Yiyu Liu
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Posts posted by Yiyu Liu
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1 hour ago, ResilientDreams said:
I really need to start working on my other personal statements but for some reason I'm mentally exhausted.
I think you are already really ahead so if you feel mentally exhuasted it doesn't matter you take a few hours off to get refreshed, like watching a movie or grab some delicious food somewhere. It's only a month from my first DDL and I still haven't started to fill in the forms. But I don't feel seriously bad as I know people who haven't got their school list yet. While it is not good to procristinate, taking time to get refreshed is not a waste of time at all.
As for the PS, I usually write a general description of my research experience (it may be adapted a little according to different programs though) and in the end list a few PIs that you would like to work with. To my understanding, it's necessary to describe what the PI's interests are and how they relate with yours (probably longer and more comprehensive compared to what you wrote in the email), and maybe why you like the general environment of this program. So a easy start could be read a few papers of each PI and then try to summarize their work and describe the overlap in a few sentences. Then when you really feel motivated to write the PS you could bring these clips together. Hope this helps
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1 hour ago, ResilientDreams said:
Haha yeah, the schools with the fancy equipment tend to be the most competitive ones.
I think you have excellent qualifications. Your quant score on the GRE is particularly impressive and I envy it haha. Your math and computer science background is also an asset. I certainly don't have that. I don't think you have to worry about your writing score. You can always provide a supplementary writing sample to showcase your writing ability. And I also don't think not having publications will be a problem. Most applicants actually don't. As for being an undergrad...I am too! Same boat! The professors I contacted didn't seem to mind that I was an undergrad and none of them mentioned wanting someone with a master's or post-bac experience. Is that something you were told directly or something they implied?
Overall, I think international status is the only thing that you might actually have to take into consideration.
I guess it really depend on the PI. In fact most of the PIs I contacted doesn't mind my undergraduate status but one implied that she prefer post-bac experience. I also have a friend applying to social psych who said that she has a PI require post-bac experience. In China's labs we don't have a position called "lab manager" or "lab coordinator" (yeah it's very different) thus I have no idea how important it is to have experience being a lab manager. But it is a good sign that at least most of the PIs we connected doesn't really mind our undergraduate status.
The professors I worked with do suggested me really consider those private schools (usually more funding) and international-friendly schools. That's why in UC systems I only applied to UCSD(usually more international-friendly) and UCB (which I really would like to have a try).
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The third person applying for developmental psych PhD in this thread. I'm currently soooo stressed on my application. I just sent the first round of emails to PIs a few days ago. Currently haven't finalized my PS and hasn't even started to fill in the application. I have three professors who agreed to write LOR for me but I haven't asked them yet to start write them. I spent the whole summer and the early September on a very difficult EEG project (had to learn a lot of math, realize a very novel algorithm in code, do statistics, make posters and do presentations) that's why I started so late. It's only a month to the DDL I think I really have to speed up.
More about me: I'm an international student, currently a senior undergraduate and apparently this is my first cycle of application (hopefully it's also the last one). I'm interested in the general mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (especially social-cognitive) and have a quite quantitative-heavy experience.
List (all phd): Stanford, UCB, MIT, Havard, Princeton, IUB, UCSD, Virginia, Cornell, Duke, NYU, BU, Illinois.
I know they are all very competitive programs and I didn't initially aim for that. But given my recent interest, I simply don't have more options. For some reason I would like to have a PI who is interested in the mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (which means he/she should be in the developmental track) but have extensive experience in programming (infact some of the PIs received their PhD degree in Math/Computer Science). And I really would like the program has rich devices (e.g. eye tracker, EEG cap for both infant and adult, neuroimaging devices). I reviewed tons of schools and found that only the school listed above features both quantitative-heavy PIs and rich devices in the developmental track.
Things not so worried about:
1. My GPA and my undergraduate school (I'm in the top 2 University in China, it ranked only 30 on QS though). I have over 3.7 GPA general and near 3.8 major GPA (ranked top 8% in my program). Though it is far from excellent but I assume at least it will not get in the way.
2. My general English Skill, I have 109 TOEFL which is beyond the requirements for international students whose native language is not English.
3. My research experience. I worked in a lab of my home University for two years. I did a honors thesis and another small project there. That lab mainly do behavioral studies. I also spent over 3 months full time in a lab in US helping with all aspects of eye tracking (e.g. idea brainstorming, AOI coding, programming novel tools, general data analyzing) and established a very good relationship with the PI there. The summer in 2018 I worked in another lab in US doing a more independent EEG project (the one I talked above). Literally these experiences are very intense as I had to learn the technique in about a week and then start to program novel methods for data analyzing. I do have research experiences in addition to those listed above.
4. My LOR. I have 1 letter from my home University. Though my professor is not that famous internationally but at least she published a lot of papers in top journals and is the best of the field in China. She knows me very well. The other 2 letters are from US, they are from the professors who have really established their name in the field in top programs. I believe they all should say quite positively about me.
5. My Math and Computer Science skills. In addition to statistics in psychology (e.g. t-test, ANOVA, different kinds of regression) I have a few really advanced math courses. I also took a few CS courses. I usually program my own experimental stimuli and sometimes novel tools for data analyzing.
6. My psych GRE (I ranked 99% on that two years ago) but I don't think it would be useful as I won't apply to clinical programs.
Things worried:
1. My GRE. The first time I got 153 V 168 Q and 4.0 AW (I only looked through the OG and didn't really prepare for it). The second time I got 165 V 169 Q but only 3.5 AW. I don't think my writing is seriously bad but the thing is I don't have a taste at all for politic issues. This is a culture thing. I learned that American students really care about politics but this is not the case for Chinese students so I panicked when I saw the issue part and wasn't able to finish it. I have no idea whether my high verbal and the writing score in the TOEFL test (I got 28 out of 30 on writing) could compensate for my low AW. I know people would consider my international status (most Chinese people got 3 , 3.5 or even 2.5 and they still got into programs in US) but 3.5 is not competitive anyway. I got this score a year ago and then I really practiced my writing skill. I wrote a lot of reviews, proposals and manuscripts in English. I don't know how I could reflect my effort in writing though.
2. My international status. Due to the current funding cut, some programs (especially UC systems) are not willing to recruit international students (the psych program in UCLA won't take any international students at all) as they have to pay double the tuition for any international students according to the policy in California. I don't know whether schools other than UC systems are in similar situation.
3. Short of publications and presentations. It's another cultural thing. Chinese students don't have as much opportunities to go to conferences as American students. For instance I wouldn't know SRCD at all if I hadn't worked in the labs of US. I currently only have a 15 min talk given at a developmental conference in China. And I submitted two abstracts to SRCD in August. But the poster session will be next year. I also don't have a publication yet as I don't want to have a work published in low IF journals (IF<2) and I currently don't have the form of work which could be published in child development, plos one or cognition. So currently only a talk and two potential posters.
4. my undergraduate status. Some PIs apparently would like to take students who had a master degree or served as a lab manager. They would like students to have post-bac research experience before applying. I don't like them to judge people on how many years they worked in the field though. I really tried to grasp any opportunity and made the best use of my time. But still, professors may judge me because I have less than 3 years of research experience.
Hope everyone end up in where they should be and best luck of this application cycle!
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I took this test when I just turned a sophomore and got 810(rank 99%) and I think I could answer your question. I spent approximately 3 weeks for it. But consider I'm an international student and I had some difficulties with English terms, you could crack it in a even less time if English is your first language.
First I would suggest cracking the GRE psychology and Kaplan. These two books should be given more concentration. Memorize the summary and carefully go through all questions. Make sure you understand every question on it.
If you have additional time, I would suggest going through a introductory book of psychology, a developmental psychology and abnormal/clinical psychology. You don't have to go into details, just go through them will help you a lot. As you know, GRE psych include only multiple choices so you can rely on your implicit memory
Good luck and take it easy!
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11 hours ago, Clinapp2017 said:
What programs are you applying to this fall? It would be helpful to know so students or faculty can comment on this more.
In clinical psych, an honors thesis is probably appropriate.
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I'm applying to cognitive development and it could be either in the psych department or in the cog department. Is there any differences for writing sample in the fields that you're applying to?
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Hi everyone,
I just noticed many schools require writing samples but they do not release much specific details about them. I wonder how "serious" those writing samples should be. I haven't got any published papers yet, with only an honors thesis and a few reviews (those were written to meet the course requirement) in English. Also, as my mother language is not English I don't assume I could write as good as native speakers for now. Does anyone have any related experience or suggestions?
Thx very much!
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On 8/12/2018 at 9:22 PM, Hk328 said:
1. Yes, you want to contact all potential PIs at all schools. The emails should be about your research interests meshing with theirs and asking questions about their current research. You want to make sure that you are not asking questions that are answered on the website or their lab web page. Also, ideally, try to send emails to all faculty at 1 school within the same day or so. That way it doesn't seem like you're just going for your 2nd choice or anything.
2. You may still have a chance if you don't email faculty, but the purpose of reaching out to PIs is to hopefully establish a rapport so that they remember you when looking at your application.
3. If a PI doesn't respond, you should still apply to the school. Some PIs just won't respond to prospective student emails.
4. Do not contact faculty after the deadline. If you make it to the interview round, they will invite you to the interview. If you know the interview date has passed and you did not hear anything, you can reach out to faculty for feedback on how to improve your application for the next cycle.
Thanks your reply really help me a lot
And one thing I'd like to ask is that I heard that someone received a skype interview from the PIs in addition to the formal on-campus interview. I wonder whether PIs will send out those informal skype interviews when they start to review the material or even earlier?
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Hi everyone, I'm a Senior undergraduate student and will apply for graduate school this fall. Now I wonder how important it is to contact PIs in advance. And more specifically:
1. If I'm going to apply for 10-15 grad schools, and I may have 20-30 PIs, should I contact them all before application?
2. If I don't contact PIs in advance, will I still have a chance to get into the interview cycle?
3. If I send emails to PIs now and some just give general replys like "encourage you to apply" or even does not respond at all, does it mean I should give up that school?
4. Usually the interveiw begins a month after the application DDL. So should I contact PIs again and ask for an opportunity to skype with them? Or should I just wait for the invitation for a interview?
I'm super stressful at this moment and really would like to hear from your experience. Thx!
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I totally agree with the comments above. 5-6 years is a commitment and you definitely want to make your time count. I think our research interests are very similar. I'm also a development psyer and I do eye tracking. As far as I know, CUNY is not that a good option if you're super ambitious and hunt for a tenure-track job. You should really consider what kind of training you'll get for graduate study. I'm currently a third-year International student. But I committed a summer and a winter holiday in a great lab in US. That's where I learned those really advanced and cool eye tracking skills. This summer I'll goto another great lab in US to do an independent eye-tracking study. I'll not talk about those labs in detail.
However, if you finally decide not to goto CUNY and would like to get more experience, feel free to PM me and I'll share the information of those labs with you.
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Dear all,
I'm a student majoring in psychology and I ask this for my boyfriend. We really need your help.
As I just know, applying to a pure math phD seems like quite different from other majors(like psychology, haha), I mean, for most majors, research experience is quite essential for students to be accepted. However, for math, especially pure math things seems like different. Pure math is all about theories, no experiments, no models, no data. Professors do not really need RAs. Students are not academically equivalent as their professors so they even cannot fully understand the professors' research. In this situation, there seems like no way for students to get involved in any research. So is GPA and GRE subject the only two important standard for a student to get accepted?
Here is our situation:
My boyfriend graduated from a University that is famous for math. His GPA is not that good. But many people in our university who has similar GPA still get accepted to quite good phD programs. However, he was rejected by all the phD programs he applied to and ended up getting into a master program. We have no idea if it is his GRE verbal score that pulled him back( he got an 148 for V and 170 for Q).
Now he is a master student and considering to apply for phD again the next year. Is there anything he can do other than improving his GRE score and getting As for his courses? Is it possible for him to get any research opportunities in his field(geometry)? How can he strive to stand out from a pool of applicants?
We really appreciate your help!
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I think it just depends on what kind of programs that you are hoping to get into. If you are thinking of getting into a clinical or I/O or social psych program, it should be helpful to take it . But if you are thinking of cognitive or neuroscience, you will have no need to take it especially when you are already a psych student.
I'm a psych student whose mother language is not English. I will turn a Junior in the coming semester. I took the psych GRE subject test last year when I just turned a Sophomore. I'd say that I kind of doubt whether the sub score can really offset a low GPA since I only took psych courses for a year, prepared it for about 3 weeks after class and then I got 810 and ranked 99%. What I'm trying to say is that there is not at all any in-depth knowledge or methodologies included in this test, all you have to do is to memorize the basic facts in psychology.
I'm a really discreet person so I took this test even though the programs I'm looking to says "recommend" instead of "require". But many students go to their dream programs without taking this test. If you are a discreet person like me, then go ahead for it! It should not take long for you to prepare it since English is your first language. In fact, In the 3 weeks I was preparing for it, I spent most of the time trying to memorize those terminologies in English. You'll definitely not have this kind of problem, haha. So if you take your time, you can spend only 2 weeks, or even 1 week to get a score that is higher than 90% percent when you are a psych student.
If you do decide to take it, you can ask me for more advice. However, if you decide not to take it, you should also not be too worried. Usually the lack of a psych sub score will not that draw you back when you are not applying to clinical programs.
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Hi JohnSgrad95, I'm a Chinese sophomore with not much researching experience and I just got a summer RA position in US. I can give you some advice based on my experience.
1) Since you' re a domestic student and you don't need to apply for J1 visa, it is not too late to start now.
2) Though you mentioned any position will do, you still need to narrow down your interest. Which field do you prefer, clinical or cognitive? I mention this because when you try reaching out for an RA position, the professor or lab manager will also evaluate your potential fit for this position.
3) As I know, most programs end at March. And I highly recommend you don't waste time on such programs since you don't have any past research experiences. I tried apply for such programs and got two interviews. But finally I got two rejection. Usually those programs have a hundred applicants from all over the world. If you don't have much experience in the relevant field--just like me, they will not likely to offer you a position.
4) I would recommend you to directly contact the professor in email, asking them if they would like to offer you a position and state that you don't need any funding. If the professor do want to take you, he will probably set an interview or require one or more letters of recommendation. In the email, you should attach your CV or resume and tell the professor you are interested in his research. For the first round, you can try send 10-15 emails. If you are lucky enough like me, you can get a position in this round. If all of the professors refused to take you, you can try another round. I know a student who sent out 100 emails and finally got an RA position and most students succeeded as long as they keep trying. You can first try professors in your own university and then try professors in other Universities.
Good luck!:)
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5 hours ago, transfatfree said:
Starting early is a great step! I agree with what almondicecream said and have heard similar things. I'd just like to add certain things you may want to pay attention to as an international student.
1. While people may say that some supervisors will consider your non-native background and cut you some slack when it comes to GRE verbal and AW, I believe you can still do better than that. Getting great TOEFL scores can somehow make up to that, but you should check the university websites carefully as many universities now have specific requirements for international students who want to be considered for teaching assistantship. It has something to do with the lack of oral English skills in some international students in the past. I have seen requirements ranging from 25 to 28 for your TOEFL speaking score. Just something to bear in mind. Also, as a developmental graduate student, you may need to collect data from children and interact with parents. It's thus also possible for them to require better English communication skills.
2. You can submit presentation proposals to international conferences. Just make sure you pay attention to their deadlines, requirements, and target audiences. I'm sure there are also some national conferences in China.
3. Some universities publish statistics. For example, http://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/graduate-program/faq-general-admissions. You can say it's competitive as most candidates are well-qualified. You can see there were applicants from Peking University who got in. I'm sure you can ask around and seek advice from professors from your department about who they are and what they did. But in general, Chinese students tend to do cognitive psychology and neuroscience, which require more technical knowledge.
4. I would say if you want to stand out, you should try to publish. If you work for a good research lab, recruitment is more of the professor's concern than yours. You may help with recruitment, but usually they will tell you how.
5. As I said above, you need to convince your supervisor that they should choose you over local applicants. Besides English communication skills, cultural differences can also be an issue. They need to be assured that you'll be able to adapt to life in a different country while staying productive as a researcher.
Another thing you may need to is the budget cut that has hit public universities hard. Some public universities are concerned about funding international students who are not eligible for in-state tuition. Private universities usually have more resources. However, the safest bet is to find a supervisor who is doing research that aligns with your interest and is externally funded. Some grants include funding a PhD student in their budget so the department does not have to pay for that student and the supervisor has more autonomy in who they want.
I was once taught by a developmental psychologist who did her undergrad at Peking University and her PhD in the US. So it's also possible for you. Good luck!
Thank you for all your help! Your advice is really to the point! I did hear someone say that the Admission Committee would consider my non-native background. But since I still have time, I should still strive for 85% percent. As for TOEFL, I took it one and a half years ago and only got 23 for speaking, so I will also retake it this fall.
It is true that most of Chinese students come to US for cognitive/neuroscience degrees and I know cognitive programs are easier to get in. But as I prefer developmental psychology, I will still try apply to developmental programs.
BTW I really love Berkeley. Last summer I went to Berkeley for the summer session. I took the developmental psychology there and it was just since then that I decided to choose development
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7 hours ago, almondicecream said:
Hello! I don't have time to fully answer all your questions, but here is my opinion.
1. Safe GRE scores for the top programs are any scores above 90th percentile. Some people might say 85th percentile. I've heard GRE psych score is potentially useful if the applicant does not have a psychology major in undergrad (to show that they do, in fact, know basic psychology). It's supposed to be pretty useless for people who come from top 100 US universities. Outside of applicants from these universities, I'm not sure if it would be helpful.
2. A poster is somewhat like a small version of a published paper. It shows that you are involved more deeply in a project beyond just running experiments and entering data. Conference presentations (if you're talking about "talks" rather than posters) are pretty difficult for undergraduates to obtain. You should aim for a couple posters first. After then, you could consider whether you have enough data to put together a talk. Posters and talks are submitted to conferences like SPSP, APS, etc. Note that SPSP is for social psych (I'm sure there are equivalent conferences for dev psych).
3. You can somewhat use the length of the main gradcafe threads for each area (clinical psychology fall 2017; social psychology fall 2017; developmental psychology fall 2017; industrial/organizational psychology fall 2017) as a rough estimate for how easy/difficult it is to get into the top 50 programs for an area. For example, the thread for clinical psychology this year is by far the biggest thread. The social psychology thread is the next largest. The industrial/organizational psychology and school psychology threads are much smaller. Clinical psychology is also definitely the most competitive, followed by social psychology. I/O psych and school psych are significantly less competitive.
4. Publications are definitely, definitely not required at all to get into the top 30 dev psych programs. They're not even required for top 30 social psych programs (for example, for the first year PhD students at one of the top 5 social psych programs, I know that 4 of them did not have any published papers when they were accepted, and 1 did).
5. I don't know how international applicants should do anything differently, but I just know what domestic applicants typically do. Most important is having lots and lots of research experience. Not only that, but you should also be getting more deeply involved in the labs that you're a part of. It's important to find a lab where you feel like you're learning a lot about the research process rather than just running participants and entering data but never doing more in the lab. Posters are nice, but they often are just a byproduct of you having become a very advanced research assistant within a lab. The good thing about psychology PhD admissions is that they're a "war of attrition." Assuming your GPA is significantly above 3.0 and your GRE scores are above 85th percentile, the only remaining part is research experience. Those who have the most research experience, who are doing the most advanced tasks in their current labs, are the ones who usually get admitted. So it usually ends up being a matter of who is willing to do research for years and years to prove that they have the grit, the passion, and the skills to succeed in a program.
Good luck.
Thank you so much! Though you said that you didn't have time to fully answer all my quesitions, your answer still help me a lot. You revealed to me something that had confused me for months.
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Hi everyone, I'm Yiyu. now I'm a sophomore in Peking University, China. At present I'm seriously considering applying for developmental psychology Phd programs when I graduate. However, the relevant information in the forum of my country is scarce, so I come to gradcafe for help.
Now my GPA is around 3.7(The best student in my department get 3.8+) and my major GPA is around 3.8. My ranking in my department is around top 20% or top 25%. Though my University is almost the best University in my country, the ranking of the psychology department is only about top 100 in the world, thus my GPA is by no means competitive enough. Last October I took the GRE psych and got an 810(rank 99%), but I guess it does not play an important role in the process of admission except for clinical programs. Last month I took the GRE general test and got Q168+V153+AW4. I know it is not a solid score so I will take it again this September.
As for the researching experience, Last year I served as an RA in an social psy lab, doing some minor work such as translating the experiment materials and running experiments. Last semester, I took a course named the experiments of experimental psychology. For the course project, I cooperated with three other students and conducted a small study of our own. This summer I will go to Indiana University to be an RA in an developmental lab. Also, I'm considering starting my own research this semester.
Now I have a few questions:
1 What is a relatively "safe" GRE score and GPA? Will the admission committee consider my GRE psych score in the process of making decisions?
2 What is poster and What is conference presentation? How can I get them?
3 Is the developmental program hard to get in?
4 Is publication really important in the application of developmental programs? Compared to cognitive experiments, the developmental, especially infant and child experiments is really hard to do. I mean, it really takes time to recruit young participants.
5 What should I do to make myself a more promising applicant?
Thank you for your help!
Fall 2019 Psychology PhD Applicants!
in Psychology Forum
Posted
Thanks for your feedback! And I quite agree that SOP is especially important. Actually I revised it a couple of times before I sent it to an US professor for a review. And he frankly told me there were so much to critique. Then following his advice I revised it for another couple of times and hopefully he'll find it better. In general, faculties care most about our competence, motivation and our career goal. They are the things that must be reflected in our SOP. As international students, it is also helpful to bug native speakers to revise our language. Best luck for you!