Vanilla Bean

I would personally wait till the conference to try to chat with any professors. Then after the conference is over, I would send out brief emails to the professors you met reminding them of who you are and thanking them for speaking with you at the conference. I think all of that should be enough to put your name on their radar before you apply.

Was going to say this exact same thing. The master's program may help you in the process of assessing whether you would like to move forward into a PhD program or not.

School: Saint Louis University Type of Program: Experimental Psychology Acceptance Date: Email from PI as well as an official email was sent Wednesday, March 4! I've decided to accept this offer, so if you're also attending please feel free to reach out. 😀

Saint Louis University's Experimental Psychology Ph.D. program in the Social Psychology concentration! Message me if you're also attending and want to connect. 😀

You'll be surprised at how much better you'll feel after you tell the people closest to you, and you'll be surprised at just how encouraging and supportive they may be. I just posted in this thread a few days ago about how hurt and defeated I was feeling because of all of the rejections I was receiving, and I was literally in the exact same boat as you; I had no idea how to tell my loved ones. But I've been slowly starting to confide in them and just reach out for support and tell them what's been going on. You are definitely not alone, and I would encourage you to do the same and just let them know what's going on, you will feel MUCH better over time as you develop a Plan B and realize that life doesn't stop here. You can always try again and you'll be fine. 💛 I was literally in the exact same boat this entire week, so feel free to message me if you need to vent any more.

Oh okay, good to know!. I've only emailed two PIs so far, so I guess I'll just wait and not email anyone else. I thought it was okay since I noticed some others have also said that they have contacted their PI directly just to ask. I guess I will just keep waiting!

My masters program was funded! Message me if you want to know more, it has not been mentioned in the thread so far but I don't want to possibly reveal my identity so I just tell people to message me lol.

I've been emailing the faculty that I applied to work with and just straight up asking where they're at in the application process. I've received rejections, but weirdly enough it feels good to just know. I would encourage you to just email who you applied to work with and ask! I seriously feel so much better, which is incredibly weird because I just got rejected lol.

That’s really interesting! Maybe all POIs are different then, and some like narrow already-established research interests while others prefer for the student to be open-minded to many ideas? Or I said something else during that interview that screwed me over lol.

Thanks for the virtual support 😭😭

Hm okay this makes sense, and is likely what killed my chances during my last Skype interview. The professor asked me if I had ideas for research projects that I’d want to start working on once I’m in the program, and I was worried that if I said a specific research idea and she didn’t like the idea it would kill my chances, so I was dumb and said I was open-minded and currently wasn’t sure because I’m genuinely interested in a lot of the research being done in my field. Maybe I should have shown that I have a better idea about WHAT exactly it is that I want to study. 🤔 Thank you for the advice!!! Now that I think about it I decided to apply to PhD programs kind of at the last minute this cycle, and so I think I was too focused on crafting a well-written personal statement than actually digging through the literature and REALLY figuring out what I actually want to study in graduate school 😖

You’re probably right. Some of the POIs I applied to work with I wasn’t quite sure if my interests were a good fit for their labs. Which is why I emailed everyone with a summary of my research interests and asked if they saw me as being a potentially good fit. I was hoping that if I wasn’t a very good fit, they’d at least tell me not to bother applying. 😕 But I do have a feeling that perhaps I should try to broaden my research interests so that they are a better fit with more professors’ labs, so thank you for that advice! ❤️ I’m definitely going to be re-evaluating my interests and drafting stronger personal statements next round.

I just received a formal rejection letter today as well and it really stung! The POI I applied to work with at that school and my honors thesis advisor are friends, so I thought that connection may have helped me a bit, but I guess not. I was devastated as to why I didn’t at least receive a shot at a preliminary interview. 😥 Some of these rejections have been so surprising. That’s a really good idea to seek out advice from those programs on what I could do to improve next time, so thank you for that suggestion! ❤️

How does one even go about a second round? Do I apply to work with the same POIs or start looking for new people I’d want to work with or?? Should I ask them for feedback on how to strengthen my application!? I am so at a loss with how I’m going to navigate a second round too. 😢

Hi everyone. I don’t really have many friends and family that understand this whole process, so I’m posting here to hopefully receive some support from people that may be on the same boat. So, based on all of the results that I have seen posted on GradCafe so far, I can’t help but feel like I have already been rejected to every program that I have applied to. Pretty much every program I applied to this application cycle has already sent out interview invites and I did not receive one so the rejection is pretty self-explanatory there, and there’s still one program that I’m still not sure where I stand and if that specific POI has even reviewed my application, but I’d obviously have to get extremely lucky to receive an interview and an acceptance from that one program at this point so I really do not want to get my hopes up only to get disappointed in the end. So basically I’m feeling extremely pessimistic and defeated. Do you all recommend contacting that specific faculty member or maybe the department to see where I stand? I was also wondering if, even though I have not been invited to a single on-site interview, there is still a possibility that I was placed on the waitlist for any of the programs I applied to? This is my first round, so I’m not quite sure how the whole waitlist thing works either. I’ve only actually received an official rejection from two programs. Should I just assume rejection from the other programs, or should I still keep on hoping? I’m just ready for all of this anxiety to be over; so, should I start preparing my application materials for another round, or should I still keep hoping that I may be successful this round? Additionally, some words of encouragement would be extremely helpful if you have any. I feel incredibly defeated and hurt. This is my first round, but I have completed an honors thesis and a masters thesis, had my honors thesis published (and my masters thesis is currently being prepared for publication), about 11 poster presentations, about four years of research experience, a 3.9 undergraduate GPA and 4.0 psychology GPA, I had pretty much everything I thought PhD programs were searching for and I emailed every single POI beforehand asking if my research interests were a good fit for their lab. On top of that, I am really financially struggling right now due to all of those application fees and what not... I am just really not in a good place right now, and I feel like I have nobody to turn to. 💔