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psychology

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Everything posted by psychology

  1. Going to UCSD for a PhD in Developmental! Woooooooooohoo!
  2. Cogneuroforfun has a great answer, although almost all the programs I applied to involved pretty intensive first year projects-- and the school where I'm going expects you to write your Master's thesis your first year, which I assume means bringing at least one (if not more) experiments to fruition. Also, if you need to be paid for the summer, then you're right, it will probably be difficult to get experience. However, if you can afford even a month or two unpaid work, I know very few labs who would turn away a free set of Grad-school-admitted hands. In some cases, your PI may even be able to welcome you in. I should note, though, that I come from a cog. dev. background, and most of the experimenting happens during the summer (when kids are on vacation). If you study adults, it may be different. I would definitely contact your PI (if you haven't already) to talk about this, and also to make sure that YOU (and not s/he) will be designing your first studies. If s/he is, then worry not... all the training you need will be on the way. Otherwise, you will definitely want to prepare. So... how to prepare... I assume you have a somewhat specific area of interest. The best preparation you can get is to read, read, read over the summer. If you haven't already, figure out the big names and the small ones, and find out who's working together. When you're reading, pay special attention to methods and results to see HOW people are testing the questions you're interested in, and also what sorts of factors/stats are generally considered important to explore in your subfield. That way, come your intro Stats class, you'll know what to pay the most attention to I definitely always have a list of potential future studies I could do-- I don't bother to research whether they've been done or spend much time thinking about them until it's time to start designing a new study, but it's amazing how quickly your ideas will disappear. Since you haven't done much experimental pscyh research before, my guess is that you'll want to take an older study as a jumping-off point and modify the methods/research question a bit to see what a subtle change to those things might reveal (as opposed to reading only theoretical literature and breaking down the giant questions to smaller ones and designing an experiment totally from scratch). Take this summer to find 5-10 potential studies that you could use as guides. When you sit down with your PI, have them ready with ideas for next steps, and, even better, have a list prepared of things you need/things you need to do (purchase stimuli? recruit participants? decide between potential methods? get money? get access to equipment not in the lab? get a difficult IRB/ethics committee proposal out? how will you record data? how will you analyze it? what kind of timeline are you looking at?). In my experience, the hardest things about research are (a) coming up with a good question and ( managing logistics. Doing this stuff in advance will definitely (over)prepare you for next year. Best of luck! J
  3. My SO and I were in a similar situation, but, when we hadn't heard from his program at our mutual top-choice in a while, my department put a little pressure on his department-- and he was admitted the next day. I'm not saying that the package deal thing will always work (I could see it working against you, for sure, and it did work against us at another great school), but if you think you might have some leverage and the relationship is worth the risk of your department asking you "is career or family worth more to you?", then go for it. Now, we will have offices 2 minutes away, instead of a multi-hour plane ride away. Good luck to all in this position-- whatever the outcome, the sweating bullets will go away soon!
  4. I was one of the people who was rejected from Harvard Developmental. I had an informal interview where I was told they had zero slots open unless more funding popped up-- another member of TheGradCafe had a slightly more formal interview. I don't know whether he/she got in, but I sure didn't! Ah well
  5. I wouldn't worry too much either. My boyfriend has heard from Berkeley (ethnomusicology, admit) and Harvard (enthnomusicology, deny; music history, waitlist), but none of the others so far (he also applied to Chicago and UNC, in addition to UCSD and Columbia). I think that these programs just notify and decide really, really late. Best wishes and luck!
  6. Hey everyone--- I was really surprised to see a Harvard Dev. Psych Interview on the Results Search---- anyone care to share whether this was a getting to know you kind of e-mail or an invitation to recruitment weekend? Speaking with lots of people who've been through the process with them, I've heard not to expect a peep until mid-Feb at the earliest for the psych program--- so I was a bit surprised (and saddddddddddddd for me) to see a listing. Sorry to be a total neurotic noodle here, but I <3 Harvard LDS.
  7. To the OP-- What kind of Cognitive Development are you interested in? It's a pretty big field, so specific research interests will likely guide you better than any broad recommendations from us. I applied to Cog Dev stuff this year (and have been working in the field for a while), and I'd be happy to share what I found with you, but more info needed! Feel free to PM me or whatnot. In terms of chances-- it's hard to say, but it looks good. Common research interests seem to me to be the most important-- you can have a GREAT set of stats, LORs, and SOP and apply to a school that's not a good fit and you'll often get rejected. On the other hand, even with a slightly less impressive set of stats, people often get into fantastic schools because their research matches a faculty member's. That's why I can't really begin to gauge your chances at these schools without knowing more about you. Best of luck!
  8. My SO and I are playing the dangerous, dangerous game of BOTH trying to get into PhD programs (in different fields) in the same cities/schools. Very scary. Luckily, I'm getting some bites from schools we're excited about, but in his field (Musicology) it would be downright bizarre to hear anything before the end of February. The suspense....
  9. As far as I know, in general, psych interviews are "you're really really mostly admitted"-- the rule I've heard is that if they're paying for your trip and travel expenses, the odds are WAY in your favor (like 90-100% acceptance rates). If they're not, it may be more of an interview. From what I've heard about the process, they're mostly just checking to make sure you and your potential lab mates won't butt heads, that your current PI didn't write your SOP for you, and that you have the grasp on the field that they think you do. As far as I know, visiting weekends are more or less the same. If you're getting an invite this early, that means you've likely made their "recruited" list. Be your best, but the ball's pretty much in your court. Of course, this is assuming that social psych works the same way as cognitive and developmental programs do. Congrats!
  10. I was the one who heard from Duke. I wouldn't take it as a bad sign that you haven't heard yet... I was called by a prof. with whom I had spoken a couple of times. This prof. said that the final invites were going out during the remainder of this week, so I'd imagine you have at LEAST 2 more days to hear about this interview, and who knows if they're doing multiple interviews this time around (it happens....) or admits w/o interviews (also happens, though rarely...). They do a phone call first and then later the grad school will be sending out e-mails to all the invites. Anyway, the interview weekend is the 29th of Jan through the 1st of Feb. Seriously, don't sweat it. Goooooood great luck!
  11. I've heard of this thread from a few people and can't find it... can you post the link? (I would PM you but I have NO clue how....).
  12. I had that situation about a month ago, although it was only 2 days before the deadline. It's super frustrating (in case you didn't already figure that one out.... ), but I found that sending a polite note was really helpful. I basically acknowledged that this is a busy time of year, thanked them again for their help, reminded them of the due date, and asked if there was anything I could do to help them along in the recommending process (send another SoP, meet, send CV). I also included a link to the recommending form. I received a very kind and apologetic reply-- they had mistakenly written my due date as being one MONTH after the actual date, so I was glad I sent the mail. Is this the only recommendation that this person has failed to send in, or do you have others on the way? If there are some later deadlines, you could perhaps even just send a note with all of the due dates and schools (you know, for their convenience)-- that way they'll notice the looming deadline. Best of luck!
  13. It seems to me that if a school is requesting such a shockingly small SOP, they'll almost certainly notice those who exceed it by a lot. Whatever school is asking for 250 words KNOWS this is something that other schools aren't asking for, and may even use your failure to comply with instructions as an indication that you were simply mass producing your statement. That said... how to chop? Now, I know next to nothing about Poli Sci, so I'm sure someone could give you better advice, but if I were you I'd cut my SOP down to include how one distinct element of the program fits you [50 words], your one best research accomplishment (and what it taught you) [100 words], and a mash-up of your favorite professors, future goals, and future research aspirations [75 words]. Not easy at all, but best of luck!
  14. Hi all! I've been lurking here a while, but finally decided to join the fun. Anyway, I just checked the Results Search and saw that someone had an interview at UC Boulder... I'm wondering--- if that person is out there (or if anyone else knows)-- does Boulder have an interview weekend or was this an interview conducted via e-mail? Ugh... I really wish they could just do my application first so that I could get all the good and bad news out of the way instead of having to wait for it Thanks!
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