grad29

Masters program for School Psychology.

The context of the paper is a writing sample that's part of a graduate application. My topic is "why do students drop out of high school?". Although it's simply a writing sample and isn't going to be published, it would be considered a research paper. I'm assuming the admissions committee wants to see whether or not an applicant is capable of constructing an academic piece of writing. What approach should I take towards referencing, given that? In high school and in college, teachers would convict me of plagiarism when I was simply drawing upon what I've learned up to that point and putting it in my own words. I think it's because I have a tendency to write in a way that appears, on its surface, to be taken directly from a textbook. Take the following once again: The opportunities for women in the workplace in the 1950’s were not nearly as great as they are today. Women as being the caretakers, rather than the providers, of the household was still the predominant image. Although America was on the brink of major changes to gender equality in the 1950's, the country was still much closer to traditional gender roles than we are today. In return, the expectations of young people in 1950's were much different. It kind of looks like this could have been copied and pasted directly from a website or rephrased from a few, but it wasn't. What I don't want to have happen is the admissions committee perceive that I'm plagiarizing when I'm not. What I began to do in college in some of my papers that looked overly text-like was include a reference at the end of every paragraph. I would pull a resource that was related to what I was talking about, even though I didn't use it. I would give credit where credit wasn't due so I wouldn't be convicted of plagiarizing. Obviously, in a graduate application where they are asking for a writing sample, you don't want to just slap a source at the end of every paragraph since that would look quite sloppy. Author's Thought: "Popular media, such as the “Donna Reed Show”, reinforced that stereotype of women in that decade" "My" thought: "Televisions shows, like "Leave it to Beaver”, demonstrated this misogynistic perception of women in that generation." What you're saying makes sense - I agree that using that sentence without giving credit to the author would be plagiarism, since I'm misleading the reader into thinking it was my own idea. When an opinion is stated, it's assumed that it's the thoughts of the author. The take away from that is, don't mislead the reader into thinking it's your brain cells at work when it isn't. Although, if you happen to form an opinion that has already been formed by another person (which most opinions will be), it's not plagiarism because there was no intent to be deceptive. How a reader can create that distinction is difficult. Are we supposed to just assume that any paper with really good ideas has some level of plagiarism in it? Some people do. All this leaves me with a few potential concerns: (1) By citing the original source which helped me form the above sentence, I worry that no originality in the sentence I used will be credited. Using APA format, there doesn't seem to be the option to state "part of this was mine, but part of it wasn't". Why waste time rephrasing something and making it better, why not just throw quotations around everything and string it together - if no credit for the developed thought is going to be given? (2) The flow of the paper may be affected by citing too many things. It's distracting if you have more than one or two references per paragraph. (3) Where should we draw the line? Even though the end thought may be different than each of the sources I've investigated, technically it was influenced by each of those individuals. Whether or not a source was glanced at for a few seconds or read over completely, is irrelevant. It brought about an idea and in the strictest sense, deserves some form of credit for emerging the idea. (4) If you restate a "simple" idea in your own words (i.e. televisions shows, like "Leave it to Beaver”, demonstrated this misogynistic perception of women in that generation), including an original example and a slightly different take - how plagiarized is it really? I mean if the problem is deceiving the reader, leading them to think you're responsible for a thought when you're not, isn't a slightly different take with a new, perhaps better, example of a simple idea closer to originality than plagiarism? If the idea is to "use your own brain cells" isn't rephrasing a "simple/common" thought into your own words and using your own examples using your own brain cells? I feel like it is. It's hard to define a specific point in which a thought becomes plagiarized. There's two ends of that spectrum - statements that are completely identical (obviously plagiarism) and thoughts which are somewhat similar, but include different words, examples, and a slightly different meaning.

That seems kind of silly to me. The idea that certain gender stereotypes were reflected in movies, tv shows, magazines, etc... is not that creative of a thought. It would be typical for someone to "come up" with this idea. Also, there are probably many things we feel are original thoughts, but are really based on things we've read about years ago. There are probably many ideas within my paper that have been thought of and mentioned by others without me realizing it. This is the first part of the paragraph, which I typed completely on my own. "The opportunities for women in the workplace in the 1950’s were not nearly as great as they are today. Women as being the caretakers, rather than the providers, of the household was still the predominant image. Although America was on the brink of major changes to gender equality in the 1950's, the country was still much closer to traditional gender roles than we are today. In return, the expectations of young people in 1950's were much different. " This idea is probably something I've read about at some point in my life. Even though I used no source to type those words, my perspective of the 1950s comes from the books and things I've read. In order to build upon this first part of the paragraph, I need to support it. I may logically turn to the roles women were shown to have in the media. In doing that, it confirms the predominant image of women is in fact what I mentioned it to be. So a quick google search shows that the television show, the Donna Reed Show, is a fine example of this. That gets me thinking "hey, television shows are a great way to support my thought", but in order to be more original, I come up with the show "Leave it to Beaver". Is that plagiarism if I don't cite the website that mentioned the Donna Reed Show? What about if I choose not to use any television shows, but instead think of a book - like a specific instance within the novel "Catcher in the Rye" that depicts a female staying home taking care of her son? Usually when I write a paper, I try and get a grasp for the subject first. I look at what other people are writing about it or how they think of it. It helps widen my perspective. Although in the end I may develop my own unique perspective, I didn't get to that point without the contributions of others.

The deadline isn't until January 15th, so I have "plenty" of time to write a new paper. Plus, I've been out of school for 5 years and don't exactly have a 25 page paper on the hard drive ready to ship out. So I will have to write a new one. I'm already about 5 pages into it with lots of different ideas flowing, so I don't think it'll be too rough.

Would it be plagiarism to substitute a like-thought, to be more original? For instance - This idea from a website: "Popular media, such as the “Donna Reed Show”, reinforced that stereotype of women in that decade" To: "Televisions shows, like "Leave it to Beaver”, demonstrated this misogynistic perception of women in that generation." Do I still have to cite the original website, despite having used my own words?

Here are my instructions: A Writing Sample: preferably of a psychological nature such as a summary of literature, research paper, psychological reports, etc. It must be writing using APA format and be your own work. Please include a note describing the sample (PDF). None of the other 8 programs I'm applying to ask for a writing sample, so I don't have to meet anyone else's requirements. What would be an appropriate length for the actual paper, excluding title page, abstract, references, etc...? 5 pages? 10 pages? 15 pages? 20 pages? Also, since this is a school psychology program I'm applying to, I felt it would make sense to do something related to education. The topic I'm planning on doing it on is "what are some of the barriers students face to learning in public education?". As this is a broad topic, I may narrow it down to "what are the reasons why students drop out of school?". I feel like the former topic would include some of the later and I feel like the later topic there is plenty to write about. Thoughts? Thanks!

I myself actually probably will not retake it a 2nd time. The programs I'm applying to a 157V/155Q/5(likely)AW is good. I also think if I take the Psychology Subject GRE test it'll increase my chances for one of the programs I'm applying to. It'll help make up for a little bit lower cumulative GPA by showing them I have knowledge of the subject area, plus, being out of school for about 5 years it'll help my application I feel more than a slightly higher GRE score would. That's a pretty time consuming test to study for, so I don't think retaking the GRE for me makes sense. Also a good thing is to look at the schools you're sending scores to to see if they have any admission profiles posted, so you can kind of see where you stand in relation to others

Would anyone mind taking a look at my letter of intent? I would really appreciate it.

Not too bad. What I suggest is retaking the test a 2nd time, not because your scores are too low, but because it's going to be a lot cheaper. You have to pay $27/school outside of Score Select. You have the option of sending up to 4 schools, so that's $108 in free value. Now your test is basically going to cost $92 instead of $200. Plus, you said you were thought you scored lower than what you're capable, which means you stand a decent chance of improving. So why not give it a second go? That's the same reason I may decide retaking it myself. Now of course you take the risk of scoring lower and wasting a bit of money, but if you dedicate a decent amount of studying time and work on some areas of weakness, I don't think that's very likely. Also, I don't think it was a bad idea to not use Score Select for this test, but because you didn't, that's even more reason to take it a second time since you give yourself a chance to improve.

Which program are you attending if you don't mind me asking? Madison? Milwaukee? Mankato? U of Minnesota? Also what encouraged you to go the PhD route vs the EdS?

Oh - I'm applying to EdS. I really don't see a need to apply for the PhD program unless I wanted to eventually teach, which I'm not interested in doing. There is loan forgiveness for the Federal Perkins Loans for individuals working in special education (after 5 years of employment I believe), so either way it'll be funded. I'm applying to Minot State, Eau Claire, Stout, La Crosse, Moorhead, Milwaukee, Whitewater, and Northern Iowa. That's every school psychology program in the midwest that offers the EdS. Well almost - the other two are the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin - River Falls. The former being extremely competitive (so I'm not going to waste my time) and the later being the program I was rejected from. I hope I'll be fine. I am getting really sick of doing 70 hour weeks in group homes. I don't think I'd be able to last another year doing it. I know School Psychology isn't the easiest of occupations either, but it's definitely going to be a step up from direct care - making $13/hour with no benefits, wiping butts, mopping floors, cooking, that sort of thing - I was really upset not being accepted into the program I applied late to. That's why I'm applying to 8 programs AND 2 social work programs (Saint Thomas and Saint Cloud State) as back ups.

And this would be done in the letter of intent?

I'm applying for 8 school psychology programs. Although these programs are a lot less competitive than other psychology programs, I worry that my stats aren't good enough. I've been out of school for 4 years. In that time, I've gained very good life experiences. I've become a veteran (served in Afghanistan) and spent a ton of time working with the special needs and trouble youth populations in group homes and halfway houses (autism, schizophrenia, brain trauma, Huntington's, Prader Willi Syndrome, etc...) At the time I was in school, I didn't really plan on ever coming back. Well 4 years later and a lot of long work weeks at a low wage, I've realized going back to school makes the most sense. I'm a psychology major and aviation management minor. My last 2 years in school I did "decent", finishing with about a 3.26. My first few years I was a commercial aviation student and almost dropped out, however, and earned quite a few poor grades. It lowered my cumulative quite a bit. When I transferred from that school into another program they didn't transfer over my cumulative so I started "fresh" and ended up graduating "with honors" from the school I transferred into. I know a cumulative GPA includes all 4 years. A lot of the programs I'm applying to say "minimum GPA of 3.0". Some schools say "minimum GPA for last 30 credits", some make no note of this, etc...I'm applying to them all. Pretty much every school psychology program in the Midwest. My 4 year cumulative was just below a 3.0 (2.97 I believe). I know my major GPA was a 3.73 (for the last 2 years). My transcripts looks a bit odd - I have 4 semesters in a row (the last few semesters) of earning just about straight A's - with one B and one D+, and then my grades before then have a lot of C's, D's, and F's. In February of this year is when I decided to go back to school for school psychology. I ended up applying for a program that had a few remaining slots open. They said they would review my application for the fall of 2015 late. They had 3 vacancies open and reopened the application process. I was not admitted to this school, despite the fact they had only a 2.75 gpa requirement. They said they had "several applicants and were only able to accept 3". I know during a regular term they have about 40 people applying for about 14 slots, so I'm guessing they had around 5-6 applicants at the most applying for those 3 vacancies. At the time, I hadn't taken the GRE though, all I had was a letter of intent mentioning my experience and my transcripts. I worry that if that program didn't accept me the others won't - who seem to have a little higher standards. I recently took the GRE and scored a 157V/155Q/5AW. That's on the high end of the programs I'm applying to. For instance, one of the programs I'm applying to provides the following: Overall GPA Last 2 Years GPA Psychology Mean 3.48 3.59 3.58 Range 2.59-3.85 2.96-3.95 2.8-4.0 Verbal Quantitative Total Mean Mean 152 149 301 Range 145-159 139-159 289-317 As you can see, my GRE is in the upper end of that range. I plan on taking the psychology subject GRE in order to help show the admissions committee that I do have a good understanding of psychology, despite having some bad grades in those courses. I plan on taking it in November and am confident I can get in the 80th+ percentile. They said: The GRE subject test for Psychology is not required of any applicant. However, the GRE subject test for Psychology is strongly recommended for the following applicants: If your GPA for the last two years is lower than 3.25 If you have graduated without majoring in psychology Although, this is perhaps one of the easier of the 8 programs I'm applying to. The others didn't list an admissions profile that I could compare to, so this was the only one available. My main question is, where is it the most appropriate to attempt to justify my GPA? Would I do that in the letter of intent or include a separate statement which talks about that? Or do I just not say anything about it and hope I get in? The program mentioned above requests a letter of intent, a writing sample, a resume, and 3 letters of reference.

Ended up with a 155Q/157V. Probably a 5AW, maybe even a 6, but probably 5. I got easier essays and was able to come up with a bunch of ideas and examples. I thought my Q would've been higher. I think the first section I got must have been the experimental one because I feel like I got at least 15/20 - maybe more, then my second section I felt went well too. My third section was definitely harder, but I felt like I did decent like at least 10/20, getting a few questions I felt were "devilish" correct - so I was a little surprised I got only 155. I feel like it may have been a 157-158Q in Manhatten. My verbal I thought was around what it was, maybe even a bit less - like 156V instead of 157. I felt like at most it would have been 157. My first section I messed up on one of the reading comprehension passages. It was really long and complicated and I couldn't focus very well. I feel like my text completion/sentence equivalence questions got harder but my reading comprehension questions got easier. Also I got a weird seat arrangement, right by the door, so there was people constantly coming in and out which got a bit distracting and the person next to me pounded on his keys during his essays, but whatever. 154-156Q: 156-158V range for Manhatten. So they were absolutely spot on. These tests were also very similar to what the test was like. For school psychology these are good scores, so not sure if I'll retake it or not. I'm applying to a bunch of programs and have really good life experience (I'm a veteran and have worked with the special need/trouble youth populations for 4 years). But yeah just figured I'd update.

I said a 150Q is not that tough, not a 160. A 160Q of course is, but if somebody scores a 150Q there's definitely much room for improvement - especially with a 159V score. Even if he raises it 5 points that could be the difference. Now if someone was struggling to raise a 150V and a 150Q then maybe it would be harder to improve, but if someone is capable of scoring a 159 on their Verbal they can do better than 150Q. Sure maybe he could get sneak into a clinical program with a 150Q/159V, 3.69 cumulative, 3.85 major, a bit of research/work experience, etc..., but it would be MUCH easier and safer attempting to improve a 150Q then it would be having to apply for 15 programs hoping you get into one.

Wish that were possible. I work 14 hours Wednesday. I'm also coming off a 90 hour week. Ideally yeah that would be cool if I could afford "not to do too much", but I don't have that luxury. All I will do between now and the time I take the test for studying wise is review vocabulary. Other than that I won't be doing any studying. I do have Thursday off and will sleep most of that day though. Have to go to the DMV to get my license renewed because it's expired. I think I'll go to the gym before and relax in the hot tub or sauna or something like that to refresh myself.

You can beat a 150Q. Study harder and you'll get there. If it means having to put in another 100 hours of work, then do it. Clinical psychology is the toughest kind of psychology program to get into. When the programs ask for 160Q/160V, they mean 160Q/160V. Your application will get tossed out. A 150Q is not that tough. After about a week of studying, I went from a 150Q to a 155Q. A 159V is good, but you can raise the Q score. Those clinical psychology programs have hundreds of applicants, many with similar stats as yours. You should apply for like 10 programs after you raise your Q score further. Anyways - that's just my opinion.

Manhatten: 155Q/157V Test #2 156Q/157V Test #3 156Q/158V Test #4 155Q/156V Test #5 154Q/156V Test #6 154-156Q: 156-158V. I went down a bit on the second two tests for some reason. For some reason they gave me 8 "devilish" questions on the second Q section of the last test, I only got 6/20 questions correct on the section section ha...so we'll see how I do. I'll update when I take the test on Thursday @ 530PM CDT. I'm going to go for a 313. Maybe a 156Q & 157V & 5AW. If I get that I may not retake it.

I think on the second Quantitative section (8/20 correct after a 16/20 on the first section) I just psyched myself out. I saw a few questions I know I've never seen and got a little nervous, but after looking at the questions more they seemed harder on the surface than they actually ended up being. I just glanced over the questions again (not having remembered very many) and tried solving them and ended up with a 13/20, an improvement of 5 questions and understood how to solve most of them after reading the explanation. For example before I wasn't sure how to solve volumes of cylinders or rectangular cubes or how to combine inequalities. The later I was just guessing and checking, sort of. Now I know how to combine them by switching the symbols by multiplying by negative numbers. It seems like every practice test I've taken tests a few questions on each of those concepts. This was without the constraint of time (probably ended up taking more than 35 minutes). I think before I take the 5th Practice test I will make sure I'm well rested and try and relax the best I can on the second quantitative section. We'll see how I do. I think I'm very close to getting a 160 on the Quantitative Section. Then maybe, just maybe, a 157V-158V on the Manhatten Test will equate to a 160+ on the actual GRE, assuming it's less difficult (based on many people scoring higher on the actual GRE, of course people may just be focusing more or have learned more throughout the practice tests, hard to say for sure). I think a 158V on the Manhatten Test is about as high as I'm capable of scoring. At most, there may be that one Sentence Equivalence or Completion question I don't read carefully enough and end up selecting the wrong choice, but mostly it's me thinking I have the correct answer choice, but getting the question wrong. That means it's not really my approach, like in the Q section, that's lowering my score, but an inability to solve the question. This is a lot harder to learn to do. One thing I've learned while taking the Manhatten tests thus far is how to be more efficient at solving the reading comprehension questions. There are two "main" passages in the Verbal section and then one or two smaller passages. These smaller passages are easier to understand than the larger ones. They usually ask that you fill in the rest of the passage, figure out what role two sentences have in relation to a passage, or make you figure out something that either would most strengthen or weaken the argument. These are generally pretty quick to solve. The longer passages are the hardest, since you have to take the time to comprehend what the passage is about. Some of these passages ask you what the author's intent of writing it were, which means you have to have a firm understanding of what they are talking about. That's difficult to do since some of these passages are complex and talk about things that are hard to follow (like some obscure chemical in the brain you've never heard of and it's effect on some obscure portion of the brain you've ever heard of). The other questions of the longer passages ask you select a sentence that best explains something, figure out what a word means in the context of the passage, or figure out what's been said and not being said. Those are the questions I've found easier because you don't have to read the entire thing to figure out. You can kind of skim it and be able to solve the questions. This is the benefit of taking as many practice tests as you can because you learn the method behind solving the GRE. All that being said, I can picture myself scoring a 160Q, 160V. I don't think I'm at a 6AW yet, but maybe I don't need a 6, I think it would just look cool ha. I think I'm very close to the 160/160 though. I'll take the 2nd practice test sometime tomorrow in the afternoon after I sleep and update how I do with anything useful I've learned.

When I took the ETS powerprep tests it was more of a diagnostic for myself to see where I was. I've put in a lot of studying in between the time I took those and now so I don't think they are too accurate. I took all the Princeton tests though (4 online and 2 in the book), which are around the scores I'm having now. I think my highest was a 159Q and a 158V and a 5AW. Let me know how you do on the 3rd Manhatten test!

5

Got a 156Q/158V on the 4th practice practice test. I got 16/20 on first Q section, but then an 8/10 on the second. There were a lot of questions I've never seen before on the second section, harder ones. I knew once I saw weird questions that I did good on the first, since it's progressive. Not sure how many progressive "levels" there are. I'll have to look through some of that material. Maybe by reviewing a few of those questions I can get an extra 4 or so questions correct on the second section, pushing me over 160. I got 11/20 on first V section and 14/20 on the second. Based on the assumption that the Manhatten practice verbal tests are harder than the real GRE, maybe I can already score a 160 on the V. I can consistently earn a 5 on the AW sections, but a 6 may be the hardest of any of the goals to a 160V/160Q/6AW. I don't really need it for my program, but just figured I'd shoot to improve all three sections. Maybe I'll have to think of a few common specific examples in history that could apply to a lot of different types of essay questions to make myself sound more knowledgeable.

Oh, excellent. I thought I read somewhere you had to select your schools before, but that's perfect. It'll save me like $80 or something.

You have the option of choosing I think up to 4 schools to send scores to. The downside of that is you have to select the schools before viewing your scores, at the beginning of the test. Why they do it like that I have no idea - probably to make more money edit: not correct - see comment below. You have this option free of charge. Otherwise, you can do it later for a fee. I think it's like $20/school or something like that. I'm applying for 10 programs so it'll get a little expensive, but one of my main issues is handling the pressure. Whatever I can do to alleviate some of that during the test will help. Knowing my scores will be sent to schools no matter how I do on the test will definitely add more pressure, plus, if I wait it'll give me the option of taking the test a second time and choosing which of the higher scores to send. That's something that they recently changed only a few years ago, so might as well use it to my advantage. A few hundred extra bucks isn't that much when you consider how important the test is. You may not want to do it like that, but having been out of college for 5 years and having a less than stellar GPA during undergrad, I need as high of a GRE as I can muster.

^ I'll check that out. Also based on that thread "real GRE scores vs practice GRE scores" there were many people who were scoring lower on the verbal Manhatten tests than on their actual test. A few people with 157's ended up with 160's+, so maybe on test day I will end up cracking it for the first time. I take my test on Thursday afternoon so I'll update after. It's more like a "practice test" to get a score under my belt. I find myself worrying about waking up one day and forgetting about everything. So, I figure since I can choose which score to send to the schools I'd get a score under my belt. Then, I'll probably keep studying and take it again in a month.