cogscipixie

That sucks monkey balls! (CU is in a nice town too, imo.)

Any word from Pitt or Ohio State? Both of those apps say "in review" for me. I figure that most of my January deadlines won't start to contact us until the end of the month. University of Illinois-Chicago contacted me for an interview yesterday if that helps anyone else.

Hi! I'm wondering if anyone else on this board is an interdisciplinary/learning sciences rebel applicant like myself. I've applied to both cognitive psychology and learning sciences programs this year, but I am particularly interested in Indiana's Learning Sciences program. I'm currently employed as research staff at Pitt's Learning Research and Development Center. If anyone is affliated with IU or has applied to the Learning Sciences program in the past, please contact me! Thanks!

Hi! One of my lab's post docs did work with Kara Federmeier (a psycholinguist) at UIUC. She's pretty cool! Good luck!

I strongly disagree. My aunt started her PhD at 36 in molecular medicine, graduated in 4.5 years, and made her way to tenure after 6 years in a clinical/translational medicine faculty position at U of New Mexico. I'm starting my PhD this fall hopefully and I will have just turned 25. I look very young though, so I should be just fine by the time I finish at 30-31. Overall, never let your age stop you from working on your goals.

Yeah, that seems about right. I know a lot of people in Julie Fiez's and Mark Wheeler's labs who have connections to the CNUP, but the purely cognitive people (like Chuck Perfetti <my current project PI/director of the LRDC>, Tim Nokes, Chris, Tessa Warren) are more or less linked to the PSLC and the Learning Research and Dev Center. If you have any questions at all about Pittsburgh, living here (I personally love it!), let me know.

Hey! Who and when did you get contacted by Pitt? I work there currently as a research associate in the same building as a lot of the cognitive faculty. I applied to work with Tim Nokes and/or Chris Schunn

I can tell you all that I got an interview email from Kent State on Monday morning, but that is the only program I have heard from as of yet. I will keep updating when I start to hear back from more programs. Also, interest-wise, is anyone else on this thread interested in doing text-processing and cognitive science in educational applications? I'm just curious to see if there might be any overlap between research areas and POIs.

Hi apsuwa! My boyfriend is currently a first-year GSPIAN and I know that he put down that he was interested in the Johnson Institute for Ethical Leadership because of his interests in making media take responsibility for what they publish about policy. He explained this in his GSPIA essay (which I edited for him many times. haha), in addition to citing one professor that was connected with the Johnson Institute. If you have any other questions, message me privately!

HI everyone! Wanted to know who was applying for cognitive psych/cognitive science programs for the next year? I've applied for cognitive PhDs at the following schools: Pitt U of Kentucky Ohio State Kent State Old Dominion University of Illinois-Chicago The rest of my programs fall under Learning Sciences/Human Factors since I'm interested in bridging theoretical to more applied research into developing learning technology, etc Also has anyone heard back from OSU or Pitt yet?>

Hi all- I just got an invite for an interview at Kent's cognitive program. What is the cost of living like, and do many graduate students who are older (25+, tops) live in the Akron/Canton area as well? I've been living in Pittsburgh as a research associate, but need to know what the transition is like to a smaller town. Any info would be helpful!

My undergraduate research advisor did her PhD at Mich State, and I went to college not too far from East lansing so I'm pretty familiar with the area. Everything is really spread out on campus (it's HUGE) so getting around on a bus while on campus is ok. However, if you are living off-campus, most residential areas where grad students, faculty, etc live are further away, so you will need a car to get anywhere. I'm a much bigger fan of Ann Arbor because its downtown/urban living access makes it easy to walk most places. However, East Lansing does have some good parts about it too including a really great couple of sushi restaurants and lots of spectator sports. If you have any other questions about south central Michigan, don't be afraid to ask me!

Hooray! I just checked my online application status and it says it is "in review." Took them long enough! Haha

Yeah, thats pretty pathetic. I'm so glad the rest of my December deadline programs had their stuff together, even though it never said online that everything was together. OSU just makes it so nervewracking compared to how other admissions are organized.

I will have just turned 25. I've been working as full-time research staff at a university learning research center which was the best preparation for opening me up to more cross-disciplinary studies in the learning sciences. I could not have had the same experiences had I jumped directly into a PhD from undergrad when I was turning 23. I feel much more prepared now.

Yeah, that's what I hope, since I had sent in the online portion 2 weeks ago, and my other writers had no issues. Of course, it always seems to happen when I think everything else is in order. Oy.

As nothing seems to be going right for me this application season, one of my letter recommenders was never sent the email by the application system at the U of Cincinnati after I had submitted my online application. I talked to the graduate secretary today and she said that their "application grid system is down?" I gave her the name and email of my prof, because apparently there were more than a couple of people who never got an email. This seems to be a separate issue though unrelated to the grid being down. She said she couldn't access it today and hopes it will be running tomorrow. Should I follow up with her tomorrow? I'm just tired of technical problems being at the core of my application issues, when I have all my stuff organized on this end. Have any of you had the same problem happen before, and how did you deal with it?

Worst applications I've had to endure grad-wise: 1) Michigan State (The 2 separate cognitive science dept + graduate school applications + 2 separate essays + the school can't get it's act together with saying that they had received all my supplementary materials weeks in advance). 2) Ohio State - If there was one reason most U of M fans can't stand OSU, I think I found another thing to dislike about the school even before potential admission: their clusterf**k of an application. 3) Vandy - UGH 4) American University Best applications (in terms of streamlined, minimal other additional dept. applications to do, etc) 1) Indiana - one application, all online, only official transcripts + GRE go directly via mail. Pretty minimal, with more accountability on both ends. 2) Penn State - also very similar to Indiana's I think the ApplyYourself systems that some schools have makes all the difference between a really organized vs. confusing and frustrating application process.

I'm a current lab manager/research associate at Pitt, and half of the Fall 2010 cognitive cohort did related research positions or something completely different (one was a classically trained opera singer?!). Anywho, I'm doing my second round of applications, and find that I learned much more at Pitt in terms of research at an R1 school compared to my small liberal arts college. Still, in undergrad I did research in psychology from Day 1. So it varies.

Hi everyone- I was hoping someone else might have a similar predicament as I am with the Ohio State main graduate school application. It says for my supplemental materials, my GRE scores are listed as "completed" but my transcripts are listed as "initiated." I sent my transcripts to them overnight 2 weeks ago, and know that they have already received them. This is what the description for initiated materials says in the FAQ graduate admissions section: Items listed as "Initiated" on your application checklist have not yet been received, or they have been received but not yet recorded. After items have been received and recorded, they appear as "Completed" on the checklist. Please be advised "Completed" only means "received", it does not indicate the document has been fully evaluated. After evaluation if anything is still needed, it will appear on your application checklist as an "initiated" item on your Applicant Center at:http://appstatus.osu.edu. What should I do? Should I email them at the contact email they sent me to make sure they're in a file somewhere? My deadline for the OSU Psych program was today, but it says it can take up to 4 weeks for them to process transcripts (WTH???). Btw, I hope this isn't a bad omen, but I feel like OSU's bureaucracy and red tape is already apparent in their admissions applications. Oy.

Linda Smith at IU is really cool! Her research spans a lot of different areas into basic and more applied language research. I almost went to IU for cognitive science but was waitlisted and decided to go into more applied cognitive work. You would be a good match with her lab. Good luck!