Psyche007

Just so you know where I'm coming from: I'm a student who has participated in group interviews for clinical psychology Ph.D. applicants. I'm a mentor for incoming first years as well as for potential grad students through the APA mentorship programme. I'm not an expert, but like everyone else, I have an opinion.
I tend to favourably rate interviewees who can speak thoughtfully about their area of interest and certain trends in psychology overall. Interviewees who restate all their previous accomplishments and/or name drop, appear disinterested by not participating beyond promoting themselves, or act as if the programme would be lucky to be graced with their presence don't come across well. They don't seem like students that people might want to be around, even if they are highly accomplished. It communicates a lack of maturity.
Don't hide who you are. Don't act as you think they want you to act. Relax as much as you can. Be a fully present and developed person. You're more than just your work and interest in psychology. Respond to other students with grace and curiosity.
Remember, you need to know if you'll enjoy being yourself around them as much as (if not more than) they want to know if they want to be around you.

Hello there,
First of all - being ambitious and aiming for competitive programs is not bad at all. If you feel you are competitive enough, why not?
However, there are other things more important for your future then where you went to school. Sure, having a grad degree from a prestigious school can open many doors, but so can many other less "prestigious" universities. It really depends what you want to do with the PhD after - are you going for an academic career? Industry? We could help more if we could get a sense of what your long-term plans are.
Also - applying to these programs is not just about ticking boxes - get a good GPA, get this research experience with famous prof., etc. You really have to have very clearly defined interests when you are applying and the relevant experience to match. For example, for UK PhDs you'll probably need a set thesis topic from the start; for a US PhD you need relevant experience in your PI's area of research and a degree of research productivity. How you talk about your experience is also important. Whether your lab supervisor has an h-index of 40 might be less relevant if they don't provide you with a strong letter of reference, or they don't recommend you strongly to their network. 
When you have a clear idea of what you want to do with the PhD, you might also realize that the best school for you might not be Harvard, but that it might be some state university with many grants and a strong research record or history of placing graduates in respected industry roles. And it's also important to note that you need to do a lot of research regarding the different academic systems where you are applying. Australia is different than US who is also different compared to UK or other countries. Do you want to stay in that country after?
And for your last question - professors are used to giving students reference letters and they understand that your dreams might not include their lab in the future - that is ok. However, if you strongly give them the impression that they are only a safety/ last resort, they might not be as enthusiastic to admit you to their lab. From my experience, as long as you work hard and show respect, many professors are glad to support students applying to other labs and happy for them when they get into a "better" program. 

Yes, thankfully tuition is waived for PhD students - they make their money off the Masters students, as @Clinapp2017 noted above. When I was getting ready to enter the application process, my advisors made sure to emphasize NOT going anywhere that wouldn't waive tuition. 
I'd love to see a union at my uni, I know several other graduate schools have them and have had some moderate success with improving the lives of their grad students through them. 
Such is Academia.... adjuncts and grad students carry the grunt work and get peanuts for it. Only way to push for change is from the inside, though.

I've been around a few graduate students under 23 who have struggled massively with the workload, responsibility, and maturity required to engage and be successful. I have had to ask myself serious questions as to what made them suitable for acceptance. The more unprepared students allowed into a programme, the more the programme becomes diluted in terms of complexity and intellectual demand and concentrated in terms of quantity of work. I've encountered a fair amount of basic busy work and my classes are largely unrewarding, but perhaps that is demonstrative of my programme, even though friends at other programmes say their experience is very similar.
I think that students are better prepared for grad school if they've lived and worked in the real world for a while. You get to see how much of grad school is self-important posturing. It's interesting how sheltered individuals are who have spent their lives in academia. It is a rich and fertile ground for nurturing narcissism, encouraging obsession with politics and reputation, taking yourself super seriously, and doing things for the sake of establishing a career instead of contributing to the field, something I see as the essence of any doctoral programme.
It's easier to get along with faculty when you are 'non-traditional'. Many seem pleasantly surprised and refreshed by a student who is autonomous, challenging, and highly engaged. Then there are some who just want you to be quiet and do as you're told. It's clear that they're very accustomed to dealing with children but not other adults.
But hey, I didn't start undergrad until 30, so my experience has been different the entire journey.

I resonate with this statement immensely as someone with a partner who doesn't make a ton of money in her job, but still makes enough for us to get by. Also getting married meant I had the benefit of joining her insurance plan which was significantly better than my university's plan. 
 
Playing devil's advocate, I am not really sure how things are going to change unless we somehow burn down the whole system and start over. PhD students, while a source of invaluable labor to the university, are also fundamentally students IMHO because they are at the university to obtain a product: a PhD. This means the university has to hire faculty, hire admin to support the faculty, etc. to make sure PhD students (and undergrads, too) get an education. Don't even get me started on masters degree students... that is the university's cash cow, for sure. 
 
I still think we PhD students are woefully underpaid for the amount of work we put in, and I will be honest in saying that I have a couple of side-hustles only because the grad government at my university made the university wave that requirement a long time ago through a negotiation that ended a strike. These are small side-gigs (e.g., portrait photography) that are also my hobby, so it's a nice way to supplement my terrible income in my high CoL area. The sad thing is if I went full-time and really invested in launching a portrait business (or wedding photography) I could possibly earn nearly double a post-doc salary in just a year or two with the right photography connections and marketing... *sigh* 
 
I really hate academia. Even with a pretty successful research run during my PhD, I fully plan to obtain a clinical job at a VA or academic med center where I can make a decent salary after post-doc and not have to worry about this BS anymore, lol

Honestly, if I didn't have a spouse, I don’t think it would have been very manageable. 

So many things...
How does anyone live on these stipends that are less than the cost of living when we aren't allowed to take outside employment?
Balancing personal research and lab research/teaching/etc
Preparing for comprehensive exams
Surviving the publishing process
How do you decide whether or not to stay in academia or go the alt-ac route after graduation?
All the things!

Yes, I am all for that!
I don't hold a narrow scope of all young PhDs and you can't discredit lived experience.
I'm not sure how you read "I've been around a few graduate students under 23 who have struggled massively..." as a blanket statement of "I think all young grad students are less prepared and less mature". I do think there are young grad students who are autonomous, challenging, and highly engaged and I think they're the ones that should be in grad school. Perhaps you are one of them.
I appreciate that you don't think of yourself or other grad students as being sheltered or working on an academic reputation, but how would someone know if they were? If students are taught that certain activities are intrinsically part of grad school, what would they look for to know? You have self-admittedly spent the majority of your life in school. You've been able to earn 2 Bachelor's degrees and spend time volunteering in labs. If you've done that while working full time jobs to support yourself, then indeed, I salute and admire your tenacity and hard work because it is clearly impressive. It also looks as though you spent time developing yourself personally, something I always bang on about. But you are *not* the average grad student, just as I am not.
I'm not just 7 years older than you. I'm 45. I'm older than most of my professors. I have spent more of my life outside of academia than inside it. I earned my first BS in about 3 years while raising my daughter and working full time and walked away from the idea of grad school for psychology because what I saw and learned demonstrated that academia is largely broken. I earned my second BS in 2 years in order to pursue medicine. But I felt that psychology could be saved, so I decided to go in to try and make changes, which means my perspective has been different from day one.
I don't hold anyone's background against them. None of us control the circumstances of our birth. There is an attitude that exists, and you see it clearly on display on Grad Cafe, of elitism, snobbery, and disapproval. If you came here knowing nothing about the logistics of academia (like I did) you'd leave thinking the only way to get in is to be early 20s, with several pubs, a high GPA, and tonnes of lab experience.
I'm generally contemptuous of that position and hang out here to offer a counterpoint. I came here looking for help, as I was in the first in my family to go to college and I am an immigrant. I read thread after thread on this board before applying and felt like there was no way in hell I'd ever be accepted to grad school. I didn't see myself represented, which I understand is an important element of encouraging non-traditional or diverse individuals to participate. Applying to a single programme and getting in first time taught me something, and my time spent as a grad student has taught me even more about the process and reality of it, so I stick around to offer support to those who show up and feel discouraged.

I've been around a few graduate students under 23 who have struggled massively with the workload, responsibility, and maturity required to engage and be successful. I have had to ask myself serious questions as to what made them suitable for acceptance. The more unprepared students allowed into a programme, the more the programme becomes diluted in terms of complexity and intellectual demand and concentrated in terms of quantity of work. I've encountered a fair amount of basic busy work and my classes are largely unrewarding, but perhaps that is demonstrative of my programme, even though friends at other programmes say their experience is very similar.
I think that students are better prepared for grad school if they've lived and worked in the real world for a while. You get to see how much of grad school is self-important posturing. It's interesting how sheltered individuals are who have spent their lives in academia. It is a rich and fertile ground for nurturing narcissism, encouraging obsession with politics and reputation, taking yourself super seriously, and doing things for the sake of establishing a career instead of contributing to the field, something I see as the essence of any doctoral programme.
It's easier to get along with faculty when you are 'non-traditional'. Many seem pleasantly surprised and refreshed by a student who is autonomous, challenging, and highly engaged. Then there are some who just want you to be quiet and do as you're told. It's clear that they're very accustomed to dealing with children but not other adults.
But hey, I didn't start undergrad until 30, so my experience has been different the entire journey.

Oh I certainly agree with many of the points you made. I am a first gen student myself and had no direction/idea about the process of getting into graduate school. I was actually told not to look at this site because it would be an awful comparison game (which it was) because I got into my current program off a wait list, while I saw many others getting accepted to multiple programs.
I was certainly not trying to discredit your experiences/ academic journey, just trying to speak on behalf of being a younger PhD. And sure, it has been hard but I don't think it was something I wasn't prepared for or had trouble speaking to people about in order to remedy situations. I think a lot of it is just skills I learned through being involved in activities in high school and college.
 
@SoundofSilence I think studying I/O teaches students right away to set boundaries. I also think my program and advisor specifically allows us the freedom to pick and choose what we are working on, so we again have boundaries through that.
 As an individual who loves both mentoring undergraduate students and working on different challenges everyday, I have exposed myself to the business industry working on applied projects and as an intern for several companies. So whatever path I may take I will be able to utilize all of my knowledge.

Yes, I am all for that!
I don't hold a narrow scope of all young PhDs and you can't discredit lived experience.
I'm not sure how you read "I've been around a few graduate students under 23 who have struggled massively..." as a blanket statement of "I think all young grad students are less prepared and less mature". I do think there are young grad students who are autonomous, challenging, and highly engaged and I think they're the ones that should be in grad school. Perhaps you are one of them.
I appreciate that you don't think of yourself or other grad students as being sheltered or working on an academic reputation, but how would someone know if they were? If students are taught that certain activities are intrinsically part of grad school, what would they look for to know? You have self-admittedly spent the majority of your life in school. You've been able to earn 2 Bachelor's degrees and spend time volunteering in labs. If you've done that while working full time jobs to support yourself, then indeed, I salute and admire your tenacity and hard work because it is clearly impressive. It also looks as though you spent time developing yourself personally, something I always bang on about. But you are *not* the average grad student, just as I am not.
I'm not just 7 years older than you. I'm 45. I'm older than most of my professors. I have spent more of my life outside of academia than inside it. I earned my first BS in about 3 years while raising my daughter and working full time and walked away from the idea of grad school for psychology because what I saw and learned demonstrated that academia is largely broken. I earned my second BS in 2 years in order to pursue medicine. But I felt that psychology could be saved, so I decided to go in to try and make changes, which means my perspective has been different from day one.
I don't hold anyone's background against them. None of us control the circumstances of our birth. There is an attitude that exists, and you see it clearly on display on Grad Cafe, of elitism, snobbery, and disapproval. If you came here knowing nothing about the logistics of academia (like I did) you'd leave thinking the only way to get in is to be early 20s, with several pubs, a high GPA, and tonnes of lab experience.
I'm generally contemptuous of that position and hang out here to offer a counterpoint. I came here looking for help, as I was in the first in my family to go to college and I am an immigrant. I read thread after thread on this board before applying and felt like there was no way in hell I'd ever be accepted to grad school. I didn't see myself represented, which I understand is an important element of encouraging non-traditional or diverse individuals to participate. Applying to a single programme and getting in first time taught me something, and my time spent as a grad student has taught me even more about the process and reality of it, so I stick around to offer support to those who show up and feel discouraged.

I've been around a few graduate students under 23 who have struggled massively with the workload, responsibility, and maturity required to engage and be successful. I have had to ask myself serious questions as to what made them suitable for acceptance. The more unprepared students allowed into a programme, the more the programme becomes diluted in terms of complexity and intellectual demand and concentrated in terms of quantity of work. I've encountered a fair amount of basic busy work and my classes are largely unrewarding, but perhaps that is demonstrative of my programme, even though friends at other programmes say their experience is very similar.
I think that students are better prepared for grad school if they've lived and worked in the real world for a while. You get to see how much of grad school is self-important posturing. It's interesting how sheltered individuals are who have spent their lives in academia. It is a rich and fertile ground for nurturing narcissism, encouraging obsession with politics and reputation, taking yourself super seriously, and doing things for the sake of establishing a career instead of contributing to the field, something I see as the essence of any doctoral programme.
It's easier to get along with faculty when you are 'non-traditional'. Many seem pleasantly surprised and refreshed by a student who is autonomous, challenging, and highly engaged. Then there are some who just want you to be quiet and do as you're told. It's clear that they're very accustomed to dealing with children but not other adults.
But hey, I didn't start undergrad until 30, so my experience has been different the entire journey.

Yes! Anthropology has come to my mind before, and studying body image as a function of culture sounds seems like another plausible (and exciting) way to study it. Thanks for sharing. 
Thank you for shedding more light into this matter! This is definitely reassuring. 
Its exciting to know there's someone like Prof Brochu researching into body image, specifically those with excessive weight gain. She will definitely be one of the researchers I will look into furuther. Thank you so much for sharing. 
Thank you for sharing! Though Prof Scott is studying body image through her position as a psychologist, its exciting to see someone who is looking at it from adolescent development with similar research into bullying at schools. Both topics are close to my heart. Prof Scott is definitely someone I will look into further. 
I definitely will! His research seems geared towards the health implications of body image, which I think is a really important topic to study as well. Thanks for sharing.  

For real   There are way more "nontraditional" PhD students out there then people must be aware of...

I'm finding it hard to believe that any decent portion of folks began their PhD at 21-23. That's assuming someone only needed 4 years for their bachelor's and they were accepted fairly soon after undergrad. I'm biased because I'm non-traditional (enrolled in community college at 21, bachelor's at 27), but I'm more interested in seeing the distribution of PhD starting ages in the 30+ group. As someone mentioned, it feels ageist to lump everyone 30+ together.

I think a lot of people don't realize how many older/ non-traditional students are out there. But we are out there  And the way things are going with so much competition, we might be starting to see older and older grad students.

There's a big difference between starting at 30 and starting over 40 or 50. Looks a little ageist to me... ?

There's a big difference between starting at 30 and starting over 40 or 50. Looks a little ageist to me... ?

There's a big difference between starting at 30 and starting over 40 or 50. Looks a little ageist to me... ?

Started undergrad at 33, master's at 38, starting a PhD program at 40.  Professors I inteviewed with said my life/work experiences were what caught their attention.  

Can you summarize your research experience into a one or two principles you're observed, learned from, and applied elsewhere? It's a great opportunity to show how you can summarize data into useful and generalizable information.
They're going to read your resume, which I imagine will include all the minutiae of your experiences, so I'd avoid repeating anything in your statement that reviewers can find elsewhere. The statement is an opportunity to say something that you can't say elsewhere, something that makes them want to meet you.

I’m definitely no expert here, but last cycle I used an anecdote from one of my clinically-oriented positions as an introduction, from which I pivoted into my graduate goals. I had one POI comment positively on this, as well as on the generally well-written prose. Can’t understate the importance of the last point!

Good for you! You have much to offer. I'm about to be a 3rd year and I'm 44, haha.
Word to the wise: don't look to the majority of your peers for support. They just won't get it. It's not their fault. Make a concerted effort to reach out, network, meet like-minded people with similar life experience.  You will probably be on a different developmental level, although there may be some exceptionally mature young people that can relate to you and vice versa.

Thank you! It's been such a crazy crazy year and I still expect some busy summer months. I hope you are well  And yes, I do hope we get good news this round.
A general question - are people already contacting POIs or is it too early?

Welcome back!
Technically my third year, too, I hope something finally sticks for us! ?