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spunky

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  1. Upvote
    spunky reacted to angeladl6007 in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    I think a lot of us on this thread wish we had known that was the better option before picking a major in psychology. Ah regrets..
  2. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in Quantitative Psychology PhD   
    i think i would focus more on the statistical topics aspect of things and just tangentially mention that you also have substantive research interests and describe the ways in which you would like to apply the new methods you will learn to these other areas. that way you're conveying the idea that you're still committed to your quant knowledge as your core area of research.
     
    i just fear you could face the potential risk of an advisor reading over your statement and thinking "uhm... this sounds like a social psychologist who lost her/his way. better throw it in the 'no' pile just to be sure". keep in mind that just because not many people apply to these programs does it mean they let in anybody. my program, for example, rejected all applicants for 3 consecutive years before getting in their new cohort of students even though we rarely, if ever, receive more than 10 applications per year. in the long run that's a good thing because that means advisors are seating on piles of sweet sweet unused funding waiting to be spent
     
    we usually get around 5 or 6 applications from which only 1 or 2 people get an interview. on the bright side, you pretty much have the guarantee that your potential advisor will conscientiously read all of your application package for no reason other than it is not an insurmountable task. especially when you compare it with people who supervise social psych or clinical psych programs and get north of 300 applications every year.  
  3. Upvote
    spunky reacted to angeladl6007 in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    I had the same realization last year when I applied to PhD programs in Social Psychology and did not end up getting into any program. Trying to quickly pull myself together, I applied to many lab manager positions in order to get more research experience. I was completely shocked when I was told, by multiple labs, that they would prefer someone with a computer science background. That concept kind of makes me laugh because my boyfriend is a computer engineer and his job prospects and earning potential are so phenomenal that I don't know WHY someone with a computer science background would even look at those jobs. Anyway, it was really shocking because that is probably the only job I can think of that should be looking specifically for people with a bachelors in Psychology and we are still worthless to them. What a waste of four years! I could have had a completely different major and been in a better position going to a career IN PSYCHOLOGY. I ended up completely re-evaluating my goals and decided to forget about social psychology because, as you said, the job pool isn't even worth it.
  4. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from when in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    what....what is this strange feeling?
     
    COMPETITION?
     

  5. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from mb712 in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    what....what is this strange feeling?
     
    COMPETITION?
     

  6. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TheMercySeat in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    what....what is this strange feeling?
     
    COMPETITION?
     

  7. Upvote
    spunky reacted to mb712 in On 2% Acceptance Rates - Is the (Social)Psychology PhD a Crapshoot?   
    Now to find out how to beat the system and upvote this post more than once...
  8. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in Quantitative Psychology PhD   
    Well… uhm… to be honest, if you’re starting from “below ground zero” and don’t have an advisor to guide you through the process, I’m not sure how doable Option 1 would be for you (where Option 1 means working out some theoretical result). Usually, it does take some exposure to theoretical psychometrics or statistics to become acquainted with these types of problems and see how to go about solving them. From my experience, if something seems straightforward enough either people won’t care about it (because it’s too simple) or it’s not relevant enough. But here are some of the things in which I have (unsuccessfully) dabbled in, in case you want to take a shot at them:
     
    - Tenko Raykov has been the only person I know who was able to derive the exact bias of Cronbach alpha, in the population, when the data follows a congeneric 1-factor model (different loadings, different error variances). He leaves open the problem of deriving the bias for finite samples. You could try and work on it.
     
    - Ke-Hai Yuan (et.al.) derived a new definition, standard error and sampling distribution of Mardia’s multivariate kurtosis under data that is Missing Completely At Random (MCAR).There has been work (and I'm currently looking into it) to extend it to the more general case of  Missing At Random (MAR) but the standard errors/sampling distribution has been much more difficult to derive than anticipated. You could try a shot at that.
     
    -  Donald Zimmerman extended the axioms of Classical Test Theory to measure-theoretic Hilbert spaces. In order to accommodate for more flexible types of norming not restricted by the inner-products, my advisor and I have attempted to extend them to Banach spaces. We haven’t been able to… but you’re welcome to try
     
    If you want my opinion, I think Option 2 (a Monte Carlo simulation study) seems like a much more doable option if you’re mostly working on your own. You just need to become sufficiently proficient in statistics and R (or any other software but I’m R-biased LOL) and figure out how to program the right things there. There is A LOT of simulation work going on all the time and I feel like this is a problem that you could tackle.
     
    Option 3 I am conflicted about. In general, I don’t feel like Quant Psych peepz really see analyzing data with a fancy method like anything particularly worthwhile (unless it’s a devilish design or something) because it really only says “oh look! I know how to type the right commands of code!”. A twist that I would give it to make it more interesting is maybe looking for similar problems in finance or economics or physics and bringing in those methods into Psychology. For example, in the Journal of Behavioural Statistics someone suggested the use of a method apparently used in by particle physicists to analyze likert-type data and settle, once and for all, the debate on whether you should analyze this type of data with parametric or non-parametric methods. Big Data and Machine Learning algorithms are really hot right now so you could maybe try and data-mine some big Mental Health database or something… I could see people being interested in that.
     
    But in terms of what would get you published in a quant journal at this stage, I suggest Option 2. Although if you manage to solve any of the problems in Option 1 do let me know
     
    I really hope someone else who is in Quant Psych would chip in here. I feel like the people who read this thread are only getting my perspective of things and I’m sure people would benefit more if more perspectives were brought into the discussion.
  9. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in Quantitative Psychology PhD   
    That's entirely possible. The majority of people who apply to Quant Psych programs are psych undergrads who took both the intro and advanced research methods sequence and somehow (usually accidentally) end up finding about this area of psychology. I think it is desirable (but not mandatory) to have a solid foundation in math/stats beyond the intro and advanced research methods courses with the benefit of hindsight, comparing my experience with that of my peers who didn't have a solid math base. But I find it difficult to believe that any program would just outright reject someone because he or she didn't go through the college calculus sequence or something like that. 
     
    Just be willing to work hard, have tons of fun and you'll be OK
  10. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from juilletmercredi in If you could design an introductory stats course....   
    I’ve both TAed and taught undergraduate statistics/methods courses (and a couple of graduate-level courses) and have tried to experiment with every possible method (even early-childhood education ones) to convey the material in the most efficient way. There are two things that, for better or worse, I have concluded: (a) there has to be an exam component to it and (b ) the exam component has to carry enough weight on the student’s grades that will motivate them to study and review the material.
     
    When I started my MA and began taking the same courses as everybody else I was 100% against exams and complained to the instructor (in a friendly manner, of course) about this. My reasoning was that if you had made it this far in your education, you were willing to study and learn the material because you knew it was important. What the prof said was that you always had to assume students will try to get away with doing as little as possible in classes like this because they tend to not like the material. Fast-forward a few years when I started teaching and I did start finding out that students had a harder time mastering the actual concepts behind statistics if they felt they were not going to be tested. It was like they did not need to put on the effort as much to struggle with the concepts and learn the material… and that is an extremely critical thing that needs to happen if you are seeing this stuff for the first time.
     
    When I attempted assignment-only courses, my students became incredibly skilled SPSS-button-pushers and that’s about it. Then they would show up at my door a few months down the line when they had to work on their theses/dissertations/manuscripts and I would get very frustrated because they couldn’t even work out the simplest things by themselves. Like I would tell them “we saw this in class, is in your notes, it’s in X or Y chapter of the book”. One of my students actually gave me a very good hint as for why they were unable to apply this stuff: he said that he always worked in a group with other two people or compared his answers with other students to make sure everything was right before handing it in. So the end result was a class where everybody got an A but only 3 or 4 people knew how things worked.
     
    Ever since then I decided exams are the only way I had to ensure that people are actually going to try things at home, practice them, struggle with them and, one way or another, learn them. I have changed the focus into making the classes more interactive though… like I use R to code interactive animations of regression or ANOVA (because the entire linear model has a geometric analogue so you can actually show it in pictures), we have class discussions, we have group activities, etc… but I always keep an exam component in my courses now…lurking…waiting. 
     
     
    I wholeheartedly agree with this. The prof who taught me linear algebra had this famous (paraphrased) quote saying: "every self-respecting mathematician should, at some point in his or her life, have to find the inverse of a non-trivial matrix BY HAND". And if you have ever had to found the inverse of a matrix by hand then you know the process is both terribly boring and incredibly illuminating. As someone who both teaches and consults statistics I feel the greatest problem that we face is not so much in how we evaluate the material but how we deliver it. I feel a lot of people in Psych and other social scientists can become really good at following “ready-made” numerical recipes and feed them into SPSS but when it comes to actually understanding where these numerical recipes come from and, more importantly, how to adapt them to new types of data or designs well… then all hell breaks loose. 
  11. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from AAdAAm in If you could design an introductory stats course....   
    I’ve both TAed and taught undergraduate statistics/methods courses (and a couple of graduate-level courses) and have tried to experiment with every possible method (even early-childhood education ones) to convey the material in the most efficient way. There are two things that, for better or worse, I have concluded: (a) there has to be an exam component to it and (b ) the exam component has to carry enough weight on the student’s grades that will motivate them to study and review the material.
     
    When I started my MA and began taking the same courses as everybody else I was 100% against exams and complained to the instructor (in a friendly manner, of course) about this. My reasoning was that if you had made it this far in your education, you were willing to study and learn the material because you knew it was important. What the prof said was that you always had to assume students will try to get away with doing as little as possible in classes like this because they tend to not like the material. Fast-forward a few years when I started teaching and I did start finding out that students had a harder time mastering the actual concepts behind statistics if they felt they were not going to be tested. It was like they did not need to put on the effort as much to struggle with the concepts and learn the material… and that is an extremely critical thing that needs to happen if you are seeing this stuff for the first time.
     
    When I attempted assignment-only courses, my students became incredibly skilled SPSS-button-pushers and that’s about it. Then they would show up at my door a few months down the line when they had to work on their theses/dissertations/manuscripts and I would get very frustrated because they couldn’t even work out the simplest things by themselves. Like I would tell them “we saw this in class, is in your notes, it’s in X or Y chapter of the book”. One of my students actually gave me a very good hint as for why they were unable to apply this stuff: he said that he always worked in a group with other two people or compared his answers with other students to make sure everything was right before handing it in. So the end result was a class where everybody got an A but only 3 or 4 people knew how things worked.
     
    Ever since then I decided exams are the only way I had to ensure that people are actually going to try things at home, practice them, struggle with them and, one way or another, learn them. I have changed the focus into making the classes more interactive though… like I use R to code interactive animations of regression or ANOVA (because the entire linear model has a geometric analogue so you can actually show it in pictures), we have class discussions, we have group activities, etc… but I always keep an exam component in my courses now…lurking…waiting. 
     
     
    I wholeheartedly agree with this. The prof who taught me linear algebra had this famous (paraphrased) quote saying: "every self-respecting mathematician should, at some point in his or her life, have to find the inverse of a non-trivial matrix BY HAND". And if you have ever had to found the inverse of a matrix by hand then you know the process is both terribly boring and incredibly illuminating. As someone who both teaches and consults statistics I feel the greatest problem that we face is not so much in how we evaluate the material but how we deliver it. I feel a lot of people in Psych and other social scientists can become really good at following “ready-made” numerical recipes and feed them into SPSS but when it comes to actually understanding where these numerical recipes come from and, more importantly, how to adapt them to new types of data or designs well… then all hell breaks loose. 
  12. Upvote
    spunky reacted to TenaciousBushLeaper in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    I really hate to be the one to say this but I honestly doubt that anyone who dedicates 2-3 hours each day,  for say a 3 month period to studying and prepping for the quantitative section of the GRE will get anything below 70%.  Unless of course you truly do have a learning deficiency in mathematics, in which case I have no idea what would be needed to improve your score. 
  13. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in If you could design an introductory stats course....   
    I’ve both TAed and taught undergraduate statistics/methods courses (and a couple of graduate-level courses) and have tried to experiment with every possible method (even early-childhood education ones) to convey the material in the most efficient way. There are two things that, for better or worse, I have concluded: (a) there has to be an exam component to it and (b ) the exam component has to carry enough weight on the student’s grades that will motivate them to study and review the material.
     
    When I started my MA and began taking the same courses as everybody else I was 100% against exams and complained to the instructor (in a friendly manner, of course) about this. My reasoning was that if you had made it this far in your education, you were willing to study and learn the material because you knew it was important. What the prof said was that you always had to assume students will try to get away with doing as little as possible in classes like this because they tend to not like the material. Fast-forward a few years when I started teaching and I did start finding out that students had a harder time mastering the actual concepts behind statistics if they felt they were not going to be tested. It was like they did not need to put on the effort as much to struggle with the concepts and learn the material… and that is an extremely critical thing that needs to happen if you are seeing this stuff for the first time.
     
    When I attempted assignment-only courses, my students became incredibly skilled SPSS-button-pushers and that’s about it. Then they would show up at my door a few months down the line when they had to work on their theses/dissertations/manuscripts and I would get very frustrated because they couldn’t even work out the simplest things by themselves. Like I would tell them “we saw this in class, is in your notes, it’s in X or Y chapter of the book”. One of my students actually gave me a very good hint as for why they were unable to apply this stuff: he said that he always worked in a group with other two people or compared his answers with other students to make sure everything was right before handing it in. So the end result was a class where everybody got an A but only 3 or 4 people knew how things worked.
     
    Ever since then I decided exams are the only way I had to ensure that people are actually going to try things at home, practice them, struggle with them and, one way or another, learn them. I have changed the focus into making the classes more interactive though… like I use R to code interactive animations of regression or ANOVA (because the entire linear model has a geometric analogue so you can actually show it in pictures), we have class discussions, we have group activities, etc… but I always keep an exam component in my courses now…lurking…waiting. 
     
     
    I wholeheartedly agree with this. The prof who taught me linear algebra had this famous (paraphrased) quote saying: "every self-respecting mathematician should, at some point in his or her life, have to find the inverse of a non-trivial matrix BY HAND". And if you have ever had to found the inverse of a matrix by hand then you know the process is both terribly boring and incredibly illuminating. As someone who both teaches and consults statistics I feel the greatest problem that we face is not so much in how we evaluate the material but how we deliver it. I feel a lot of people in Psych and other social scientists can become really good at following “ready-made” numerical recipes and feed them into SPSS but when it comes to actually understanding where these numerical recipes come from and, more importantly, how to adapt them to new types of data or designs well… then all hell breaks loose. 
  14. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from FinallyAccepted in If you could design an introductory stats course....   
    I’ve both TAed and taught undergraduate statistics/methods courses (and a couple of graduate-level courses) and have tried to experiment with every possible method (even early-childhood education ones) to convey the material in the most efficient way. There are two things that, for better or worse, I have concluded: (a) there has to be an exam component to it and (b ) the exam component has to carry enough weight on the student’s grades that will motivate them to study and review the material.
     
    When I started my MA and began taking the same courses as everybody else I was 100% against exams and complained to the instructor (in a friendly manner, of course) about this. My reasoning was that if you had made it this far in your education, you were willing to study and learn the material because you knew it was important. What the prof said was that you always had to assume students will try to get away with doing as little as possible in classes like this because they tend to not like the material. Fast-forward a few years when I started teaching and I did start finding out that students had a harder time mastering the actual concepts behind statistics if they felt they were not going to be tested. It was like they did not need to put on the effort as much to struggle with the concepts and learn the material… and that is an extremely critical thing that needs to happen if you are seeing this stuff for the first time.
     
    When I attempted assignment-only courses, my students became incredibly skilled SPSS-button-pushers and that’s about it. Then they would show up at my door a few months down the line when they had to work on their theses/dissertations/manuscripts and I would get very frustrated because they couldn’t even work out the simplest things by themselves. Like I would tell them “we saw this in class, is in your notes, it’s in X or Y chapter of the book”. One of my students actually gave me a very good hint as for why they were unable to apply this stuff: he said that he always worked in a group with other two people or compared his answers with other students to make sure everything was right before handing it in. So the end result was a class where everybody got an A but only 3 or 4 people knew how things worked.
     
    Ever since then I decided exams are the only way I had to ensure that people are actually going to try things at home, practice them, struggle with them and, one way or another, learn them. I have changed the focus into making the classes more interactive though… like I use R to code interactive animations of regression or ANOVA (because the entire linear model has a geometric analogue so you can actually show it in pictures), we have class discussions, we have group activities, etc… but I always keep an exam component in my courses now…lurking…waiting. 
     
     
    I wholeheartedly agree with this. The prof who taught me linear algebra had this famous (paraphrased) quote saying: "every self-respecting mathematician should, at some point in his or her life, have to find the inverse of a non-trivial matrix BY HAND". And if you have ever had to found the inverse of a matrix by hand then you know the process is both terribly boring and incredibly illuminating. As someone who both teaches and consults statistics I feel the greatest problem that we face is not so much in how we evaluate the material but how we deliver it. I feel a lot of people in Psych and other social scientists can become really good at following “ready-made” numerical recipes and feed them into SPSS but when it comes to actually understanding where these numerical recipes come from and, more importantly, how to adapt them to new types of data or designs well… then all hell breaks loose. 
  15. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TenaciousBushLeaper in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    the GRE is really only "a thing" in North America... and i would go as far as say it's mostly "a thing" in the U.S. because even some Canadian universities (like McGill) have peculiar policies where you don't have to submit your GRE scores depending on where you studied.   NEVERTHELESS i kind of have to agree on this one. if you want to do graduate school in English or in a North American setting you just have to suck it up and jump through the hoops like everybody else. yes, we do have to do twice the work (i was born in Mexico so i know what i'm talking about here), yes we have to study twice as hard and yes, we need to struggle twice as much. but that is life and it can be done if you're willing to make the sacrifice. 
  16. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TheMercySeat in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    i don't know why i'm not surprised by this (<----LOL)
  17. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from Gvh in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    i don't know why i'm not surprised by this (<----LOL)
  18. Downvote
    spunky reacted to Sarah Winnon in University of the People?   
    It is also worth considering the impact a UoPeople degree can have on your employ-ability. I work for UoPeople and hear from many of our students and graduates that their studies at UoPeople opened doors previously closed for them. Preparing students for the workforce is a high priority of UoPeople. Beginning in the classroom, the rigor of the accredited degree programs is ensured by world-class academic leaders and academic partners. UoPeople leaders come from universities such as the University of Oxford, Columbia University, and Yale University, and partners include organizations such as the United Nations, UNESCO, and the Clinton Global Initiative, among others. These partnerships provide many opportunities for UoPeople students.
    Outside of the classroom, UoPeople students receive internships, mentorships, and job opportunities from the global corporate partners, including Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. Finally, by focusing on career planning, resume writing,interviewing, and job searching skills, UoPeople’s Career Service Center prepares students to find jobs after graduation.
    Hope that helps add food for thought to your question!
  19. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from TXInstrument11 in Bring Up Factual Mistake on SOP During Interview?   
    as long as you end up with an awkward laugh at the end, everything will be fine. remember, the more awkward the better. natalie portman's a is a good one to start practicing:
     
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlbsvC_1GsY
  20. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from L83Ste in Looking into a certificate program in statistics   
    well, for Texas A&M you can do this one:   http://online.stat.tamu.edu/content_link.php?page=Certificates#schedule   that seems to be more general-statistics based or this one:   http://epsy.tamu.edu/degrees-and-programs/graduate-degree-programs/online-masters-research-measurement-and-statistics   that has a more 'social sciency' feel to it. although just by looking at the titles of the courses on the education-based one it doesn't seem like you'll be doing a lot of statistics-related stuff. the first one seems like a better option (which is, i guess, the one you were referring to initially).    from looking at the syllabuses of the courses i can see there's a lot of emphasis on SAS and R. i'd really recommend you practicing both before you begin. and if they offer some type of SAS certification, TAKE IT. it looks really good on the CV   the Texas A&M and Iowa State are the only two ones i know that are both online and do not require a solid mathematical foundation. if you come across any more it would be nice if you could share them. i know lots of people who would also wanna improve their stats knowledge
  21. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from L83Ste in Looking into a certificate program in statistics   
    yeah, a full-on Master's degree on Statistics is not recommended for anyone who doesn't have a solid math base. i'd say the BARE minimum that you'd need is the basic calculus sequence (differential, integral and multivariate), linear algebra and at least a course on mathematical statistics or a 3rd-year level probability course (something that focuses on the method of proof).
     
    i only know one person who was on a similar situation to yours and he vouched for the online MSc program in Iowa State. you can circumvent all theory courses and just focus on the applied ones so it is more manageable if you don't have a solid math foundation.
     
    i think i asked you about whether your (physical) presence was required or not because there are many applied statistics programs housed under Faculties/Departments of Education that cater to people with limited math backgrounds but who want to become better data analysts. there are 2 in Texas (Texas A&M and University of Texas)
     
    if you go on here:
     
    http://www.apa.org/research/tools/quantitative/
     
    and click on "Educational psychology programs in quantitative methodology" you should get all the info you need. many offer an MEd route so that you just do the courses and graduate.  
  22. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from dragonage in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    actually, i added wrong lol... it's more like 80% (yes, that's EIGHTY percent) of applicants with a Psych major score just barely above the 50th percentile. the breakdown of the table (which is on page 30, not 29) to focus on is:
     
    20%   - 140-144 (10th - 18th) 27.1% - 145-149 (21th - 37th) 24.8% - 150-154 (40th - 56th)   so 20% of psych majors score between the 10th - 18th percentile of the quant section (that's really, low), 27.1% score between the 21th and 37th percentile and 24.8% are in the 40th-56th percentile range.   if you add those three big groups to people who score below the 10th percentile (i.e. people for who numbers are really, really not their friends) then you get that around 80% of grad school applicants with a psych major score either at the 56th percentile or below on the quantitative portion of the GRE.   i think i'm starting to get now why my field of Quant Psych is so unpopular...LOL. 
  23. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from AAdAAm in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    actually, i added wrong lol... it's more like 80% (yes, that's EIGHTY percent) of applicants with a Psych major score just barely above the 50th percentile. the breakdown of the table (which is on page 30, not 29) to focus on is:
     
    20%   - 140-144 (10th - 18th) 27.1% - 145-149 (21th - 37th) 24.8% - 150-154 (40th - 56th)   so 20% of psych majors score between the 10th - 18th percentile of the quant section (that's really, low), 27.1% score between the 21th and 37th percentile and 24.8% are in the 40th-56th percentile range.   if you add those three big groups to people who score below the 10th percentile (i.e. people for who numbers are really, really not their friends) then you get that around 80% of grad school applicants with a psych major score either at the 56th percentile or below on the quantitative portion of the GRE.   i think i'm starting to get now why my field of Quant Psych is so unpopular...LOL. 
  24. Upvote
    spunky got a reaction from Pennywise in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    About a couple of years ago or so I took an internship on ETS and was particularly interested in working in the department that handles the GRE (& all the other post-grad tests like the PRAXIS and whatnot). Here are some of the things I took home from them:
     
    - Every single study where the ETS claims you shouldn’t use a cut-off score is merely a formality that they use to prevent getting sued. Think about it… they want to sell you a product and then they’re gonna bash it? Of course not! Heck, if they were not sued they’d probably trumpet them as the secret oracle of success in graduate school. There are lists of results that are available to the public and there are lists of results that are only privy to ‘clients’ (e.g. universities). It’s mostly technical stuff and I never saw one but I knew from the people who worked on them that they were mostly devoted to come up with “diagnostic scores” which is the euphemism ETS uses for cut-scores. Funding agencies, AdComms, everybody is always asking you for the cut-score because they all need to make quick, easy decisions. Whether the decision is accurately reflected by the score or not is mostly irrelevant. That is one of the many dirty little secrets out there that you get to learn about if you hang around ETS.
     
    - If a uni says the GRE is not required but ‘recommended’ you can bet your brownies they will use it against you.
     
    - Psych (& other social sciences programs) relies on the quantitative score on the GRE for a very simple reason: it’s the one where psych majors tend to score the lowest. Just look at the table on p. 29 (http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide.pdf). You can see that around 60% of people with a major in Psych just meeerely scratched above the 50 th percentile.
     
    The fact of the matter is that the number of GRE test takers is increasing exponentially and, with that, the number of applications that Psych (and other grad) departments receive every year. This is especially true after the 2008 crisis and the loss of value in a college degree. Anyone who has glanced at the sheer number of apps that departments receive every year knows that no prof is gonna take the time to look through 100s upon 100s of applications, especially if the POI is well-known and the program is prestigious. For clinical in my uni, for example, we got WAY over 300 applications for like… maybe 7-8 positions? No department is interested in spending the resources to evaluate applications holistically so unless there is something that REALLY makes you stand out (funding, publications in prestigious journals, your POI knows you, etc.) people are probably gonna default back to the GRE.
     
    I dunno but I really don’t see this situation improving in any way in the short term, especially as the love affair between the U.S. and standardized testing just becomes deeper and deeper. 
  25. Downvote
    spunky got a reaction from JoePianist in Low quant GRE: successes and failures   
    actually, i added wrong lol... it's more like 80% (yes, that's EIGHTY percent) of applicants with a Psych major score just barely above the 50th percentile. the breakdown of the table (which is on page 30, not 29) to focus on is:
     
    20%   - 140-144 (10th - 18th) 27.1% - 145-149 (21th - 37th) 24.8% - 150-154 (40th - 56th)   so 20% of psych majors score between the 10th - 18th percentile of the quant section (that's really, low), 27.1% score between the 21th and 37th percentile and 24.8% are in the 40th-56th percentile range.   if you add those three big groups to people who score below the 10th percentile (i.e. people for who numbers are really, really not their friends) then you get that around 80% of grad school applicants with a psych major score either at the 56th percentile or below on the quantitative portion of the GRE.   i think i'm starting to get now why my field of Quant Psych is so unpopular...LOL. 
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