Bald Academic

This might be a silly question but what's a polite way to reach out to faculty and ask about the status of interviews? My only contact with a particular PI has been pre-application via email and I'm not sure if it's appropriate to send a follow-up.

APA put out this graduate study report in 2018. If you look at the table, across all subfields, social psychology has the lowest rate of acceptances. I think remembering that we are in a competitive subfield in a year with an unprecedented # of applications is important to think about in case we feel the sting of rejection becoming personal.

Clinical Psychology gets all the love in this forum ?

Good luck! Hope we hear back from them soon

I was in a lab meeting earlier this morning and the PI said almost the exact same thing! Me and fellow people who applied for doctoral positions asked him what he thought about the surge. He essentially told us not to worry - he expects that a lot of the new applicants don't have applications that are competitive. Which was a huge relief!

I was wondering in those new applicants have any research experience?
 
Edit: considering they decided to get into academia given the lack of opportunities in other fields, I can only suppose they don't have much research experience. I am assuming that those who seek to be involved with research during their undergraduate years are those who end up applying directly to graduate school after finishing their undergraduate degrees.

I can't move on with my SoP. I thought I was done but when I look at it, it seem far from ideal.

I can't move on with my SoP. I thought I was done but when I look at it, it seem far from ideal.

I'd be cautious about this if it's a program you're really excited about. There are so many reasons professors don't reply that go beyond their interest in you (general policy to not reply, being really busy and it slipping through the cracks, etc). While I totally understand it being disheartening, I wouldn't count yourself out, especially when so many people have said they've gotten in with either no or a very canned response.

Don’t waste time applying for them if they never reply 

This is exactly what I was thinking ?. Self-doubt really fuels my anxiety in this process. That email was from a well known professor in the field, so I am a bit confused.

Thank you! I just replied back! Hope he really meant it!

After replying to the professor, take some time to absorb what the person wrote and how you can draw confidence from the appraisal.

Rather than asking yourself "Am I good enough?" (a question kicked around the GradCafe often), can you ask yourself "How good can I be?"

I recommend that you write a short email in which you:
Thank him for his reply. Thank him for the compliment. Indicate that you'll submit an application. Indicate that you will be honored if you earn the opportunity to work with him. The key with this point is not to indicate anything along the lines of an assumption that you'll be admitted on his say so or a statement that you will commit to the program if you are admitted.  

I am applying to Social/Personality programs.

I usually send a polite follow-up after two weeks have passed - PI inboxes are nuts and it's really easy for an email to get lost. I have pretty good success with follow-up emails, but there are some professors that just won't reply. 

You are always so helpful ❤️

You are always so helpful ❤️

If anyone has any questions or wants a SOP proofreader, feel free to reach out

Yep. Plus six years of graduate school and like a thousand supervised clinical hours

I think I got really unlucky, one of the programs I applied to last year actually closed and didn’t take any students. One of my POIs got very ill last year and didn’t take students. One didn’t have funding for international students. It was super disappointing and the faculty from my alma mater was shocked that I didn’t get accepted last cycle. Anyway I recommend applying to several schools.

Wow... that's sad. It's a lot of schools. Did you have a "safe choice"? I have applied to three different programs in Canada and got rejected for all of them as well, so I'm focusing on getting good grades and hopefully a paper published in a good international journal.

My suggestion is don't mention it. I'd say it falls under one of the kisses of death mentioned in the Appleby article. They specifically say mental health but I don't see why that advice wouldn't generalize to other chronic illnesses, especially the last bit of this quote: "The discussion of a personal mental health problem is likely to decrease an applicant’s chances of acceptance into a program. Examples of this particular [kiss of death] in a personal statement included comments such as “showing evidence of untreated mental illness,” “emotional instability,” and seeking graduate training “to better understand one’s own problems or problems in one’s family.” More specifically, one respondent stated that a KOD may occur “when students highlight how they were drawn to graduate study because of significant personal problems or trauma. Graduate school is an academic/career path, not a personal treatment or intervention for problems."
A second reason is that the person statement is a misnomer. Personal narrative about how you got interested in or passionate about the topic is fluff; the space is better served talking about your concrete experiences and future research contributions - see Brown (2004).
A third reason is that, unfortunately, chronic illness still carries stigma with some people. They might read it and think, "This candidate isn't going to be as productive or will need a leave of absence before they're done."  That's unfortunate and shouldn't be the case but is what it is.

...particularly in this case because David Funder is one of or the most preeminent personality psychologists today. He'll get a lot of applicants. Another search method would be to look up his coauthors or former students.

Hi friends,
I've done some more searching and I think I've reached a good number of schools that I want to apply to. Thought I'd share these with you here!
Social-Personality programs:
- UMN PIB
- UC Berkeley
- UC Davis
- U Missouri
- U Michigan
Ed Psych:
- UT Austin
Clin Psych:
- U British Columbia (MA)