wnk4242

April 10, 2018

I applied to psychology programs, not SLP, but, in my case, I got rejected by one of the programs I applied to. In early April, a POI texted me and asked if I was still interested in their program. I was not even in their waitlist but got accepted in the second round of evaluation.

March 29, 2018

Howdy! I'm going to Aggieland!

StudentGuy · March 13, 2018

4 minutes ago, StudentGuy said:

Hi wnk4242 where were you contacting these experts? I am currently in a situation where I have access to data but not much direction from professors.

https://stats.stackexchange.com/

https://www.researchgate.net/

March 13, 2018

3 hours ago, sagterbe said:

I don't technically have a POI yet; you apply to the program instead of a professor. But I will contact both the financial aid office and international students office ASAP!

Okay. Even though you haven't been assigned an advisor yet, that doesn't mean you can't get in touch with them. I also suggest for you to contact the Department Chair or the Program Director/Director of Clinical Training. Contact as many people as you can and hope someone can help you out.

March 12, 2018

11 hours ago, Left Skew said:

I realize the application season is far from over for many of you, but I felt it's a good time to be retrospective. I wanted to share some of my anecdotes and qualitative data in hopes that it will help those in the future.

Before I begin: this is based on my subjective experience and is not meant to be interpreted as prescriptive. I applied to a combination of I/O Psych and Measurement programs, thus this may be less relevant to some of you- I don't think that will be the case.

Here are some thoughts looking back:

Grad Cafe

The beauty of Grad Cafe (though cliché) is the journey. Many applicants will not visit this place, many will avoid it like the plague, many will lurk. The exceptions provide invaluable information, they empathize, and even sympathize. This process is one that validates and demeans, it's not clean, knowing that you're not alone does so much. You learn about your "competition"- that they are just as smart and accomplished as you; they also are kind and helpful, I found solace in the fact that a deserving person was accepted when I was not. You start building your network here. These people may be in your cohort, may see you at a conference, or may score you a job in the future, so make it count.

Clean the Results Survey...

I did a project a while back trying to crowd-source some data to help those applying. I quickly realized that the results survey is a garbage-fire. All of the open-ended text boxes (i.e., program, school) are very unclean. It does have a predictive component but if someone types something incorrectly others will start getting that as a predictive option. It is also hard to find particular hybrid programs, so I think a tagging taxonomy would bode well. I've emailed the admins about this. The benefit of Grad Cafe can be improved by cleaning the user-experience. This would be a good place for sourcing how grad students deal with rejection or giving particular programs a profile in terms of when they respond to students. You'd need to control for self-selection, but I see this providing a huge benefit to society. Admins clean up the response strings and make the tag structure more defined....constructive feedback, don't delete this post.

Initial Email

-The most underestimated part of the application process

Most of us are highly conscientious so bugging a person we don't know may be excruciating. Funding is the name of the game for many programs. If you apply to the wrong lab it doesn't matter how strong of an applicant you are. Take the time to send an email to figure out who is planning on taking students. I also find that emailing the current students is both less intimidating and more insightful so do not shy away from this. Another thing this will help is your personal statement. I spent so much time specifying advisers just to find out that some of the programs don't want you working with just one person. The program websites are always filled with obsolete information, get current information from those living it.

GRE/GPA

- A perfect GRE/GPA score will not guarantee your acceptance

If this was the case no program would have an interview portion nor would you have to submit CVs and Personal Statements. Obviously, programs will use the quantitative metrics (GPA and GRE) when convenient, so in the beginning when the pool is large. Programs may get 300 applicants so selecting 30 to interview would be tedious without a common scale. The first filter will be a quantitative metric and if you aren't above average...none of your other qualifications is going to fix that. You can't change your GPA but you can improve your GRE. I've heard all sorts of metrics: (Quant + Verbal) * GPA, sometimes programs will weigh verbal more or quant more, you never know. You want to make the first cut, so don't think you need the highest score because chances are you won't have it. Shoot for that 75th-80th percentile. Some of you may think that it is impossible but it's not, this is coming from someone that increased their GRE score by 20 points in a short amount of time. If you're struggling go here. The GRE is based upon adaptive Item Response Theory (IRT) so focus on increasing your mastery of the more difficult questions.

Personal Statement

- Don't overthink it

I spent most of my time doing these. I'm a terrible writer. There is no special sauce, no formula. Just don't tell a 2-page story about your grandma dying. I do suggest demonstrating that you know how to craft a research idea relevant to your person of interest. Also if you see research that they've done where the findings relate to an experience you've had....golden. I asked over 20 professors (from different programs) if they had to choose just one: GPA/GRE, Personal Statement & Recommendations, or CV and Research experience to select a candidate, which would they choose? No one said personal statement. Once again I'm in the area of I/O, so other areas may differ but none of us are in Creative Writing.

Research/CV

-You do research in a PhD program, so research experience is critical

This is the area I lack. My estimation is that it is why I got rejected from places, and is what sets apart the candidates after the GRE/GPA hurdle. I would really love to see the stats for applicants that got 75th percentile on the GRE with publications versus an applicant that is in the 99th percentile without research experience. A vast majority of the professors I spoke to said if they had to select a candidate based on 1 metric that they would choose CV and Research experience. It makes sense because students will be doing research. Don't underestimate how you layout your research experience on your CV. If you can get on MTurk and code someone's data or if you can present to a small clinic or non-profit, do it.

Interviews & Recruitment Days

- It's all about the questions. Don't be vanilla.

I didn't dress the best. I'm sure I creeped out all the current students and applicants, but they remembered me. Ask good questions, I can't emphasize this enough. 100% of the interview/recruitment days I went to accepted me afterwards. I definitely wasn't the smartest person there, but I asked good questions. Don't ask things you can learn from a follow-up email or on the website. Act like you're about to marry them, or that you're on a Tinder date 4 glasses of wine in.

Some examples (all of which I've used):

For students: What would you improve about your program? What class was a waste of time? What are 3 things your adviser can do better? If you had to punish someone deeply, what professor would you handcuff them to? How much time have you spend off-campus with those in your cohort? How much of your weekend is spent doing work? My favorite: If all of the faculty participated in the Amazing Race with a clone of a generic student, who would you put your money on? Who would drop out?

For faculty: What are three adjectives your students would use to describe you? What is a unique skill you offer that the other faculty do not? If you could add a course from the core-curriculum, which would you pick? In your opinion what proportion of a PhD student's time should be spent in the following areas: Assistantship, Coursework, Research, Personal Life? From your perspective what is the biggest social challenge? emotional challenge? and financial challenge? a student faces in grad school.

One love...

Thank you all,

I like your questions!

March 12, 2018

29 minutes ago, sagterbe said:

Thanks wnk4242 I'm thinking (and hoping) they still might mention something about financial assistance. I just got the email notification about my acceptance on Friday and they mentioned "This email will be followed within a week by a formal letter from the Office of Admissions. Please be assured that this email message is an official notification of acceptance"... However, even if they do offer some kind of funding, I don't expect it to cover much of the tuition so I'm looking into ways to supplement it as soon as I receive the official letter I'll definitely contact the international office. Thanks again for your help!

Also, since I've lived in New York for 4 years (but I'm not going to do my PhD in New York), I know where to find cheap apartments in New York (under $1000 for rent). Let me know if you need any assistance with finding an apartment.

March 12, 2018

22 minutes ago, sagterbe said:

Thanks wnk4242 I'm thinking (and hoping) they still might mention something about financial assistance. I just got the email notification about my acceptance on Friday and they mentioned "This email will be followed within a week by a formal letter from the Office of Admissions. Please be assured that this email message is an official notification of acceptance"... However, even if they do offer some kind of funding, I don't expect it to cover much of the tuition so I'm looking into ways to supplement it as soon as I receive the official letter I'll definitely contact the international office. Thanks again for your help!

I suggest for you to contact your POI immediately concerning your financial assistance. Have you done that already?

March 12, 2018

11 hours ago, sagterbe said:

I'm about to start my PhD in Clinical Psychology in NYC at Yeshiva University (Ferkauf health emphasis program) in the fall and I'm a little worried about finances. I haven't heard back from the school about funding yet, but I'm under the impression they don't usually provide much of it. Since I'm not eligible for FAFSA, I'm wondering about other available funding opportunities for international students studying in New York (i.e. bursaries, fellowships, scholarships, loans, grants, etc.). I've looked into a few scholarships, but most of the deadlines have already passed. I will apply to these in the upcoming years, but I would love to hear about what other students in my position have done to fund their studies. It would be particularly AMAZING if anyone from the Ferkauf health emphasis program could provide me with some insight about funding opportunities for international students in that program. Any advice would be greatly appreciated-- thanks in advance

If they never brought up financial assistance with you, I'm afraid that you have to fund yourself. Since you are an international student, you would need to contact their international student office and inquire about what the amount of money you need to prepare on your own to get your I-20.

March 8, 2018

16 hours ago, StudentGuy said:

Yeah, I've been in two labs for 8 months now but both professors have said they're too busy to guide me on an independent research project. I think I've gotta just go ahead and do it myself haha. Thanks for the heads up I really appreciate it.

I highly recommend you do an independent study and write a paper about your study. You don't need to have publications but you need to show your POIs that you have the potential in I/O. Before I applied this year, I did an independent study without much supervision (because I already graduated!). However, I asked a lot questions online and got some great answers from experts all over the world, which really helped my research move forward. After a painstaking process of hard work for four months, I finished a paper based on my independent study and submitted it as a writing sample in my app package. I also posted this writing sample on my personal academic site. When I contacted my POIs, I attached the link in my emails so they could check it out very conveniently. It helped me get in. I should point out that this method wouldn't work well if you need to recruit participants to gather data because I don't think you have funding to pull that out. It's better for you to reach out to professors who have data sets and are in need of someone who's able to analyze their data.

Piagetsky · March 2, 2018

I am an international applicant from China (got a masters in mental health counseling in the US). I applied to 13 clinical psych programs last year and got 13 rejections. I applied to 9 educational psychology programs (with a concentration in measurement and statistics) and 1 quantitative psychology programs and got 7 offers.

How do you make of my experience? I think sometimes your choices are more important than your working hard.

That said, I don't think switching from clinical psych to quant psych programs is the only reason why I am much more successful than last year.

You should work hard but also work smarter.

In my case, after the first failed cycle, I re-evaluated my strengths and weaknesses, and realized that quant might be more suitable for me. I've always interested in statistics and I'm good at coding, so why apply for clinical psych and fail again instead of working on my strengths?

I did an independent study using R and wrote a strong writing sample about it;

I built a personal academic site and published my writing sample and CV on it;

I rewrote my SOPs and customized them to each program;

I contacted all of my POIs 1-1.5 months prior to the app deadline;

I didn't retake and improve my GRE scores because they were already decent;

I asked the same letter writers to write my letters.

I think one of the reasons why some people fail repeatedly is that they haven't realized where their true strengths lie. They don't spend time talking to themselves and trying to figure out who they are. They just follow what other people do, like applying for clinical psych programs. Once they figure that out, things would become much easier.

February 26, 2018

On 2018/2/24 at 12:00 AM, hopetree said:

Hello guys,

I've heard mixed information about whether to connect the POI before you actually submit your application. I want to apply for clinical psychology for 2019 Fall admission. My top choice is very close to where I live right now. I want to connect with the prof the I want to work with for my PhD to do some collaboration work, or even volunteer as a research assistant in her lab. But I'm not sure whether this is a good idea. What do you guys think based on your experience?

Thank you!

I would suggest for you to ask current students who are in your POI's lab. You can ask them did they contact the POI before application and how they did it.

Does contacting POIs boost up your chances of getting admitted? It depends on how strong you are as a PhD student. If you have nothing to impress your POIs, a simple e-mail won't make a difference on you application, especially in Clinical Psych. If you have a lot of research experience and a great writing sample (don't need to be a publication) to prove that you have really strong research abilities, do contact them!

February 17, 2018

I'd say it really depends on different programs. I contacted a POI a week before the deadline and he replied me saying he's very interested in my application (and I got in!). I also contacted another POI well before the deadline (twice!), she never responded (so I decided not to apply for her program). I think it has a lot to do with the competitiveness of the program. If the program is very competitive (like the second program in my case) and your POI receives many applicants every year, you'd better to contact your POI early.

cupofsugar · February 10, 2018

Guys. This application season is almost at the end for me. I applied to 11 programs, got 6 acceptances and 3 rejections so far. I withdrew one of my applications because they wanted to accept me into their masters program. I'm still waiting for the last program. It's been a very successful app season for me.

It was not last year. I applied to 13 clinical psych programs and got 13 rejections.

I took GRE five times (including a psych GRE) and TOEFL four times. I just don't give up. I keep working on myself.

I just wanted to say that if you didn't get into your dream program this cycle, try it again. Learn to deal with rejections and frustrations. Re-evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, whether you are a great fit for the programs you applied to, and then get back on your horse and keep on moving forward. Never give up if being a PhD is your dream.

This is my third app cycle (I got into a masters program in the first cycle) and I finally made it this time, because I've learned many things from my failures and I never, ever give up.

I wish you all the best and hope we can keep in contact!

February 10, 2018

I have been accepted into TAMU's Educational Psychology. It's strange that they don't notify you via email. I found out this 3 days after I was admitted.

Jason2018 · February 9, 2018

1 hour ago, Jason2018 said:

That is good! No need to feel guilty, multiple acceptances means that you are hot on the market.

And I have decided to go to Penn State for a social psych program. So not in the running for QM programs now. Wish everyone best of luck!

Thank you Jason2018!

February 9, 2018

On 2018/2/7 at 8:59 PM, dr. bubbles said:

Hey guys, not sure if this has been answered already, but how much should we know about research interests for faculty that will be interviewing us, but are not the POI at a PhD program interview?

You definitely need to read their profiles on the program website (if they have their own sites, you should also read them). Don't need to get too in-depth. Just get a general idea about what they do.

February 8, 2018

34 minutes ago, renea said:

Out of curiosity, when did you get an acceptance from FSU and what track? I applied there too and they said they wouldn't be notifying until late February

Hi. It's a PhD program in measurement and statistics housed in College of Education. I got my acceptance on 1/26. I know we applied to different programs, but I want you to know that don't give up hope when you see people start getting acceptances from the program you are applying. I visited my POI yesterday and she told me that she's still got a few applications to review. I'm just one of the lucky applicants that got accepted into the program early. My POI at Iowa told me during the interview that they would make a decision by the end of Jan but I didn't hear back from them until today.

M(allthevowels)H · February 8, 2018

I've got four acceptances so far: FSU, UIowa, UCincinnati, and UC Merced. My hard work finally paid off. Very happy

Wabbajack · February 4, 2018

On 2018/1/30 at 11:49 AM, Wabbajack said:

I'm going U of M the first week in March, and I have so many questions!

I'm am an OBSESSIVE over planner. I looked through all of the requirements and made a rough sketch of what my semesters could look like. I want to see if it's possible to double minor in Early Modern Studies and Conservation Science without extending my time there. I told them in my SOP that I wanted to compare these two subjects, but I want to make sure it will work out in practice.

I'm also going to ask about neighborhoods, clothing recommendations, and if they have any advice for my husband when he looks for a job.

Frankly, I'm a little worried about overwhelming them when they see my spreadsheet for the next 5 years.

LOL!!!!

February 4, 2018

Anyone got into FSU and nominated for their fellowship? Does being nominated for a fellowship mean you are going to obtain it?

cupofsugar · January 31, 2018

8 hours ago, cupofsugar said:

I received rejection letters from UIUC and UWM.

Not gonna lose my confidence!

I'm sorry to hear that. What other programs did you apply to? PM me if you want.

SisterlockedPhD2Be · January 30, 2018

I just copy-pasted my answer from another thread regarding interview.

I had an on-site interview with four POIs at a university last week and a skype interview with 3 POIs this afternoon (3 hours after this skype session, I got an enthusiastic email from one of my POIs that said they were all very impressed with me and I got accepted...they usually extend offers in Feb...Also, English is not my native language, so, if I can do it, you can do it!)

Some important interview questions I have prepared include (and I think everyone should be prepared to answer these questions very confidently and fluently):

Your educational background;

Your best quality, characteristic, personality trait- this should be something that can facilitate your future research career, such as tenacity;

Why do you want to pursue a PhD- for me the answer is definitely that I love research; I love teaching; being a professor is a rewarding career;

Why do you want to do a PhD in this area (my area is quant psych/methods)- my answer is that I am more interested in methodologies and statistics than a substantive area; this is an area full of opportunities for growth; I love coding; great job prospects;

What are your research interests- I just gave a very general answer (in my area, POIs don't expect us to have a very clear idea of what topics you want to do in the future. You can just tell them you are interested in such and such area). If you have a more detailed answer and your interests match your POIs, that's even better;

What are your career goals- when it comes to goals, I think you should be specific, like I want to get 5 first author publications (you can even name a few prestigious journals in which you want to publish) ; I want to graduate within 5 years; I want to become an assistant professor in 6 years; I want to create very popular R packages; choose some challenging but realistic goals;

What is your greatest strength and weakness (yes, they asked me what my biggest weakness was)- I said that my greatest strength is my ability to solve problems in very challenging situations and I gave an example (very important); as far as my weakness, I said I don't have a strong background in math/stats but I'm planning on taking a few refresher courses like calculus online and after I begin the program I will take as many stats courses as possible (the truth is most incoming PhD students don't have strong background in math/stats in our field, so this is not a fatal weakness and it is something I can improve upon);

Which research project are you most proud of- they are giving you an opportunity to impress them, so be prepared with a great answer;

Why you want to join their program- I said my research interests match yours very well and I like the courses your program offers; I also said that I love this city;

Also, show your eagerness to learn and do research! They want to see that you are driven to do a PhD.

If you have these questions prepared, you will talk confidently in the interview.

One good tip I want to share with you guys is that keep your answers succinct, easy to understand, and to the point. I don't think they expect you to give very detailed and long answers within 30 minutes (that's the normal length of an interview). A very complicated answer is very likely to make them confused because when you are being interviewed, you will feel nervous, and your speech may become unorganized under pressure.

Also, think of an interview as a conversation, not a test. This is very important. If you think of it as a test, you are going to feel very nervous and uncomfortable. If you think of it as a conversation and an opportunity to tell them how great you are, you will feel very confident and look very confident. They want to see that confidence.

I never try to memorize my answers. I practice these questions by asking myself these questions while I am walking, cooking, doing exercises. At least for me, It's a very effective way to prepare for interviews.

January 29, 2018

Got admitted to FSU measurement and stats PhD program Nominated for fellowship.

Question: if you are nominated for fellowship, does it imply that you will get the fellowship? If you didn't get it, how will you be funded?

Just Accept me Already · January 28, 2018

I had an on-site interview at a university this week.

Some important interview questions I have prepared include (and I think everyone should be prepared to answer these questions very confidently and fluently):

Your educational background;

Your best quality, characteristic, personal trait- this should be something that can facilitate your future research career, such as tenacity;

Why do you want to pursue a PhD- for me the answer is definitely that I love research; I love teaching; being a professor is a rewarding career;

Why do you want to do a PhD in this area (my area is quant psych/methods)- my answer is that I am more interested in methodologies and statistics; this is an area full of opportunities for growth; I love coding; great job prospects;