PokePsych

House party

This is fairly common practice - to just send an email introducing yourself and asking whether this person is taking students. You may also want to inquire about what current research the lab is doing since the publication pipeline can take a while. There are numerous threads on this forum on how to write such an email

Mine still does. But I hae a somewhat unusual spelling lmao

The GRE is waived for a lot or programs this year. I don't think it is necessarily to have published before applying. However, the quality of your research experience matters as well as how you can talk about it. Independent research experience would be helpful. You may also want to look into poster presentations on your work. The other important thing is fit to your advisor - so you'd have to find someone who is interested in the same topics as you.

Some experience is better than no experience and a lot of skills are used in simialr lines of research. Relevant experience is better than some experience, but it's also how well you are at drawing lines between your past experiences and the type of research you want to do. A lot of research experience (at least in Social Psych) is helping a grad student with their research. That can consist of things like being a confederate, basic data cleaning, help with the development of studies, etc. Independent is more like doing your 'own' supervised research. Only clinical can treat. These are distinct areas of research. I'm not sure exactly how one picks a population they want to work with in clinical psych - but it is also not my area. I'm by no means trained to work with patients. a PhD is a research degree and you will spend a significant portion of your time doing research.

Now 1. What people think a psychologist does and what htey actually do are very different things. I'm a psychologist, a social psychologist, I do very little treating people and promoting their mental health I feel these things could also be part of social psychologist. Procrastination has definitely been hot topic on the literature on social cognition. Emotion regulation is also studied in social psychology. Why people avoid 'thinking' has also been studied. The field is also more 'justice' oriented and pragmatic than clinical in that sense. I'm not a huge fan of the term self-actualization, but maybe coz Maslow has been discredited a while ago. Although the positive psych folks (usually in social psych areas) still use it sometimes I can't say I don't see psych as not broken. We study generally very specific populations (aka undergrads at elite institutes) and draw all sorts of hot shot generalizations from it. The 'publish-or-perish' thing runs strong. I would personally see psychology just as broken/flawed. Anyway, if you want to do more 'advocating' stuff, you may also consider social psych or community psych where the advocating part runs very strong.

Also to add - a Clinical Psych PhD is for a huge part of the PhD journey doing research, not necessarily practicing treatment all the time. So areas you may want to train yourself in are quant/statistics, research methods, get fast at reading the literature (i.e., get familiar with scientific papers in clinical and how to read them), what type of research you'd like to do in clinical (e.g., anxiety? depression? emotion regulation? etc.) Other options are a post-bacc. Although GPA matters, especially for clinical, research experience matters a lot. However, you may want to just email some labs that do stuff that interest you whether you can volunteer. A lot is on Zoom and we had two interns this summer through Zoom. I know a lot of those getting into very competitive programs generally have 1 or 2 years as a lab manager (full time research experience) and some posters/presentations that underscore their skills. I know that there seems to be a hierarchy in MA programs as well, but I never went that route so I can't say too much about it.

I would definitely not infer anything from word number. It says more something about how much time they have. This PI is likely sending similar length emails to everyone (some people even have a template), it may depend on the time of the day they reply, the day of the week, how busy they are, etc. Also I got accepted in my top 1 PhD program where my PI never responded to my email, whreeas I didn't get even an interview with people who wrote really lengthy replies. Don't put too much weight on these responses.

I'm a bit confused on why our friends are either 1) undergrads 'representing youth' or 2) grad students who 'are in a different life phase). Other than that many of my friends are not grad student, some of the most ambitious, 'mature', future-oriented people I've met are among my undergrad RAs. Some of the most party-fun people are grad students. I wouldn't stereotype either as such. And that even goes for professors - some come out to bars to have drinks or go to techno parties, others indeed only read. I think you can find people fit to you in any environment.

the latter

I was recommend to aim for a page and a half double-spaced, with a max of two.

xcept youre not really open to opinions that don't allign what you 'heard elsewhere'?

Another thing to ask is maybe about 'current research directions' the lab is taking. Since there's usually a 2 -3 year delay in research being preformed + published. Maybe there has been a recent grant, a new interest, etc.

Although I think I'm intrested in mots areas and like learning about them, I do think I have research questions that are predominantly best answered in a certain area? Like a lot of things are intersting, but there are certain topics I keep gravitating to in terms of questions that I formulate.

doesn't this heavily depend on what 'field' you are into? Like a school that has a good Bizz department may not be the best engineering school.

Co-adivising is possible. It's potentially a pro since there's is a guarantee you're a good fit. At the same time, profs may be 'possessive' and don't want their students to relaly work with others that much. You can email their current grad students for questions.

This.

Oh and also make sure you're not from a country under travel ban. Whereas entry bans have been lifted from F1/M1 for a bunch of places, this does not apply to J1 and you need to get permission from the embassy.

Contact your International Office on the regulations. The J1 is an exchange student visa and therefore subject to different regulations than the F1. I'm not entirely sure if there is also a ban for entry in terms of online classes for J1, F and M has for sure, but not sure about J1. Contact your university if there's anything you can sign up for 'in person' - for example we have supervised research in a hybrid model. I don't think it matters whether a professor is vouching for you, what matters is whether what you do complies with the rules. Professors can vouch all what they want, but they're not above the law and I would not think like that. They're also very unaware and uninfomred of the (ever changing) rules for international students. If you'd were to enter and it is indeed online, yes you'd probably receive a letter to leave (usually within 14 days) and if you don't comply may face a re-entry ban for a certain nr of years. I wouldn't treat this lightly

I doubt if they'll dig that deep. They may check your twitter and what you posted, but I doubt if they're going to go on instagram looking for comments people make on other's posts (it's also not that easy to find on instagram anyway).

I know some places (especially grad students) do a search and will try to dig up things online. being outspoken can be a pro or con actually, depending on the department and individual professor.

I always advise people to ues the first year also to build supportive social networks, so get to know other people in your program you 'click' with, built raport with other professors, etc. I would also focus on the 'big picture'. It's tempting to start a ton of projects, but which ones will really make an impact? Which ones will also lead to potential fruitful follow up projects? And read. This is like the best time to read.

This also goes the other way sometimes. I've also made heavy edits/comments on one of my advisor's grant application before because I felt significant parts were missing and there was an opportunity to massively strengthen the application (he felt they were super helpful). Plus be mindful that the amount of 'red lining' may also reflect the way people edit. Rather than changing a specific word, some people juts rewrite the whole sentence (whereas effectively they're just changing one word). If you are worried, you may also ask what 'critical' part leads to so much editing. Is it the structure (e.g., the way you order and organize your arguments?), writing style, something else?

Columbia Psych (not sure about Teacher's College) will waive GRE.

And don't forget to also be 'nice' to yourself, give time off, etc. Happy to review materials for anyone