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Talk to your advisor! Dissertations don’t have to be a completely novel idea; sometimes, they are extensions of earlier ideas or different interpretations of existing theories or data. It’s your first major research project; nobody expects you to do R01-worthy research yet. Also, every graduate student ever has had at least one less-than-productive summer; I had at least 2. You have all of these plans and ambitions and then few of them come to fruition - enough that I think there’s a PhD Comic and an entry on whatshouldwecallgradschool about this. So talk to your advisor. It’s only your second year; you have a little time to shape your dissertation project. You may have to change your idea or direction a little bit; that is expected, as you learn more about the field. My dissertation project is not the same as I thought it would be in my fourth year; it’s not even exactly the same as I thought it would be when I started working on my proposal 6-8 months ago. Also, 60 hours of work a week is normal for a grad student. You learn how to adjust yourself accordingly so that you get proper sleep and relaxation. It took me 5 years to learn the balance.

I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying here. So basically, you’re in a program and you are expected to pay tuition, i.e., up until now you didn’t have any scholarships or fellowships that were covering your tuition. All of a sudden, your tuition disappears and you get a refund of your student loans? Didn't that raise a red flag for you? Although the school made the mistake, it is your mistake, too. It’s also a student’s responsibility to be aware of how much they owe their university and pay their tuition, and if you got a larger refund than you expected, you need to investigate before spending the money. That's why it sounds like they are asking for it back. Yes, they are allowed to come and ask for the refund back if they gave it to you in error. You should be aware that it is against the rules to use certain student loan funds for anything beyond school related things, such as tuition, books, supplies, room, and board. No loan payments, doctor bills, dentist visits, shopping sprees, and so on. Medical expenses would be within the purview of personal living expenses, so you could use student loans for that. Also, there’s absolutely no monitoring system in place, so while it’s not advisable to use student loans for shopping sprees or to pay on other loans, there’s nothing to prevent you from doing so. However, I’m not really sure why this was brought up, since $5,000 over 3 months is less than $2000 a month which is a pretty frugal living budget if OP doesn’t have another job.

You also can’t defer in your first year, cfree14. You have to take the NSF in the first year it’s offered to you unless you have a medical or military deferral. If one is struggling to keep the proposal under 2 pages the first thing I would cut is the title and keywords. It’s supposed to be formatted more like an essay and less like a grant proposal. None of my essays had a title and I didn’t include any keywords for my proposal, so unless the rules have changed to require that I would leave them out. I also wouldn’t put your name and the title in the header. Pretty sure NSF finds a way to keep all of your documents together. The only thing on my pages was the actual text of the essay, and 2-3 references for the essay. I didn’t have a data analysis plan in my proposal. In fact, IIRC only about two paragraphs of my proposed plan of research actually discussed the methods.

They didn't count against you in the 2009 solicitation either (that's when I applied). Graduate courses taken as an undergrad almost never count against you for fellowship eligibility. Your GRE scores are fine - I wouldn’t retake it any time soon. But since you took it as a freshman, you do run the very real risk of your scores expiring before you apply to grad school if you take time off to work. And I know that you said that your goal is to go to grad school after graduating, but you’re also a sophomore and you don’t know how you’ll feel two years from now. Moreover, working for a few years before an MS or PhD may actually be more beneficial to your career than going straight through. One of the things I wish I had done was worked for 2-3 years before beginning my PhD. Admissions chances do sometimes change if an applicant can pay without funding. If an applicant is borderline and the reason they didn’t get admitted was lack of funding, sometimes an applicant stating that they have some reputable source of outside funding (like a fellowship, not necessarily personal funds) can change the rejection to an acceptance.

GWU and American may care, since you applied as a regular entrance applicant and not a transfer applicant. And as said above, it will look strange that you spent a semester somewhere else, although I suppose that you don’t really have to report that on your resume. I think you have to make the decision about whether you want to go to DU independent of whether you get into American or GWU.

I disagree with the above advice. Typically graduate programs want transcripts from all previous degrees attained, and the academic world is small enough. If it comes to the fore that you withheld information about your educational history you could be denied admission or asked to leave even if you've already begun. Most applications allow you to submit a statement or letter with additional information pertaining to your admission, and this is a perfect time to do that. I would spend no more than 4 paragraphs (2 each) explaining the circumstances behind each of these - in the first one, be frank and concise and say that the department was closed, and you chose not to complete the degree in the similar department because it was not what you wanted, and thus you were unable to complete your degree (I don't think you have to elaborate on the "things that got in the way"). You can even omit the second clause and just say that because the department closed you were unable to finish your degree. For the other one, you simply need to explain the grading system and give some kind of American equivalent of how you did. There are companies that do grading conversions and you may even be able to find this information on the Internet somewhere, so I'd look and then try to help make sense of the grading system to your readers. You can just explain that you had adjustment difficulties to the culture of the country and also realized that this degree was not really where you wanted to be, and it really just helped solidify that your true passion is the field that you are in now.

It's actually unusual for applicants to have publications; you won't be at a disadvantage because you don't have them, and no, it does not make the experience meaningless. Having one is more like the cherry on top, not a necessity.

The thing to remember about smartphones is that each one of them performs the same basic tasks. They differ a little in the look and some of the extra bells and whistles, but if you just want a phone to do normal smartphone stuff - keep track of dates and events in your calendar, send and check emails, check the weather and the news, maybe watch videos and take pictures - most smartphones out there do all of those things excellently. If you're out of contract then one way to get a semi-new smartphone is to buy a used or refurbished one from online retailers. Glyde.com is a good one - they have the HTC One 32GB (multiple carriers) for as low as $275 (no contract). Amazon Wireless also sells no-contract smartphones. That brings me to my next point, which is that you can buy a phone one generation older than the current one. I have the Samsung Galaxy SIII right now and no one can tell the difference between it and a 4. You can get an SIII for around $350 on Amazon Wireless. If you like iOS, you can get an iPhone 4S in excellent condition for around $225 and an iPhone 5 for about $350. You can possibly find better prices on secondhand sites like eBay and Craigslist, too.

No. I think it's pretty common for students in terminal MA programs to apply to other PhD programs, because there's no guarantee that you'll get into the one in your own department. It's perfectly normal and no sane faculty member is going to be hesitant to accept you just because you are also applying elsewhere, especially if you communicate with them and make it explicitly clear that you would love to continue into the PhD program there and it is your top choice.

This varies from program to program. In my program As are good and Bs are slightly less good but still good. Nobody gets Cs. The grades in between A and B are the expected variants, but literally no one cares. My advisor has never asked me what my grades were in my classes and I am rarely asked about my PhD grade point average. Even now, when applying for postdocs - I have been accepted into a postdoc and they never even looked at my transcripts. But assuming that you're in a PhD program, it doesn't really matter much in the long run. If you're getting an A, you're doing well; how well you're doing in your coursework isn't particularly interesting. Are you understanding the material? Are you getting what you need out of the class for future research projects and/or potential dissertation research?

I know a few people who did the MSW at Columbia's program without any experience/straight from undergrad. However, the friends I do know who went straight from undergrad had several related part-time jobs in college and/or volunteered and did activist work. I don't, however, know anyone who did the MPH here without at least one (and usually 2-3) years of work experience within social services/public health. I do have one friend who did the MSW/MPH and she had some work experience before coming. If I'm reading you correctly, you don't have any volunteer experience within social services. The question that I then have (and that admissions committees will have) is how do you actually know that you want a career in public health and social work without any experience? The theory of it is a lot different from the every day practice, and most professional schools prefer that students have some kind of background knowledge of what they are getting themselves into. Not only does that prevent them from dropping out, it also increases their employment placement after graduation. Is there something preventing you from working for 2-3 years in social services or some related field before applying to an MPH/MSW?

1) 12 sounds like plenty. 2) I wouldn't write a brand new writing sample. I would edit one that you already have, preferably one that at least one professor has looked at, graded, and/or deemed excellent. It doesn't matter if it's not 100% related to your PhD program interests; it just needs to show scholarly potential. 3) No. That's way too expensive. Just buy a $30 prep book or two and work through the problems on your own. Plus it's too close to November 4 for the prep class to really work. 4) December 2. Haha. When programs have deadlines I don't really think it matters when you apply - and for December deadlines the committee won't review stuff until after the break anyway, I would imagine. FOr rolling admissions you want to apply early because slots fill up as students are admitted, but I would still think that as long as you applied before early January you'd be okay.

I'm not sure I would use personal difficulties or a dislike of the area as a reason to transfer. Most graduate professors will find that a weak reason, and furthermore - as TakeruK already pointed out - Montreal is a large Canadian city that, aside from the Francophone heritage, is pretty similar to most East Coast American cities. I would make it all about professional fit. It gets tricky if you want to do the same research but just in a different place, but you could say that the goals of the department and the lab that you are currently in don't match up with your professional goals or that the research focus you want to take is different now, and you would would like the opportunity to work more precisely in XX field as opposed to XY.

1) I wouldn't ask if you are allowed. I would explain, in the affirmative, that your intention is to switch subfields and you want to know more about the process. Make sure that you read the handbook first and see if there is any relevant information there, and ask some advanced graduate students if any of them has switched or knew anyone who did and if they know anything. When you talk to the DGS I would be very explicit - "I was really interested in the aerodynamics of widgets when I first came here, and while I've enjoyed working with Professor X I have found that the aerodynamics of widgets isn't really a good fit for me anymore. But I have discovered a very deep interest in the metaphysical properties of gadgets, and Professor Y has expressed an interest in working with me in the past." 2) Okay. 3) This is where students need to realize that their advisers are humans, too, and typically not tyrants or ridiculously emotional people. They understand that sometimes students leave for various reasons. I would say exactly what you say here - that you've enjoyed working with him and being in his lab, but that you don't find the research a good fit for you and your interests have developed in a way that has taken you in a different direction completely. A reasonable person won't have any hard feelings about that kind of explanation.

I'm glad that you met with your DGS; I'm hoping the meeting goes well. Let us know. A few things, though: your adviser is not your dictator or controller; she is there to advise you. I remember what it was like my first year; you feel so intimidated and your adviser feels so powerful, but you are their junior colleague, not an employee or their child. So you're allowed to make your own choices - for example, dropping a class if your course load is too heavy or choosing not to work on the weekends. I take Saturday and half of Sunday off, and if someone gave me comments on Friday and said they wanted them on Monday I simply say "I can't do that. I can get them to you by Wednesday." What is she gonna do, come home with you and force you to work? It sounds like this is your adviser's personality: very critical. Maybe she's a workaholic herself and is one of those people who thinks that you have to work 100-hour weeks to be successful in academia (it's not true). For example, if she send you an email back that says "What are you going to do on the weekends?" deflect. Just say, "I only made a bare bones schedule with a few milestones marked on the calendar, but if you would like a more detailed calendar I can do that for you." Write things in on the weekends, but make sure you give yourself enough time so that if you don't want to work all day Sat and Sun then you don't have to. If she sends you a draft on Friday and you can't get it back on Monday - and there's no reason to, because the NSF deadline is still a month or so away - and she says something like you have to send her something before Monday, say something like "That won't be possible for me. This needs some work and I want to be sure I can devote the time to it that is necessary to change it. I can get it back to you on Monday at our meeting." In other words, give her a little push back. YOU have to be the master of your own schedule - and that includes making time for coursework and other projects but also making time for yourself. One of the mistakes I made in my first two years was thinking I could work around the clock. Then you just burn out and you hate yourself and everything by third year. If you run religiously - make time to run. Put it as an event on your schedule. Same thing with laundry or cleaning or even just relaxing and watching your favorite TV series. Monday nights are TV nights for me and my husband: I cook dinner, I step away from the computer, we settle down and eat dinner and watch TV for 2-3 hours. And if someone asks you to do something when you know you need to run or clean or do laundry or whatever, calculate that time in your day when you are making predictions for when you can get things back - "I can't get this back to you this evening, but I can get it to you by tomorrow evening." (Try to avoid apologizing - don't append "sorry" to the beginning or end of this statement.) You don't have to tell anyone what you have scheduled or why you can't do it - that's not their business. In my experience most sane people are like "Okay" and move on, unless your timeline is unreasonably long or you're working on deadline (like a paper revision or a grant that's due next week).

I actually don't think it always works out badly - I have seen a few students move who have contacted the new school before telling their adviser at the old school, but just making it clear to the PI that they haven't told their own adviser yet so they would prefer discretion. It's such a pickle - you don't want to tell your adviser that you want to leave before you're really ready to. What happens if you don't get accepted at the new place? Then it becomes uncomfortable between you and your current adviser. I think you can go either way with this one to a certain point. The ideal thing would be to explain to your adviser that you are thinking about leaving, because personally your university is not a good fit for you even though you enjoy working with him. Get his support, and then pursue an out. But sometimes people don't have supportive advisers; their advisers might drop them altogether before they are ready to leave, or may make their lives miserable before they're ready to leave. And in those cases I say that it's okay to put out feelers - but you have to recognize the very real possibility that it will blow up in your face, so you have to proceed very cautiously. I would NOT proceed to the point of a visit before talking to the adviser. But just finding out whether professors there are taking students? I think you can do that without explaining all the gory details.

I was an NSF fellow from 2010-2013 and I go to an Ivy League, and no, I was not required to pay anything (not even during the summers). My department/school covered the difference between the NSF honorarium and the cost of tuition and fees, including health insuranace, which WAS considered a mandatory fee - at most schools they require you to have health insurance if you don't have outside coverage, so that's mandatory. If you have an NSF already, I would recommend finding out who your university's NSF coordinator is and talking to them - the one at my university is amazing and went to bat for me time and again when the university kept messing up my payments (I was at a university with a lot of GRFs but in a department that rarely got them). If that doesn't work, then I would contact NSF directly.

I don't see a problem with this. I only applied to 5 (4 master's and one PhD) programs. There were really only 3 programs I really wanted to attend and I kind of threw in the last two because they were highly ranked in my field and I wouldn't mind going there, just because I felt I had to apply to more than 3 programs. In my opinion, grad school is essentially a means to an end; you're going because you want to do something specific. And if you can't do that specific thing that you want to do because you don't get into the program you need, there's no point in going to a program that won't serve your needs just to go. I was pretty confident that I would be admitted to most or all of the 4 master's programs I applied to (and was) but I was skeptical about the one PhD program I applied to. I actually applied on a whim, thinking it would be a dream if I was admitted but really concentrating on doing the master's first and intending to go to a PhD program after that. Much to my surprise I *did* get admitted to that PhD program, and that's where I'm finishing up this year.

I think if I could go back (and had mad money), I would get a 13" MacBook Air and a Mac mini. I'd attach the Mac mini to my keyboard and 24" monitor at home, and I'd use the MacBook Air when I traveled or to take with me to classes and stuff. Then I'd use iCloud and Google Drive/Dropbox to share all of my important files and information between the two computers. I have an external monitor and keyboard now, and I have a MacBook Pro, but it gets annoying disconnecting it every time I want to take it somewhere and reconnecting it when I come back. Plus it's far heavier than the MacBook Air.

First of all, PhD programs in social psychology are typically fully funded for five years. If you get in, you don't have to pay your tuition; the program pays your tuition plus gives you a modest stipend (typically between $20,000 and $35,000 a year, depending on the school and program). There aren't any master's in social psychology that I know of, and even if I did I would advise against an MA in social psychology as there does not seem to be much use for it. Secondly, one doesn't choose PhD programs geographically unless one has ties to a specific area for pressing reasons (e.g., taking care of sick or elderly relatives). You pick a PhD program based upon fit - by that I mean, professors who are doing research that is the same or similar to the kind of research you want to do, and who can mentor you in that research area - and you need to be geographically flexible. That said, "outside of New York" is pretty flexible - but there ARE some good social psychology programs inside of New York (Columbia, NYU, Stony Brook, University of Rochester). Is there a social life? Well, yes, but it's very different from undergraduate social life and more like a "normal adult" social life. First of all, there are literally billions of people who live in cities other than NYC and enjoy their lives just fine. There ARE things to do outside of NYC, even if you go to a small college town like Ann Arbor (where Michigan's top ranked program is) or Urbana-Champaign (where UIUC's great program is). But many of the top programs in social psychology are in great cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, Palo Alto, the Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Madison, Providence, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville. Check out the NRC's rankings (http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124708/, includes non-social programs). Often, however, small college towns have their own character and can have tons of things to do because everything centers around the college/university itself. But like I said, it's very different from the social life in undergrad. I think I get together with my close friends maybe twice a month to do something fun, and then in between sometimes I grab coffee or lunch with various friends, but I do spend most of my time writing and working. My first two years I did have a lot of fun, but I also didn't get a lot of sleep.

Why do you think you should get an MA first? If your goal is to be a lawyer, then your best move might be to save up money for law school by working. You can do a JD/MA program that will reduce your time to degree. Or it may be that you simply don't need the MA and the JD will be sufficient for what you do. You need to get some work experience. Keep looking for jobs in IR. Take a job in the mean time to pay the bills, and as you get more experience you may be able to move into that field eventually. IR is a competitive field already, and I don't think you should shut yourself out of the top schools because of impatience.

Yes, publishing as an undergrad improves your application significantly, especially if you are publishing in a reputable professional journal (as opposed to an undergrad journal, which is still good). But the vast majority of people have not published before applying to grad school. And no, you should not prolong graduation and apply to the McNair program as a 5th year. First of all, the McNair program usually takes people for 2 years, so you may be ineligible. Second of all, there are other ways to get research experience - most successful grad students were not in undergraduate fellowships like McNair. It helps, but it's not the only way.

If you're not interested in research, I think you should avoid developmental and most educational psychology programs. They are research focused. You should probably also avoid a PhD in school psychology, as although you will be prepared to do work in the schools, you will also be expected to do research. An Ed.S program is a specialist's level program in school psychology, which will allow you to be licensed as a school psychologist, earn national certification, and work in the schools. The confusing thing is that NASP also calls some master's programs "specialist level programs." So you can get an MA or an MEd or an EdS and be at the same level ("specialist level"). The NASP website linked above discusses the differences and similarities.

First of all, a good clinical psychology program will offer you five years of funding and a tuition waiver, plus health insurance. You shouldn't feel geographically constrained to NYC or CA; while that might be nice, you need to be more geographically open as your best fit program may be outside of those areas. I do agree - you should get involved in research now and then work for 2 years as a research assistant/coordinator if you are still unsure or feel like you need additional research experience. Many clinical applicants do that nowadays, given that the field is so competitive. Don't just browse the websites hoping to come across an assistant position…ask faculty in your department if they are looking for an RA. If not, ask if they know if any of their colleagues are looking for one. You have to remember that the grad students' CVs also reflects what they've done in grad school. If you JUST started doing psychology research this year, it is unlikely that you will have a publication by the time you graduate.

I went straight from undergrad to grad school. The first two years were easy. Taking coursework and assisting in research in your first two years of graduate school are a lot like your last two years of undergrad. It's more advanced and you're expected to work at a higher level, and I was much much busier. But cognitively speaking it wasn't much different. By year three, trouble started. I started to feel really burned out, and I wished I had taken time off to travel like I really wanted to travel. I started to realize that I had far less freedom now to traipse off and, say, teach English abroad (which I really, really wanted to do) or go out every single weekend with friends. Once you finish coursework, too, you are expected to start real independent work and that is a difficult transition. I struggled with setting my own timelines, as well as what I really wanted out of my career. I had a quarter-life crisis in a sense, and I decided to drop out of my program. Well, I didn't drop out - I ended up staying, and it's my 6th year and I should finish this year. The reason I am taking a 6th year, though, is that depression and anxiety from burnout and frustration in my middle years (mostly year 3 and 4) set me back a bit, otherwise I would've finished faster. I'm much better now, though. I've figured out (after some false starts) how to set my own schedule and direct my own work independently. I've fallen back in love with my research and with the work of an academic, and I'm actually pretty accomplished for this stage in my career. Most importantly, I've learned the importance of balance in my personal and professional life, so I set some personal goals (eating more healthily, working out, maintaining close friendships) that have contributed to a more productive work life. If I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now, I would definitely take 2-3 years off before graduate school. I'd travel, I'd work, I'd get some of the party out of my system that caused long long nights. I feel like I finally started to settle in myself and discover who I was when I was around 25, so that probably would've been a nice round age to prepare to return to grad school. And I'd have been in good company, since almost all of my cohort is older than me. The people who have taken time off in my program have done all kinds of things. Of course, working retail is not a good idea. Some of them were lab managers and research assistants, or got MAs, in the year(s) before they came to the program. But others did psychology-related things in the private sector. Aside from universities, there are many NGOs, think tanks, and educational agencies (including test prep corps) that hire BA holders in psychology as research assistants. You still get valuable research experience, just not at a university. If I could go back in time, I would prbably have done a Fulbright or JET for a year, then come back and tried to do that.