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I think 6 months to a year in advance of your test date is a bit excessive. 3 months is generally a good rule of thumb for the general test, and I would focus on learning vocabulary from the get go. Are you hoping to go straight into graduate school after undergrad, or do you expect to take a year or so off?

I don't know if clinical/counseling psychology are different but in my experience it doesn't matter too much if your experiences prior to grad school aren't perfectly lined up with your research interests, as long as you can figure out how to frame them in terms of valuable skills learned. If you aren't looking exclusively for clinical/counseling programs, University of Michigan has a great program in Psychology and Women's Studies, as well as one in Gender and Feminist Psychology. U-M is one of the top places to be for psychology, as I'm sure you know. Another option could be applying to their Clinical Science program and then being co-advised by a faculty member in one of those other areas.

Actually words are pretty hard for me, it takes me a very long time to put together anything that sounds good. Thanks for your input!

Hi everyone, I need advice as to how I should approach writing a thank you card for some of my recommenders. Last year I was applying for admission into med schools actually (a deal I had struck with my parents) while simultaneously applying for admission into PhD programs. So I had several LOR writers who I asked for letters for my med school apps, but not for my grad school apps. I already sent them a thank you note months ago, thanking them for writing me a letter and saying I'd update them when I knew where I was going to end up. I now know where I'm ending up, but it's not a med school. I'm having trouble wording this in my life update/thank you cards given the lack of space. Could anyone offer any help or advice? I'm so bad at wording things, especially thank you notes...I don't know how to eloquently write this without making it sound like I was wasting this time when I knew I wanted to go to grad school the whole time. Thanks!

No problem! If you ever have any questions don't hesitate to reach out

Hey! I applied this round but wanted to comment because your worry really stood out to me. It was the same one I had. I was pre-med throughout the entirety of undergrad, for which my GPA suffered incredibly. I happened to randomly pick up a major in psychology along the way, though, so fortunately my in-major GPA was okay. If that's not the case for you, I'd say you might want to take the psych GRE just to show that you are competent in general psychology. As for lack of research experience....I had that too. It was a huge worry of mine. Like I said, I was pre-med and was doing cancer bio research (like as a work-study position so not really doing anything fruitful), then decided fall of my final year of undergrad I wanted to go to grad school in psych. I managed to find an RA position for my year off and I think that helped my application. I'm sure having an MA/MS under your belt will be even better. But mostly I wanted to reassure you by saying you're doing everything you should be doing at this point, and there's other parts of your application that are equally important. Like the statement of purpose - incredibly important. From what I can gather, mine was kind of untraditional, actually, because I also included a bit of my personal background in the essay because it was important to why I want to study my particular research interests. My point is, I know everywhere on the internet tells you NOT to do that, but don't worry about it if it happens. Of course, it needs to make sense since you often only have 2 pages (or sometimes a word limit! one wanted 700 words or less!) Last - try not to confine yourself solely to programs in your particular field of interest. If I had done this, I think I would not have had much success. The way I went about picking programs to apply to was by researching several schools (like 30), and looking at programs of even the slightest bit of interest at each school. Looking at the faculty in every single one of those programs in every single one of those schools. And then making a list of faculty at each of those schools in each of those departments who I'd be interested in working with. I eventually narrowed it down to 11, with 1 to 2 POIs in each school: dev psych, HDFS, ed psych, social psych, and even one personality psych. This really worked to my advantage and actually I was even asked about it in interviews (they always responded positively to my answer!)

As someone who's used Kaplan several times over the past decade, I can say it's completely useless. I didn't even bother trying to use it for the GRE. The value of Kaplan is in the access to practice tests and materials you are granted. The class itself is a waste of money and time - I took the class for the MCAT back when I was still premed, and the 'test-taking skills' they taught us in that course were the exact same that I had been taught 5 years prior in the ACT class I took. The EXACT same. It's not worth it.

Hi all, I'm going to be applying next round and had a question I was hoping to pose to you all as having already gone through this process at least once. Does anyone know how heavily they weight the statement of past research? I did not get the opportunity to do any presentations or publications in undergrad and the only independent project I've lead has been a small one, done one summer about 3 or 4 years ago. I didn't do an honors thesis of anything of that sort either. I have other research experiences, but they are not in my chosen field as I did not know this was the career path I wanted to take until my final year of undergrad. So I'm worried about my ability to answer questions about methodologies I've used or results I've expected from my research...

I'm going to UCLA too! I'll be in Psychology though

Outside of class, specifically. What kinds of things might I be able to work out with my advisor/program? Specifically for a psychological disability. I have chronic depression and I find it very difficult to stay focused. I have poor motivation and struggle to complete work in a timely fashion. The work always gets done by the deadline, but I procrastinate like nobody's business... (had to ask for extensions in undergrad 3-4 times). And often I've had to be reminded 3 or 4 times to do something before it actually gets done. I also have a poor working memory, and if I'm talking for a long time I will lose my train of thought a couple times mid-speech (part of getting easily distracted is I will think of another thing I want to talk about so I will bring it up and then I'll forget where I was originally going before taking a detour). I know one thing might be to always bring a pen and paper with me everywhere I go so that I can write down any tasks my advisor asks me to complete/ask her if she'd be willing to give me to-dos in writing rather than verbally. But I'm also worried about years down the line doing my oral comps and also in the nearer future for talks/presentations/posters, if I have a hard time with memory. I also take forever to respond to emails because I want to make sure I'll have enough time/energy/focus to type out a properly composed response and sometimes it takes me a few days to muster up all of that. This last one might just be for right now though, since currently I'm really trying to make a good impression via email as I don't personally know any of the people I've been corresponding with. Other things too...these are a few of my symptoms but I'm sure there are more I'm not able to bring to mind right now. Also, I haven't disclosed any of this to my advisor or any one else in the program. I expect I would have to at some point, sooner rather than later. What would be the best way to go about doing that?

Another thing to consider would be the value of the furniture you currently own. My furniture right now is all cheap and bought second-hand off craigslist so I will most definitely be selling and buying new furniture after relocating. However, if you own really nice quality furniture that you bought brand new or paid a good amount for then bringing it with you might be more of a consideration for you since you invested more in it. Or you could always just combine the two and store your nice furniture and then buy cheap/second-hand furniture in your new location.

I don't mean to be insensitive when I say this though I know it will come across this way, but just take my word for it - who cares? If skating is your preferred mode of transportation then do it! I don't think people will view you unprofessionally, and if they do then that's their problem.

If you're applying to RA positions (as opposed to lab manager positions) I think it would be appropriate to ask how often you would interact with the PI. I didn't ask this when I was doing job interviews and I wish I had because I ended up in a lab where I only ever see the PI in the hallway. Also ask what the hours are because if it's a project that will require you to go out and about and do home visits, you likely won't be working a 9-5 job as you'll be at the mercy of your participants' schedules.

I'd email your POI at each school and ask to set up a phone call to go over a few questions you have, and then ask them straight up about what kinds of positions grads of the program typically go on to fill. That's what I did and they were happy to share with me!

Congratulations!! That's amazing

Not all programs/departments post the information on their website, so definitely reach out to any faculty you are interested in working with in the early fall to find out if they are accepting students! I came across many programs that did not have the information readily available on their webpages.

Hi, I have a question I've been stressing over that I'd like some more input on: Is it worth sacrificing a personally satisfying research environment for a degree from a top 5 school? 'Personally satisfying' meaning the program is very interdisciplinary, the students are very social justice-oriented, and the work is very applied in nature. The point is to get the findings to the people. The goal is to make real change, inform policy, and improve people's lives. But I'd like to be on TT at an R1 university after grad school and I'm hearing that if that's the way I want to go it's of utmost importance that I go to a well-ranked school. Even if I'm not able to secure a job straight out of grad school and do have to do a post-doc, I will likely only have to be a post-doc for 1-2 years as opposed to 4-6, because prestige matters. And afterwards, I could turn my work in a more applied direction. I'd appreciate well-informed answers. Thanks all

Would you say this is generally true for developmental psychology as well?

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Hi all! I'm currently really struggling trying to decide which program to attend next year. Would anyone be willing to talk things through with me? I have narrowed it down to two options, but now I'm totally stuck between the two.

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Personally, I would wait. I know you're feeling anxious since you've been waiting significantly longer than the rest of the prospective students, but I feel like you could come across as impatient especially since your POI knows they told you about the alternate weekend and when it was (in other words, you couldn't act like you just didn't know there was a second weekend). They're making a really difficult decision as well so it's understandable it would take them longer than a week if need be! I think it'd be okay to text your host if you really can't stand to wait a few days longer. Rather than asking outright, if it was me I'd probably try to find out by asking if they remember about how long after their interview weekend they received an offer. But that's just me because I'm overly cautious. I'm sure just asking if they have any idea as to when you'll hear back would be fine!

Btw - if people are looking for jobs. It would be a great idea to join the Cognitive Development Society's listserv! People are constantly advertising post-doc, RA, and lab manager positions (not always in the field of cognitive development, I just got an email today for a lab doing work in social cognition).

I'm so sorry I know how it feels to work really hard for something, and for it not to pan out. At this point what I can do is give you advice for the job search. The biggest thing - do you have any geographical constraints or do you live near a university? If your answer to the first question is yes - regardless of your answer to the second question - it's going to be very hard for you to find an RA or Lab Manager job. When I was applying for jobs, I initially narrowed myself down to positions at universities onily in my area, and I had very poor luck. For one thing, I was straight out of undergrad with very little research experience. Second, there just weren't any jobs. Nobody was hiring. Even in a city with four large schools -two of them R1- I couldn't find a job. So, it'll be hard for you to come by a position if you restrict yourself to a geographic area. I actually had to move out of state for the one position (out of about 70 or 80 jobs I applied for) that I did receive an offer for. I also applied for jobs for about 5 months before being offered a position, starting from around this time last year until July last year. I heard back about interviews from about 3 of them. Another strategy I used (again since I had no geographical constraint) was to email professors all over the country who were doing research even tangentially related to my interests, asking them if they had an RA or Lab manager position they were looking to fill. I ended up emailing about 100 people. Be warned that if you do this, many will not reply to you even to say they don't have any positions. The reason I ask if you live near a university is, if possible, you could find a part time job (or two) doing something else that you don't care for much during the evenings/weekends/a couple days a week, and then the remaining days of the week you could volunteer in a lab of your choice. No professor will say no to having a volunteer - someone willing to advance their research for free? Yes please! When I started to get really desperate, I began to consider doing this as I knew I needed desperately to get more research experience before applying to grad programs. The only thing I'd say is don't volunteer in a lab that doesn't realllly match your research interests. But that's just me drawing a line - if I'm not getting paid I want to at least be doing work I care about. In the end, I did end up receiving an offer from one of the places I applied to work. The research is not even tangentially related to my interests, but as long as you can spin the work you're doing in interviews or your SOP to convey how much of a learning experience it is, it doesn't seem that people will mind. I've been fairly successful this application cycle even despite the numerous flaws in my application.

Thanks for your input! I feel really bad because I've had some really good conversations with the professor thus far. Their research is really cool and they are doing some interesting interventions that are the closest match to what I want to do in the long term in comparison to the rest of the programs I've applied to, but in a way that I'm also worried about being pigeon-holed into since they have such a narrow focus. I also doubt the program will be looking to hire in 6 years because the department is largely new faculty LOL so there's not really anything networking could do for me. I guess it's just a matter of putting together a carefully-worded email at this point.