PsychHopeful2020

In case anyone else applied to Harvard with hopes of working with KM - just got word that she isn't taking a grad student this year after all.

Shooooot do you think that means if we haven't heard from our POI we should start giving up hope?

I did a 1000-piece puzzle while listening to scary story podcasts. But my first-author paper was officially accepted for publication today!!!

Thanks I should have checked the results page again before asking! Resisted the urge to downvote your comment just because I did not enjoy the information hahaha

That's for counseling, if you applied to clinical they emailed to say they would go out from 2/5- 2/7!

Nobody has heard from Boston University yet, right? Anyone know when they're sending out invites?

I am so sorry, that gutted me to read But, I think graduate programs will understand that you are human. If I were you, I would take several years before applying and either do a master's or work full-time in a lab. This experience, along with publications and strong letter of recommendations, will totally trump that bad year. To go a step further, I would have one of your trusted mentors mention in a LOR that you went through a personal crisis and learned from it or mention it yourself (I know most PhD applications in the US have a section to explain anything strange on your application). I don't think you have to go into the specifics, but mentioning that something devastating happened would probably help explain. This is another reason I would wait to apply - you will have genuine distance and clarity. You will then be able to say that through this personal crisis, you learned x lessons (something like, how to use appropriate coping mechanisms, manage stress, and persevere in the face of adversity) and how you would do things differently. Based on common interview questions and my personal experience with PIs and clinical psych professors at top tier schools (which is all the evidence I have to draw on) I believe that they see you as a human and will be more interested in what you learned from your mistakes than having only graduate students who have never made any. Also as a personal note - you would have to be a robot to seriously go through something like that and have it not affect you. If that happened to me, I would have bombed that last year too. Be kind to yourself and have faith that everything happens for a reason - maybe that disruption was so that you would have a reason to get more experience that will lead to you discovering your dream program. Plus, you'll definitely meet someone better for you than that ex!

Such a mood right now!!!!!! Going insane!

My publication has been "Ready for decision" for a week! How long do these things take? I'm really hoping to be able to talk about it in interviews and be able to say it's accepted............. come on!

From my understanding, your undergraduate school only matters if that's all you do. As long as you gain research experience, teach abroad (which sounds relevant to your major? right?) etc. those things will "outshine" a lackluster undergraduate university. I also attended a public in-state school, but I did not have a problem later getting competitive internships and jobs because through my gap time I gained affiliations will well-known ivy leagues and prestigious programs. I did this by volunteering to be an RA in their lab, for free, while working full time during my first gap year. It was exhausting, but I am pretty sure I would not have received admission to some of my later amazing opportunities if I hadn't worked for those places that have name recognition in my field. That being said, I am going through my first round of doctoral applications now so I'll have to get back to you about being accepted places - but I'm betting, especially if you're going for a master's, that you will be all set!

Plane crash

I've been in that mood - the earliest for any of my programs is this week!

Thank you for this! Every single one of these was helpful and reassuring, particularly during such an anxiety-inducing time.

I just can't drag myself away from graduate school content and yet I don't seem to be doing anything productive. With the hopes that I'm not alone, I thought I'd share my list with you guys and you might appreciate it. Things I have done instead of being productive: - Read the class list for my top choice program and reacted as though it was my actual schedule - "That class will be awesome, but this one will kind of suck" - Priced out a gym membership near my top choice program - Created a Quizlet to memorize every random, tiny part of the brain??? I mean, bizarre use of mental power right now but okay, I do have a strong background in neuroscience and want to make sure it stays that way... - Obsessively read the 43 page thread about my top choice city - a city I already live near and have lived in - Mentally prepared for absurdly cruel interview questions, like "can you explain why your only publication is overall very uninteresting?" or "you don't strike me as someone who can handle this program. how are you planning to combat this?" - Watched high school seniors reacting to their college decisions on youtube because I just need my fix of that excited energy What about you? What have you been doing that, in all honesty, is doing nothing to help you?

First off, here's fingers crossed even harder for GSAS (as though I needed more reason to have my heart set on that program) Second, I live near the area and lived in the city while doing an internship at Harvard Med - and not to sound like a penny pincher but like there are about 50 Planet Fitnesses in Boston and they're only $10/month. Highly recommend especially if you're like me and mostly use them when it's too cold to be outside.