psychology in cognition and her supervisor studies sexual dysfunctions in couples another is researching moral development and supervisor studies learning disabilities and adhd.. I myself am interested in studying the radicalization process and my supervisor studies trauma therapy in immigrants.. I'm just saying don't box yourself in just because it doesn't map on perfectly or even mostly to what you are specifically interested in.. supervisors like it when students have flexibility but not so much that they have no interests at all but not too little that you are stubborn.

I do want to make a comment about the Score Select service that I have experienced personally. 

As described by previous posters above, you have the opportunity to either submit your scores to 4 institutions at the end of your GRE (when you've received feedback for your VR and QR). Alternatively, you can decline this option and pay more ($27) to submit to each school individually. In the past, I have done both. I wasn't sure which schools to choose, so I include the institution number for schools I knew I was applying to and submitted the other ones later. 

My one caveat about whether schools see your full set of scores or your individually selected set of scores is this. I had a two institutions that insisted I submit a scanned printout of the score summary found on my ETS account after I have received the scores. This would be fine normally, but I had actually done the exam more than once. So, even though I had submitted my latest set of scores as an official document to the school already, the school still saw my older set of scores when I submitted my unofficial copy. There really was no way around it, which, depending on your school's system, really cancels out the added value of the Score Select system.

Just wanted to provide insight that some people might not have realized! Be wary of how schools ask for your raw scores!  

I should be long in bed by now but this topic really speaks to me. I was this undergrad for the Fall 2015 season and everyone that knew me thought I'd get in somewhere. During the regular application season I applied to five schools and was rejected from all of them (with just one interview). However, I am now a grad student and able to look back on this.

What I ended up doing was only talking about apps to people who understood the process (much more difficult than it sounds) and/or support you no matter what (I had a fantastic friend who was already a grad student). I also suggest finding a hobby you enjoy and sticking with it (for me this was Martial Arts - it let me forget about apps and release the stress)!
One of the best pieces of advice/encouragement I heard from a professor was to remember that in academia even the superstars have had rejections (it's just no one sees the rejections on people's CVs), but they've done well in part because they kept trying. When I heard that from a professor I looked up to (who was actually in the country because they never gave up) it meant a lot.

I am in grad school now because I never gave up. I went to a conference in my area (even after the five rejections) where I met my advisor who saw the research match and potential in me to where they made it possible for me to be admitted late (about a month after April 15th).

I'm going to end with this: there are so many reasons besides you that can lead to rejection, so at that time it might not be you.
If you really want it and it's meant to be, you'll get there.

(PS Howdy from another Texan!)

I was in the same shoes as you! CGS-M for my first year of my Masters and I got an OGS for the second year. You are right that this is the only award at this level which you are eligible for.
I found the preparation for the OGS easier than the application for my CGS-M. However, I did not apply to OGS as an undergraduate because I was from BC and I didn't even know what the OGS was (in 2009, when I would have had to apply, the OGS was still an award you applied directly to the Ontario government, not each school). 
I do agree that your OGS proposal should be more refined/specific than your CGS-M proposal. But after going through the process of writing an undergraduate thesis and beginning grad school, I think this is a lot easier and less daunting than when I was writing the CGS-M proposal. However, that might have been mostly me having zero exposure to this level of writing when I applied to NSERC awards so even a tiny bit of experience since then made a giant difference!
I also think that in general, the OGS is less competitive than the CGS-M, so if you were successful in getting the CGS-M as an undergraduate, then the OGS should be attainable. Don't let that affect how hard you work on the OGS application of course, but if it helps relieve a little bit of stress to know that, then keep it in mind! 
Finally, another advantage of applying to the OGS vs. the CGS-M is that when you were applying to the CGS-M, you didn't really have an advisor lined up and invested in you (yet). But now, you have a graduate supervisor (I think?) and if you get this OGS, it would greatly benefit your supervisor as that's money they don't have to pay you. So, while you must write the proposal yourself, your supervisor is an excellent resource to help brainstorm thoughts, discuss ideas, and get feedback in writing a strong proposal. When I wrote my CGS-M proposal, I did contact potential advisors to help generate ideas but I got a lot more support when I was applying for my OGS and my supervisor was just down the hall and has a big incentive to help!

Doing it again! Applying to more schools this year. Yay...

Hey, first I think you may want to check your sources a bit. There's at least 11 schools that has a I/O program in either the Master or Doctoral level. Check the link here: http://csiop-scpio.ca/education-training/ioprograms.html

From a general perspective, I think you would find that Canadian universities stand very well when it comes to marketability. Depending on your research or field interest, you can find a lot of faculty members at their respective universities that can offer a great deal of tutelage to any student. There's definitely less universities/programs compared to the US, which can make some of the programs overlooked, but we have some good ones too! For I/O, Waterloo and Guelph are the ones that spring to mind first, but that may be due to proximity more than anything. Waterloo, especially, has a strong Psychology foundation, and their closeness to the business and tech industries is renowned. That connection may be very useful for someone interested in pursuing I/O.

Feel free to check out the fledgling forum thread here for the 2016 Application Cycle for Canadian applicants/programs and ask other questions: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/68773-canadian-psychology-applicants-fall-2016/

Good luck!

The Canadian organization that is analogous to the NSF would be NSERC (Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council). However, these awards are for Canadians only, just like NSF awards are for Americans only. This is a common issue amongst all students from any country looking to apply internationally--the amount of awards available is tiny. 
There are two exceptions that I know of though:
1. If your school is in Ontario, then the provincial level Ontario Graduate Scholarship is available to foreign students. There is a quota to how many foreign awards are given so it will be much more competitive. You apply for this award directly to the school you are applying to. Look on their website to find the information (each school sets their own deadline and application process).
2. The Government of Canada also funds the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (http://www.vanier.gc.ca/en/home-accueil.html). This is like an NSERC/NSF award, but at a much much higher level. The value is $50,000 per year for up to 3 years. It's open to foreign applicants because it's a program that is meant to encourage talent to stay in Canada / move to Canada. See the linked website for application information, but keep in mind this is a highly competitive award that will require sponsorship of the Canadian school in question. 
Good luck!

To my understanding, I don't believe there are any major differences. The one that I've noticed is that Canadian programs tend to introduce the Masters into their programs as a first step towards the PhD. From what I've read on these forums (so do take this with a grain of salt), that may mean an additional year (Masters may be 2 years depending on the school) compared to the 5 year program offered at many US universities for direct entry PhD. On the flip side, this Masters is not expected to be terminal and will be fully funded if accepted. 

You will probably not be eligible for the national-based funding scholarships common to Canadians (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, OGS, etc), so you may want to look into funding opportunities States-side. 

Other than that, I don't believe there are too many differences to what you are taught. We go to the same international conferences and work with the same people, especially on the North American side of things. We do have more frigid temperatures which will probably be something you need to get used to if you're coming from Albuquerque!

I'm not very experienced at this (yet), so if any other students has any advice for EdNeuroGrl feel free to chime in!

I'm guessing that they haven't updated their page yet for the upcoming application cycle.
Btw, hi. I am a US citizen that applied to Canadian schools exclusively last year. I got accepted to 2/4 programs. My major in undergrad is psychology and animal behavior (minor in biology) and am now in the biology program at University of Toronto. I applied to and did not get accepted into the psych program at U of T, but I'm okay with that because the supervisor was the same (:
I'm also happy to take questions!
 

Hey y'all,

I was part of the Fall 2015 applicant pool last year, and found this to be a very useful tool to bounce ideas and questions off of other Canadian applicants and graduate students. It's a stressful process, so that's why I decided to start this thread with the same intentions of catering to the Canadian community on Grad Cafe. 
Little background...I was accepted last year, received offers from 3/5 programs, and will be starting my MA in Clinical Psychology next week!

Feel free to message for your Psychology graduate program questions and comments!

 

Try contacting the schools you are interested in applying to, and see what their historical numbers are for their successful applicants. Even better, try contacting some of the current graduate students. That is a much more convenient way of establishing what range of scores fits your programs, because, after all, not everyone will be applying to the same schools as you! 

And remember, the other parts of your application (LORs, personal statements, grades, experiences, etc) can offset a lower GRE if everything else is substantial and fits the requirements for the schools!

Good luck!

Thanks for starting the thread! I hope you enjoy your program. The first month of the program can be very overwhelming, but it gets much better! 
Where is everything thinking of applying to?

Thank you for starting this thread! You seriously are the best! 
And good luck on your first week of school! I'd love to hear your experience!

Hey y'all,

I was part of the Fall 2015 applicant pool last year, and found this to be a very useful tool to bounce ideas and questions off of other Canadian applicants and graduate students. It's a stressful process, so that's why I decided to start this thread with the same intentions of catering to the Canadian community on Grad Cafe. 
Little background...I was accepted last year, received offers from 3/5 programs, and will be starting my MA in Clinical Psychology next week!

Feel free to message for your Psychology graduate program questions and comments!

 

Why not? For those of us in our beginning stages of creating our CVs, I think it's worthwhile to indicate what work and research we're working on. Saying your roles and experiences may not be enough to show that it extends to work that will eventually be up for publishing. If you have enough information (working title, description, and authorship list, etc), then include it. As you gain more experiences, you can replace them with actual published work.

Congrats on your success

Hello,
When I first read your thread title, I thought you were talking about undergraduate degrees. It is very uncommon to think of "choosing majors" in grad school because unlike undergrad, it's not like you would enroll in a grad program first, and then declare a major, and then adjust it as necessary. Instead, you need to know what you want to do (at the "major" level, not necessarily at the "thesis topic" level though) when you are applying and apply specifically to those programs. It is pretty rare for a graduate student to be able to "change majors", instead, they have to leave the program and apply to a new one.
That said, while I hesitate to say this because I don't really know you, my first piece of advice is that you really need to be a little bit more focussed when you are deciding on and applying to graduate programs. You list 4 different programs as things you are interested in and while it's great to have lots of interests, I think for applying to graduate school, you should pick one or two (ideally related ones) of these interests and spend the time to prepare your applications. It is a lot of work to apply to schools and people generally apply to a large number of schools (4 to 12, on average). If you are applying to 4 different types of programs, then this will multiply the work you have to do by 4 !!
Also, in your last sentence, you say that you "really miss school" but you do not really go into much depth about the 4 programs you're interested in and why you want to go to graduate school in these fields. Maybe it will help for you to chart out your short and long term goals for each of these four programs and then you would have a better idea of why you want to go to graduate school. i.e. what do you want to get out of your time pursuing a graduate degree? Knowing this will make your applications a lot stronger, and also it will help you choose the right programs to apply to and set you up for success afterwards.
In general, my advice would be that while undergrad was a great place to find out what you like and do general and broad learning, graduate school is not about education. To me, graduate school is basically a type of vocational training, not unlike training to be a plumber or an electrician. It is really different from undergrad and other schooling in the past, which is why I always caution applicants against applying to graduate school because they don't know what to do or because they miss school. 
Finally, to answer your first question: how did I know what I wanted to do in grad school? Well, at first, I didn't even know I could go to grad school (or that grad school even existed). While in my undergraduate degree, I started getting interested in research by listening to older students tell me about their work. I wanted to try it myself so I joined my school's undergraduate "co-op" program, where you do 4 years of classes plus 1.5 years of full time (paid) work. My paid work was all research. After taking the 1.5 years off to do research, I knew that I wanted to keep doing that. I also tried several different research projects (4 different ones!) during my undergrad and that helped me determine that I am really passionate about planetary science, so I applied to graduate schools for that!