juilletmercredi

No, I wouldn't recommend a post-baccalaureate program at all. What I would recommend you do is work. A low undergraduate GPA becomes less important the more distance/time there is between you and your college graduation. Furthermore, work experience doing similar tasks to what you are preparing for a career in can also raise confidence that you can do the job. So I would recommend that you look for full-time work in your field. The kind of work you get will depend on what you want - if you want to be a professional engineer just find an engineering job, whereas if you want to get a PhD and go into research, it may look better to find a research-related engineering job if you can. So work for a couple of years, and perhaps take some graduate-level engineering classes as a non-degree student part-time at a local public university. This will show that you can, indeed, succeed in graduate level classes if given the chance. Then reapply. No need to spend money on fancy expensive post-bacc programs, in my opinion.

My mother's from Brooklyn. I grew up in the city, moved away in childhood, but moved back before graduate school. I've still been here for the last 6 years, and I don't know how being a more recent transplant threatens my ability to speak about perceived safety in one area of the city (how long is one required to live somewhere before they are able to speak about their experiences living there?) I am well aware of the history of gentrification in Brooklyn, that Bushwick, Bed Stuy, Sunset Park and Flatbush used to be "ghetto" areas, just like cab drivers used to not want to take you into Brooklyn at all and nobody wanted to live in Williamsburg. But that's not true these days, is it? Williamsburg is a hipster paradise, and if cabbies don't want to drive into Brooklyn it's simply because they don't want to miss a Manhattan fare and not because they're afraid of getting carjacked. As for Bushwick and Flatbush, different people have different experiences and desires. I have friends who live very comfortably in Bushwick and Flatbush, have lived in the area for years (some native, and some transplants) and like their neighborhoods and apartments very much. I even have a pair of academic friends who moved to Bed Stuy and are very happy there; they made a conscious choice to live there. (They'd lived in the city for several years before moving there.) I also have a friend who just bought a brownstone in the South Bronx, in a area that's known for being relatively dangerous. My point is that while some neighborhoods are definitely safer than others - both objectively and based on subjective experience - that different people have different thresholds of what they would call safe, and where they would want to live, and I wouldn't ever blanket say "Don't live in Bushwick." Also, Bushwick could be called a lot of things, but slum it is not, if we want to get technical. (I have to be frank, one of the reasons I get testy about this is because these neighborhoods are predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods, and I know that much of the warnings people give about these areas have more to do with scary brown people - usually on an unconscious level - than actual concerns for safety. Or rather, their concern for safety is fueled by the fact that scary brown people live there. People say the same thing about Harlem and Washington Heights, to which I roll my eyes.) And no, when I was looking at the crime map, I was looking at violent crime - you can click the drop-down to look just at murder and rape. Midtown actually has more violent crime per capita in many months than Bushwick. It's not really a bid; it's just an application. You specify your needs and say how much you'd be willing to pay per month (I think in $300 increments). They will then offer you a unit if they have one available, and tell you when it will be ready, and you can decide whether to accept it then or not. If there aren't any units available, they'll put you on a waiting list, and then you can decide what to do. In me and my husband's case, we were put on the waiting list and started looking for other places, and then we were suddenly offered a pretty sweet unit in the Columbia housing system and decided to take it.

I do agree that other than i-banking, otherwise industries could be evil too. My current PhD major was quite pure though, I doubt it could do harm to people. That's probably untrue. Psychologists could do harmful studies, like the Milgram or Zimbardo experiments. Historians could write revisionist history that damages a certain ethnic/racial group and creates stereotypes about them. Computer scientists could engineer some terrible computer/new piece of technology that has harmful effects for us all. No major/field is "pure"; the problem is not with the science or scholarship itself, but the way in which the science/scholarship is conducted and disseminated/used. But the other thing - playing devil's advocate here...were you unprepared for the meeting? When you go meet with someone about advisement, often they want to know what your future goals are for your time as a graduate student, projects you might want to work on, and your career goals. Perhaps the topics he addressed were not irrelevant but you don't know enough yet to know that they were, indeed, relevant. (No judgment - that's just the nature of being a first-year student. I've been there; I'm sure most of us have.) So in addition to examining the things others have suggested - deciding whether you really want and need your PhD to do what you want to do, and whether you want to stay in your department or find another - you also perhaps should examine yourself and see if there are habits or practices of your own that could change the way people react to you.

^If all goes well, my advisor will receive tenure at the same time I graduate, which is in the next few months. Hooray for both of us! I am not at one of those places where everyone gets tenure (in fact, I am at one of those places that junior faculty sometimes treat as a seven-year postdoc, or use as a launchpad to another job) but I think his chances are decent. Anyway, here untenured professors do advise students, and serve as sponsors/chairs of committees as well. I believe that it counts a little towards tenure. Plus they need us to help them get their work done anyway.

I had a student who majored in French in college and is currently in a dietetics program, so I don't think the major matters so much.

From the abstract: The strongest predictor of employment was department-level rankings even while controlling for individual accomplishments, such as publications, posters, and teaching experience. Equally accomplished applicants for an employment position were not equal, apparently, if they graduated from differently ranked departments. I'm of the opinion that while research fit is the most important, departmental ranking is actually also really important and should be taken into account when selecting a program. To answer the OP's question, the vast majority of U.S. based psychology PhD programs will take 5-6 years to complete even with a master's degree. Also, in another thread you said you had already completed the MA while here you say that you're just looking...

I agree with PsychGirl1. Most psychology programs in the U.S. are designed to take 5-6 years, and you will be hard pressed to find any program that you can finish in 3-4 years. What you should do is entirely dependent upon where you want to work. If you want to be a professor in the U.S., then you should probably get an American (or Canadian) PhD unless you can get into one of the few psychology PhD programs in Europe or Australia that are competitive for faculty positions in the U.S. If you want to teach and do research in your home country, then stay there and do the PhD there, or go to one of the other international institutions in which you can finish in 3-4 years.

That's not a good assumption to make. The truth is that the job market is so overburdened right now that people are taking any job that they can find. So a lot of PhD holders who would ordinarily prefer to work at Georgia State or UGA are going to Kennesaw State or Middle Georgia State College because they can't get a job at one of the former two. While it's not as bad in psychology as it is in some other fields, I wouldn't assume that community colleges or small teaching colleges will be easy to get into. ALSO remember that in order to get these jobs you do have to complete a 5-6 year PhD, in which you will be expected to do research.

I wouldn't do this. A PhD program in clinical psychology should be funded, and borrowing the money for tuition could produce untenable debt. Clinical psychologists make decent money but not enough to pay back the $100,000+ in loans this could generate. I would imagine that most students who don't have fully funded packages either borrow loans to pay for living expenses or work full-time to cover the living expenses. Whether or not you could continue to work with clients depends on the demands of your program. If it's a clinical-only professional program, with few research requirements, you may have the flexibility to do that. But if it's a clinical science or scientist-practitioner model program, you may be too busy to see more clients than would constitute a 15-hour a week job. But seriously, I would not do this. I'd decline and then apply again next year with the hope of funding somewhere.

Are your location preferences based on family concerns (caring for elderly parents or children)? Because if they aren't, you should really consider loosening them up a bit. A PhD program is only 5-6 years, and while you don't want to be miserable in your university's city it's far more important that you find a program that suits your needs. That's important for finding jobs later on. My adviser is a community psychologist; he was trained at NYU, back when they had a community psych program. (He's not a clinician, though). I also have a few friends in clinical-community programs. You cannot see patients in a community psychology-only program, but you can if you do clinical-community. The University of Michigan has a psychology and social work PhD program - you'd get an MSW (which will allow you to do counseling). Vanderbilt also has a PhD in Community Research and Action, but it doesn't have a clinical component.

^Agree with the above - if you work with a professor who does research that cuts across social and school psych, you can do this research. There's also the option of going to a place with both a traditional social psych program and a school psych program and working with two advisers, so that your research merges both fields together. An additional thought is that many people switch their research foci after graduate school, so you can do something related to your real interest (in which you are also interested in hopefully) and then add the prosocial behavior stuff after you graduate and have a position.

In very general, research experience is more highly valued in psychology than an MA. That's of course not true in all cases. In your case, it's debatable - your GPA is lowish but it's not abominable. What's your major GPA? By your own admission, you rushed the process because you applied late and only applied to 5 programs, which is pretty low for psych admissions. Why don't you defer the NYU admission for a year and use the time to really launch a full, serious application cycle? I honestly don't think that the NYU master's is worth the money as leverage into a PhD program - if you wanted an MA first to boost chances then I would say go for an MA at a public university.

It just depends on the school and program. Some schools do fund all PhD students, and others don't. I'm pretty sure that at my current SPH most epi PhD students are funded on training grants, but in my own department funding is a bit...spotty. I would talk to someone - departmental secretary or director of graduate studies - and ask whether there is funding that is available for PhD students, and how often students get funding for the program. But I definitely wouldn't attend if there's no way to secure full funding.

I've worked outside positions since my fourth year of graduate school (third, if you count non-required TAships for extra money). In years 4 and 5 I worked as a residential hall director for the undergraduate residence halls - it was a 20 hour a week job and very intense, but also extremely enjoyable and I learned a lot. I also made a couple of really close friends that I still value. I did this while TAing (one semester I TAed two sections, although I wouldn't recommend that). This year (year 6), I work 10 hours a week in the library helping students with statistical software and teaching workshops on using the very same software. It pays well and the workload is light enough that coupled with a fellowship, I have plenty of time to write my dissertation and live my personal/social life. I personally work not because I absolutely need the money to live, but because I was miserable living like a broke graduate student (as opposed to a less-broke student...I'm not exactly rolling in the dough) and I like to enjoy my time as a graduate student. It's kind of akin to danieleWrites's high school friend needing access to the Gap, except substitute Sephora for the Gap. Well, actually you can put both the Gap and Sephora in that box, tbh. On the other hand, I've done pretty well for myself - I have several publications and a couple of fellowships on my CV, so I don't think the working has damaged me too much. I like to stay busy. My philosophy - your scholarship comes first, of course, and if you don't have to work, don't. You'll be happier. But "have to" is a different interpretation for everyone - sure you may make enough to survive, technically, but will you be psychologically stable and ready to handle the work if you can't afford to grab a movie every now and then or have dinner with friends?

If you use the interactive map here (http://maps.nyc.gov/crime/) and click through the months, you'll see that in many months there were more murders per capita in Williamsburg than Bushwick. Honestly, it looks like you're more likely to get murdered in Midtown than Bushwick, lol - but nobody would say don't live in Midtown because it's not safe. I'm not saying that some neighborhoods aren't safer or nicer than others, but saying that Bushwick is still "pretty much a slum" is exaggerating quite a bit. I repeat my point from a few pages back that I generally don't put a whole lot of stock in ruling out entire neighborhoods in the city. For those trying to figure out commuting time, I recommend HopStop.com. You can enter an address or cross-streets and it will give you a variety of ways to reach your destination (subway/rail and bus if you ask it to), plus pretty accurate travel times. Google Maps also gives accurate directions but their travel times are always an underestimate for me, usually by about 10 minutes. But the advantage there is that you can see the entire travel mapped out on the map and they give you two or three different routes on the map at a time.

In my field, the answer is yes and yes. My adviser encouraged me to add a "media coverage" section to my CV and list times that my research was mentioned in the press. The reason is because it shows that your research gets regional or national notice; most institutions would be interested in a scholar who can increase the profile of their school by getting featured in the news. It's different from publishing, which is why it gets a separate notice. Otherwise, how will anyone know? You need to promote yourself. Also yes for the second one. There are several students in my program who write articles for newspapers - one was a regular columnist for the Huffington Post and another frequently wrote social science interest articles for the Boston Globe and a bunch of other newspapers. Yes list them! Again, you give your school a different kind of notoriety when you do this - the kind that could attract the interest of parents of college-bound seniors or philanthropists who like your work or companies that want to partner with you to get research done. Just put them under a separate subheading - "non-peer reviewed publications," perhaps. Or "popular media work." My fields are psychology and public health, and this would be desirable in either of them. In fact, our faculty blurbs list the media features our professors have been in.

Depends on the program, but I would say generally MA students are grad students too, and are treated similarly to the PhD students - so if the department is first-name basis, then the MA students use the first name. In one of my departments the master's students are a mish-mosh; some refer to professors as "Prof X" and others use "John." In my other department, post-baccalaureate students usually call professors by their first names...but then here even some undergraduates do, because that's just my department's vibe.

Follow the money, especially for MA programs. Don't use the grad program as an opportunity live somewhere new, either; if you really want to live in Vermont you can always move there after you finish your (free) MA at home, with no debt. Unless the MA program at your school is terrible and nobody ever gets jobs - which I assume is not the case, since you applied there. If you're not a VT resident I'm guessing that the total cost of attendance will probably be something like $40-50K, which means that your total debt will be around $80-100K after two years. There aren't many jobs (period, but especially in English) that will pay enough to enable you to repay those loans.

It's not - this place is for questions about the forums themselves, not about grad school. Looks like it was moved! As to your question - why don't you ask NCSU? The registrar's office would probably be the place to start. In most states, though, she wouldn't be considered a resident anymore because she's lived outside of NC for 2 years as an adult for work, and she doesn't have a permanent domicile in the state (your MIL's house wouldn't count). She may be able to get residency for her second year, though, once you get a place and set up a domicile (register your car, change driver's license, register to vote...)

Are these PhD programs? If it's a PhD program, then definitely wait another year. Don't attend a PhD program without some form of funding. If it's an MA program, most MA programs in English/humanities fields are unfunded, so I would take that into consideration and decide whether you really want to go to NCSU and your chances of getting a TA position there.

Fellowships are not awarded according to "need," they are awarded according to merit. A lot of NSF fellows don't "need" their fellowship because they have full funding from their doctoral programs. That's the way funding works from here on out, too - grants, travel money, etc. In fact, a few people get both awards, use one award for 3 years and use the other for 3 years to cover their entire programs. Also, I wouldn't assume that just because someone got Hertz they'll get NSF - I got the NSF but not a less competitive fellowship I also applied for. Also, Hertz fellowships DO cover tuition. The Hertz gives schools a cost of education allowance. In return, the school has to agree to accept the CoE allowance in lieu of all fees and tuition, so that Hertz fellows are not required to pay any additional fees. NSF does the same thing. Check it out here: http://www.hertzfoundation.org/dx/fellowships/fellowshipaward.aspx Even still, no, you cannot accept the NSF just for tuition and the Hertz just for the stipend. With NSF, at least, you have to take all or nothing.

I don't think it's that relevant. You don't have to go to the highest high-ranked program to get into a PhD program; what you need is a good solid program at which you can get relevant research experience and good, solid recommendations from good, solid researchers in the field. You don't need to do the exact research you plan to do in the PhD program - pretty close is good enough. UIUC sounds like it fits your criteria. It's a well-reputed program, by your own admission; your PI went to one of the doctoral programs to which you want to apply, so I'm sure his recommendation would carry a little extra weight there; you obviously have RA and funding opportunities there, and those are your top two criteria; and I'd be willing to bet that UIUC has a good PhD program placement record. I checked out the ARE rankings at the NRC and it looks like UIUC is a top 15 program and Michigan State is not that much higher than it. NRC gives Michigan State #8 and UIUC #11. That is not enough to turn down full funding for, IMO. I'd go with UIUC and not look back. Follow the money.

It is. In the UES I would expect to pay at least $1500 for a small studio, but more realistically closer to $2,000. It's the Upper East Side - one of the toniest neighborhoods in Manhattan.

Go with the funding. -MA programs in the academic social sciences are not often funded, so holding off and reapplying may not yield any better results for MA programs. -If your ultimate goal is the PhD, NYU vs. VCU honestly won't matter that much in terms of prestige. What will matter is your performance and research experience. -On the other hand, assuming you want to be an academic, there's no easy way for an academic to pay off $90,000 of debt. You don't want that hanging over you. However, if you only applied to two MA programs and one PhD program, you may have been selling yourself short especially if you have a 4.0 major GPA and a conference presentation. What does your research experience look like otherwise? Were those internships in research or practice? Do you have ~2 years of research experience in college? Because if you do, your denial may have been due to the fact that you only applied to 3 programs rather than any fault in your package. This is a situation in which you should really discuss with some mentors in your program, and ask them honestly to evaluate how competitive of an applicant you are. You don't want to sell yourself short. HOWEVER, I'd say that you have nothing to lose by going to VCU next year, since it's funded. You basically have two options: go to VCU's funded MA program this fall, or take a year "off" to reapply to schools. But since you're going to be "off" anyway, you may as well spend the time getting some research experience and taking some classes!

Honestly, neither of these sound like ideal programs. What does "partial assistantship" mean? Personally, I think it is a bad idea to accept a PhD offer without full funding for at least the first 3ish years of the program (enough to get you through to ABD). If the offer doesn't cover tuition, fees, health insurance and a stipend large enough to live on - OR if there's not an easy, non-repayable, readily accessible way to get the rest of those funds, like working for another professor or TAing no more than one class a semester - then I say pass, irrespective of where else you got accepted. The biggest reason is because a clinical psychologist (practicing or academic) can generally never hope to make enough money to pay off the large debt you would incur over 5 years of tuition/fees + living expenses. The second reason is because if you are constantly worrying about money in your program, you will be too distracted to succeed at the level you probably could. Secondly, personally I would not do an MA in psychology unless I felt like my academic record was poor and I needed to improve it to get into a PhD program. Psychology PhD programs - in the U.S., at least - often do not accept any transfer credits from MA programs; if they do, they usually take about one semester's worth, so it does not reduce your time to degree in any meaningful way. Moreover, most PhD programs would prefer to see a student work as a lab manager or research associate for two years to improve their CV rather than do a master's program, unless you have really bad grades. I also agree that an MA in counseling psychology is often very professionally oriented and may not be the best choice for a PhD clinical hopeful. So honestly, neither of these options sounds good to me. But if I had to choose one, I would go with the partially funded PhD rather than the unfunded MA, because I think your parents are mostly wrong.