C is for Caps Locks

Made a really tough choice (narrowed down my acceptances to three great programs that I absolutely loved), accepted an offer from one of them, finishing up my undergrad (yay to almost being done, not so much yay on having to get all my work done). Otherwise mostly just excited (and also a bit stressed) about moving to a big city (although I do consider myself a city person), and looking for suitable places to live. Ultimately, feels nice to have made a choice, now onwards to more research (which is the best part!).

I'd say the most important thing for you to do would be to gain some research experience. I know for me applying this cycle for Social Psych PhD programs (including NYU), a bit thing that seemed to convince POIs and programs that I was a worthwhile candidate was having several years of experience working with active/well-published Social Psychology faculty members. Having an honors thesis or working on your own projects is also important (showing that you can do your own work/research). So one good option would be getting a job as an RA or Lab Manager for something like 2 years (showing that you are interested in research and have experience). While paid RA and Lab Manager positions are harder to find, they do exist, and as far as I know they generally don't require you to be a current student (or student at all), since they are just paid positions (so you don't have to enroll into the college). Given that you're coming from a completely different field a Post-Bac program would probably be a good idea (ideally though one with a heavy focus on research and at least a program viewed as reputable in Social Psych, you don't need the best per say, but you it's useful to have connections indirectly to professors you might want to apply to work with, and the more well-known/quality programs tend to offer this by default). A masters is also an option, downside is funding, I've met a number of graduate students at my undergrad institution who went and got a masters before getting a PhD (largely because their under grad GPA and/or GRE wasn't quite good enough). However, with that being said, I don't really have the perspective that a masters is neccesary or even desired, it seems more like a potential path when going straight from your undergrad may not be an option (undergrad GPA/GRE isn't high enough, lack of research experience, etc.). The key thing is that if you go to a masters, it has to be a place where you can also get a lot of research experience and ideally do your own research based thesis.

I think there's definitely a difference between sub-fields regarding which universities are the "best" (which is why it's good to talk to people actively working and publishing in a sub-field), to what degree this difference is, I think is more of an open question. However, I also think there's a pattern where if a university has the reputation and funding to attract good researchers in one area, they can probably do the same in many. For example, Yale/Harvard/Stanford/Princeton/University of Michigan are as far as I know considered very good in both psychology, sociology, and political science (and other areas as well of course).

University of Michigan is at perhaps to international a less known one, but historically they're probably one (if not the best) in social psychology. You obviously have the classic listing of Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, U of Michigan and NYU for social psychology. University of Illinois—Urbana Campaign have a strong program (although they are most known for their personality researchers) and University of Texas - Austin is also well-regarded. Off the top of my head other universities Ohio State University is always considered very good for social psychology (although mostly for work related to attitudes). University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill has a couple of really interesting/good researchers (Kurt Gray/Keith Payne). In general, I sort of combined official rankings (such as US News), Nosek's 2010 paper (http://people.virginia.edu/~rsf4ah/papers/NGLKHHSMJFT2010.pdf), looking at what places people at various R1 universities had degrees from, and talking to professors I work with to create some idea of the "rank" of universities I applied. What makes it hard is that sometimes the value of a university hinges on what they research, like say if you really like moral psychology, there are some universities that might not be considered top 5 in general (or in social psychology), that are considered really good in moral psychology. Like, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, to my knowledge if you're a moral psychologist trained by Kurt Gray, you're in a pretty solid place.

1) Get as much as research experience as you can, RAing is great but try to get so involved that you can present at a couple of conferences (even if they are only regional), publications would of course be great (but it may be harder to pull off) 2) Work on an honors thesis or similar project that let's you conduct independent research under the supervision of a faculty member 3) Related to the other two, try to find three faculty members who are active researchers (even better if they work on things related to what you might want to work on) and work with them enough that they can write you three kick-ass letters of recommendation (many of the programs I applied to specifically mentioned my 3 great letters of recommendation from three active, well-known researchers as a reason they were so interested in me) 4) GPA and GRE are important, but it's Research Experience and Recommendation that get you accepted (GRE/GPA exist as a threshold, you need to do well on them but after a certain percentile ~85-90th it really isn't going to get you accepted over anyone else)

I think that's pretty much true for most of the social sciences (for example, I know from my Political Science friends that they have a pretty similar heuristic). That's not saying you can't go to a lower ranked program and do well (which would be ridiculous), but academia is pretty big on claiming status based on where you got your PhD (and universities take status based on institution pretty seriously as well). As a comparison, I attend a big R1 Public University, and most of our faculty are either from programs that are very near or better than the Top 15 ranking (or they are from programs that are considered very good for a particular subfield).

I would be pretty worried if the current graduate students seemed miserable and if the program doesn't have a record of getting people the jobs they wanted (not that it's all on the program, but most good programs have at least a decent chance of guiding people in the right direction). Research fit is of course absolutely vital, but I'm not sure that research fit alone can overcome a weak program (you still have to survive 5-6 years in the program and the job market after graduate school is ultra competitive). My perception talking with grad students and faculty is that nothing is a guarantee (a good program doesn't equal a tenure track job), but it's usually best not to hope for exceptions (e.g., if no one from a program has been getting good jobs out of said program, don't bank on being the exception). On the flip-side if you have no other options and don't foresee that changing, there might be an argument for going all on (although again, it sounds like a risky proposal). ---- Declined my first offer today, felt surprisingly stressful, I really liked the POI but just wasn't as sold on the research fit and the university required a lot more TAing than any of the other places I had offers from while also providing a far smaller stipend (although that seems to be the norm in Canada), which was kind of a big deal breaker.

Haha, exactly, the best interviews for me were the super low-key ones where it was just clear that me and my POI got along fabulously.

It might not keep you completely out of the running, but not having any research experience (working in research labs or on your own honors thesis) will almost certainly affect your chances to a large degree. Your research experience and letters of recommendation from people actively doing research is (barring original research you've done on your own or in collaboration with others) is really the only way a program can judge your ability to do research. At least for other areas of psychology, research experience might be one of the most important factors over all for the success of an applicant. However, on the up side, a lack of research experience (while taking time) is also something that's possible to fix by getting some RA or Lab Manager position.

Another update, regarding the home field advantage, got accepted at U of Toronto with a POI who also interviewed people from their own lab and the department (I'm also an international student, which seems even worse in Canada), so I wouldn't worry too much about it if you run into people from the program you are interviewing at.

I think they're trying to tell you they're bad at coordinating. Best wishes though, the entire application process is a maze of obscurity and stress.

Thanks for the reply, glad to see others have similar thoughts. I've already decline three offers, because after visiting it was pretty clear they weren't the right programs for me and my goals, but I found that going to a program was sometimes so different from what I had expected that like you said I'm not comfortable declining offers at other great universities with some faculty I'm really interested in working with when I haven't had a chance to see them.

Heard back from two additional programs (one of them was my top choice after visiting so I'm really happy about that), mostly now I'm waiting to finish up my last three visits (to programs that admit first then have you visit), before I make a final call as soon as possible. I'm already uncomfortable holding on to spots in the three programs I've been admitted to but still have to visit, however having seen how much I learned visiting other universities, I also feel like I can't make a choice without having seen what those programs/POIs are like in person. In general, I'm also just looking forward to finally knowing where I'll move with my SO for the next 5-6 years.

Something like 3-5 first author publications in good journals seems like the bare minimum if you want to get a good post-doc or head straight towards the tenure-track in Social Psychology. However, of course, the more solid publications you have, the better.

I've met a lot of other international students at interviews, however, one thing I am not quite sure of is whether most of them are international students with US degrees or not. Purely anecdotally, a majority of the international students I've met seem to also have US degrees, with a smaller number with degrees from non-US institutions.