PokePsych

I have a BSc and a MSc and no publications, but I got into a PhD program. There's multiple people here without publications who got in

It's raining. (yeah, I've been doing quite well lately haha).

The person may be incredibly busy. Academics have a hand in sending one word replies (I've had a bunch of OK/Sounds good/Nice/Yes/Will Do's over the last couple of years). Best you could do is maybe to plan a meeting if possible and go over it. I wouldn't base the content of the letters on his responses. 1. If he was not interested in recommending you, he'd probably told you or would have said is too busy 2. No, not necessarily. My former adivsor had a hand in short answers yet took the effort to write a superglowy positive letter for me 3. Maybe schedule a meeting to discuss (could always ask for more tips on applying or something)? I personally prefer face to face. 4. If you think he can comment well on your skills and will do so, yes

i asked IT if they had some leftover electronics (monitor/keyboard/etc) I could borrow and now I have some fancy ass big screen ❤️

It really depends on your area/field, the schools you're shooting at (i.e., ranking), how you did during undergrad, etc. I know people who immediately got in, and there are people who failed to get a PhD even after doing a Master's at a prestigious school. There's so much more to getting into a program than your status. I personally decided to a Master's (this is also faaaaaaaaar more common in Europe - you need a Master's before even applying to a PhD in Europe). Partly to really narrow down my research interests (happy I did) and to enjoy travelling and the like a little bit more It is very very personal I'd say.

my perfectionism is getting to me again.

yeah, Paul Silva ftw. They're handing it out here to students haha. It's confrontational a little bit (the complaining part), but he's totally right. As for the writing itself; I've found 'How to publish high quality research' by Balliet, Joireman & van Lange useful for help on what should go in each section. But it may also be very specific to Psych.

You'd want to upload something if the option is given I'd say. It's a good way to broadcast yourself. You never know what decisions come down too. Maybe they're deciding between you and another applicant, and a writing sample may be the final push.

I wouldn't risk it, but contact the department.

Im happy with my advisor.

1) I'm 26, some people in my cohort are 22. I also know people who started their PhD (Master's is often a part of the PhD) at 30. Varies per discipline, department, cohort and so on. 2) Usually 2 years - but tends to be a part of PhD of many schools. 3) 1 - 4 GPA. You can look for online converters to see where you grade. Most schools will also have an official grading conversion scheme or info on that. Google will tell you more (I mean, this info is just on wiki). I know my funding is tied to me having at least a 3.0 GPA. 4) Varies per school and discipline. I currently take 2 classes, but people in economics at the same school take a full courseload now. 5) Depends on your visa and degree. Some degrees are more in demand than others. You generally want to find info about F-1 visa, the OPT, and the job market in your field - international offices at universities will also have info on this. A lot of people tend to be on H1-B visa's after their OPT/student visa and this visa type is limited in the number of people that can get it and is currently undergoing change. There are also caps on H1-B visas that vary per country and so on. Again, international offices and google are your best friend for this as it is so dependent on field, country, etc. If you're on a F1 visa, also not that employment opportunities next to your studies are very limited! 6) Depends on department and department culture. 7) Depends on department, location, culture, stipened, cohort, your personality, etc. Varies per section It's harder to get a high percentile score on Quant than Verbal for example (i.e., I got 161 on verbal - 88th percentile, 159 quant - 73d percentile). I know in psych if you're below 310 you'll have a hard time getting into a top school tbh - quite some department websites even indicate even that they use 310 as the cut off score. But it does happen and schools vary in how much weight they give the GRE - so if you have a stellar GPA and other good parts of your application it may balance it out. What matters more than the actual scores are percentiles. I've seen my fair share of prof websites that say they want someone with scores of 80th> percentile rather than stating the actual cut off, and percentile scores vary a bit per year too. You can find more info on the GRE and scoring easily online - such as the GRE website. The importance of scores and sections varies per discipline too. If you're doing English language, I doubt if they're gonna care about your quant score for example. European universities generally do not require a GRE score.

^agreed with @BabyScientist Approach a SOP as 'show, don't tell'. Don't say 'I love research and I'm very motivated' - anyone can say that, rather show you enjoyed research by conveying the amount of research you did and what you learned from it. Think about sort of 'traits' you want to convey and make sure you have the anecdotes to back it up. I've never explicitly mentioned anything about what I love or what I'm interested in. I actually told a story how I got really into a certain area of psych, how that lead me to move abroad actually (it's related to culture), how I kept becoming more into it and thus went back to uni to get my masters, and the more research I did, the more I knew I wanted to continue on this and actually study a specific topic. It read better than it sounds now. But there was definitely a clear element of motivation in there, a certain curiosity, and also personality (not everyone moves halfway across the world because they're interested in a certain topic). I also quickly discussed with my reference writers what they were gonna talk about - most of them actually asked if I wanted to add something after they wrote a draft. This was also so they could balance my references and highlight different parts (i.e., my advisor wrote a different letter than a prof I worked somewhat less with but who was for example my boss when I was a lab manager. So person 1 highlighted my research skills, person 2 mentioned that too, but focused more on how easy and reliably I was to work with, that I was easy to get along with, and how great the data always was blabla).

back on topic; I'm currently reading 'How to Write a Lot' by Paul J. Silvia - it's a bit over 100 pages, so it's not a long read. You can get it on Amazon. It was recommended by quite some faculty I've worked with over the years (you may ask if someone has a copy). Although I personally don't have a lot of problems with writing a lot, it is helpful in many other ways and gives valuable tips on how to 'plan' writing and so on. Writing time is not just actual writing. You want to also spend time 'planning' your writing. you wanna spend some time on the outline and order of your arguments, set goals on what you wanna do on a day, etc. I do have a 'writing schedule' for a given month/week usually. For me, creating an outline first also helps me with remembering what I'm actually doing. I usually block out 3x 4 hours in a given week to work on writing (usually the afternoons I don't have class/other responsibilities; although it's also occasionally mornings - but I make sure I have at least 8 hrs per week fully focussed on writing) to write. I've also done 2 hours after lunch each day, but my current schedule doesn't allow me to do so. Sometimes I don't need this much time, but then I'll just use it to read things I'm interested in that are maybe not directly relevant to a paper I'm working on, but could be helfpul in the future. When I'm having writing sessions, people that work with me know that I will not be checking my email regularly during those hours (i.e., the 8 hrs that I'm devoted to writing) - if at all, but there are other ways to contac tme for important things. I usually start by going quickly over what I wrote the previous session, weeding out any 'very wonky' sentences in the process and it helps me to remember what I was working on, although this step is not always needed. Then I just start writing. Sometimes I may just write the general outline of the paper; I add references later because I know what info I want to include. I often add more information and so on later, but I write a general body with all the arguments and the like first and put things like (xxxx) as a reference if I'm not sure who and what (sometimes I remember). I personally find it easier to just flow on like that than constantly move back and forth between checking references and writing - also because I already know my outline. When the general body of the intro is finished, I will usually start adding references and more information if I come across missing information (I find it personally easier to just 'add' an extra sentence with relevant info). I can also spend a session working on a lit review and taking notes on relevant information in a doc and use that for writing my outline later on. I also usually pre-write my methods and results , so I don't forget any analyses and just sorta fill in the blanks and outcomes (i.e., As can be seen in Table x , there was a *** between variable X and variable Y, *stats*/ Blabla was assessed using Scale X (alpha/Mean/SD)). After doing that I move on to the discussion because you need the results for that. But I do dot down some things I want to mention or go over while writing other sections. I generally work with keywords or short sentences to remind myself what the outline is/should be. Note that this order is not fixed. Some people also prefer to write methods and results first, and the intro later. It also depends on whether I'm collaborating with someone and so on - that's why planning and having an outline is so helpful. Because I have regular writing time, I also do not really have rituals to get into writing except getting a big coffee. My ritual is literally just closing all my other browsers (except EndNote maybe), make sure I have coffee, put on my headphones (I usually just listen to some jazz radio station on youtube - that's the other browser I'll have open) and just go. I usually will have a pop-up for my uni-email account, although I sometimes disable that too if I really want to focus on something difficult. Because your ritual takes about an hour, you may figure a way to use time from the ritual for actual writing - I'm not saying all, but just slowly get faster in the writing itself. If you plan your writing in advance (such as what you want to do, have an outline, etc.) it may save you some time later on. I also know people who keep a writing log (spend the last 5- 10 min of their session writing down what they did and goals for the next day), similar to how people keep a datalog where you summarize what you did with your data (you want to do that too). As for writing anything 'good' - I wouldn't necessarily focus too much on the output itself. Sometimes I can spend a whole session just writing a poorly, but it is easier to edit something than just write it from scratch. If you plan your text well (like flow, order of arguments, etc.), I think it will also make it easier to write something 'good'. Don't be discouraged by the fact that you may spend quite some time outlining your paper, because it will help you in the end for sure! Writing is not the actual amount of words you wrote down in a given time; it involves a lot more. As for other tips; - try to figure out what good times for writing are for you. I'm not very functional the first 1 - 2 hrs in the office, so I try to use that time for other tasks such as replying to emails, downloading papers, reading easy things, and meetings if possible. I do find the first 1-2 hrs good for editing too, so if I have a morning writing session, I usually use it for editing and data analyses (i.e., fill in the blanks in my methods/results). - Let other people know you have certain time scheduled for writing and don't care about what they think of that. - Make realistic and attainable goals and stick to that. It could be goals as 'write an outline of the intro', 'write 500 words', 'finish analysis X', etc. You'll figure out over time what is attainable for you. - Be cautious not to just spent your writing time 'worrying' about writing, deadlines, etc. Actually use it to do things.

I'd also ask what current projects students are doing. People change their interests from time to time - I actually found out I was a better fit to my advisor in this way than initially anticipated (apparently he had this new line of research on the side going on that wasn't published at the time yet which I'm totally into).

Would it be possible to for example disable the comment function? Some social media allows you to do that.

my experience is that it varies per school. I applied to 6 places, only one wanted the transcript during application. Some required only a scanned version for now (unofficial), some didn't care about it as long as it was on my actual transcript from my school

You can do it!

I miss my boyfriend so so much.

I'm flying tomorrow to start the next chapter in my life. I'm anxious and excited and I'm sure my luggage is overweight lolz.

Be careful to not ask things that are available on the website though.

Definitely save them in a reference manager! It will also allow you to make notes, highlight parts of the paper, etc. I also put them in folders and give them keywords so I can search for relevant papers easily in the future. For this reason, I use my laptop or PC to read them. I used to use mendeley, now switched to EndNote because I like the sorting and search functions better. There are cracked versions online - but you don't have that from me. Your uni will be able to get you a 'real' version anyway. If you prefer to print them, you could consider scanning them and uploading them. But definitely start building your own 'library' of papers, it's going to help you in the end.

I had ramen with my former advisor

Also depends on your survey. If you're using some standard questionnaire (common in psych) with standard questions, it's not necessarily needed. My uni also used standardized consent forms. I always ran instructions (if not from an existing questionnaire) and debrief by my advisor. I then had some fellow students check the flow of my survey and check for typos (and returned the favor of course). My advisor always wanted a copy of my survey in word form on which he made comments, but only on the non-standardized sections.

Soul sister! I'm so addicted to research

I have this with my mum... (my dad past away when I was young).