HyacinthMacaw

The hyacinth macaw is a rare and beautiful bird (unlike yours truly, who would be best characterized as a wild boar). It is a highly endangered species due to habitat loss (deforestation) and illegal poaching. I generally take an interest in the preservation of threatened birds, especially parrots (including the flightless kakapo of New Zealand). Birds are just such divine creatures. I encourage everyone to support the conservation of all endangered animals, including birds, so that future generations may reap the incalculable bounties, not to mention share in the joy, of biodiversity. How to witness the majesty of birds? If you have Netflix instant streaming, watch "The Life of Birds" by David Attenborough. The World Parrot Trust is a good portal f you're interested in parrot conservation: http://www.parrots.org/ Or just purchase some inexpensive wild bird feed and watch the dozens of different birds feeding, pecking, and flying in all their glory. Thanks for reading, and all the best!

Tell me about it! Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high There's a program that will accept me As long as my eyes stay dry Somewhere over the rainbow Skies are blue And the adcoms that haven't rejected me (yet) Will make my dream come true C'mon, Toto, let's go home!

Hey folks, I commiserate with you all--I received rejections today as well, and expect more to come. Fingers crossed, does anyone know what's up with Rutgers? My POI said that if Rutgers social psych hires this year, the new hire will get the available TAships, and my POI will have have to wait a year or two. Due to economic crunch, my POI also said the the number of TA lines have dwindled to two per area. So I suspect Rutgers social psych will not accept more than 3 or so people for an incoming class of two students. Ouch, it hurts just writing it!

My apologies, this is not my area and could be egregiously mistaken. That said, I've looked on threads on studentdoctornetwork, and people there seem to corroborate the notion of a saturated field. There's nothing wrong with a desire to treat a wide variety of disordered individuals; my point was just that I was told to steer away from that path because of the difficulty finding such work. There are lots of opportunities to specialize: geropsych, health psych, child psych, minority mental health, correctional/prison psych, etc. You can also focus on substance abuse, abused and neglected individuals, mood disorders, etc., or you can specialize in assessments and evaluations rather than treatment. By "specialty" I was referring to any specific area of clinical need characterized by either a unique population, disorder, or perspective/method. The employment prospects (not to mention pay) can improve with further specialization. Have you explored counseling psych? Not to patronize you--it just seems that your interest in treating everyday people/stressors could also be served with a degree in counseling psych. I am sorry if I have not been as helpful as you would like; I stress that my area is social psych. I wish you all the best.

Hey folks, We all could use something right now, whether it's a haircut, an oil change, or a younger sibling to look after. What could you go for right about now?

You got it! When you're here, you're family. But unfortunately we don't offer any never-ending pasta bowls or free salad and breadsticks. I have also relied on GradCafe for comfort, support, and humor.

"Yo mama so silly, when she was a farmer she struck a pose in front of her potato crop and thought she would get a Nobel for being 'outstanding in her field.'" (a variation of my uncle's joke, not mine)

Thanks, that seems like the perfectly sensible thing to do. I would hope that my mentor doesn't expect that I become some hired gun, so to speak, a cookie-cutter acolyte who assumes the business of generating evidence to corroborate the theory. This begs another question, though: How much influence are you OK to afford your mentor in shaping your work and future, and when does that influence become coercive? I guess it's just a personal preference--but even for people inclined to hierarchical apprenticeship models, I would be wary of advisors who "spoonfeed" (to use a pejorative term) ideas, materials, and unfinished data sets as long as your goal is to become an independent researcher.

Thanks! Using Publish or Perish software and Nosek's cumulative and career-stage impact score calculator, I can compare individual mentors instead of entire programs. I had the impression that a particular mentor had published a sizable body of work, and indeed he had, but I didn't realize that he wasn't cited very often for every paper he published. This seems like an indication that not many people were reading his work. In all, the citation impact score seems like a good and valid measure of stature in the field, if ever there was one.

Hi folks, I've read advice on this forum to always check the placement records of the programs I'm considering. Might I ask what this means? If all alumni between two programs landed postdoc positions or tenure-track appointments, is there any way to rank the placement records of the two programs? Perhaps alumni at major research universities is a plus, while a spotty track record that includes alumni employed as adjuncts or at community colleges is a minus? What are other relatively objective measures of the strength of a Ph.D. program in psychology? Should I look for publications in major journals (including a record of publishing theses and dissertations)? Productivity (X number of publications per year)? Grants? I'm just brainstorming here and would love to hear what you think. (This is aside from other aspects of a program that are more open to interpretation: stature of the mentor, fit, rapport with faculty and students, etc., which are by no means less important) Thanks!

Agreed! Regret and self-criticism, though, usually aren't effective in the long run. So let's just embrace/assert our individuality, pursue what satisfies our needs for mastery, pleasure, and intimacy, and learn from our mistakes without beating ourselves up. I have always thought that is the healthiest thing to do--and the best way to absorb setbacks. If we act consistent with our values, we can keep sadness, shame, and anger in check, and we'll find contentment irrespective of adcoms' decisions. Cheers, and all the best!

Hey everyone, Just thought it would be interesting to survey everyone's career choices and life plans. I think this is also a good opportunity to remind ourselves that, broadly speaking, where we go for grad school probably doesn't matter as much as who we are. Whether we go to our top choice or to our last choice program or take another path altogether, chances are that we'll be just as happy 10 years down the road. Seriously, folks, I never had the confidence to love what I do, but when I found it I discovered a well of resilience from which I could draw for the rest of my life. No petty adcom can stand in the way of that. There is something to be said about how our individual disposition buffers us from heartbreak. Our passion, character, inquisitiveness, creativity, and industriousness stay with us no matter where we go or what happens to us, and by and large these are mutable traits subject to our noble efforts to hone them. At least that's what I would like to think. What are your thoughts?

Hey folks, let's chill out here. It seems like the original poster was just trying to chime in with an honest answer, albeit one with which you may have disagreed. I, too, am concerned about how effective applying to Ivy League programs will turn out to be without consideration of individual fit (see my post on this thread earlier). Yet, we can't have a civil discourse if we resort to ad hominem attacks. For the sake of reason, let's keep it polite.

Thanks, that seems like wise advice. A professor who suppresses research that exposes the limitations of his/her theory does not strike me as someone with whom I would like to work for 5+ years, no matter how ambitious or appealing the theory may be.

Other fortune/wisdom cookies: "The year 2016 will bring love and joy to millions of people. Unfortunately, none of them will be you." "An hourglass figure, shapely breasts, and plump hindquarters will look great on any woman. Not on you." (I'm a guy.) "Birds of a feather flock together, but please don't ask the girl next door to marry you. She's 62!" "Balancing work and family life will be a snap as long as you have Skype in your cell. Ask the warden for the latest science news to keep up with the literature." "It's good to be an independent worker, but seriously, that's a garbage truck you're stuck under!" "Just remember that when a female advisor says 'We shouldn't sleep together,' she is really saying 'Yes! Yes! Oh God, yes!' Therefore, feel free to engage in ethically dubious sexual misconduct at your leisure."

Sounds good--Jamaican me crazy, mon! But honestly I would spend my $2.49 on a towering spiral of smooth and creamy soft serve vanilla ice cream. With rainbow sprinkles. Either way you satisfy your sweet tooth!

Thanks! Personally, some chocolate caramels never fail to soothe my nerves. I haven't taken to the whole dark chocolate fad, though. I will definitely stock up! Who knows, maybe I could sell them on a "chocolate black market" for an exorbitant price to folks who need their chocolate fix.

It's too late for me! I went to the thrift store to buy "extra large" interview clothes, only to discover that no school has wanted to interview me in person!

Some depressing fortunes for my future: "You will fall deeply in love at First Choice University, Good Will Hunting style, after accepting a consolatory position as part-time custodian." "Remember: The universities you attend are only 99% responsible for your success. Your creativity, perseverance, productivity, technical skill, originality, amiability, knowledge, and passion account for the rest." "Money isn't everything. Which is why, 10 years from now, your wife will leave you for a tall, handsome volunteer firefighter who doesn't wear white socks with Velcro sandals and who has a heart of gold." "Wonder often. The gift of knowledge will come, but not in time for your job interview." "The fabled ivory tower of academia will turn out to be Room 513C, a renovated janitor's closet with a single fluorescent bulb, no windows, heat, or air conditioning, and a single shelf with old water-stained journals propped up by a lonely roll of toilet paper." "You will lose your funding and be placed on academic probation after failing to complete your second-year project on time, but at least your school will win the 2013 NCAA men's basketball championship! Yeah!"

This is not my pic, but I wish my advisor looked like this. Imagine adcoms full of cute and fluffy baby ducklings!

Most of the day I'm like the "Thinking Man," hunched over and all, except I'm looking at my Blackberry and waiting for the red light in the corner to start blinking. And then when I realize that the bank is just notifying me that my online statement is ready, or that Zazzle.com has a half-off sale on customizable hats for the next 4 hours--it's then that I turn into Munch's "Scream." Pretty soon, I'll start playing poker with dogs. Life imitates art.

If the intervals between the school ranks are not equal (e.g., School A has better funding that Schools B and C, but B is not much better than C), it's conceivable that you can run the same operations for school rank as well. That is, obtain a rank sum for n number of schools, distribute shares of the rank sum for each school, and then multiply the share of the rank sum by the weighted criterion score. So if I were comparing 3 schools (rank sum of 1+2+3=6), and School A had the best funding but B and C were not far apart, then I might allocate shares of the rank sum like this: A=3.5, B=1.5, C=1.0. These are the adjusted raw criterion scores, i.e. weighted school ranks. Then I would multiply these by the share of the rank sum for that criterion. This is the germane score, the one to record based on weights assigned to that particular school for that particular criterion. Not too calculation-intensive, I hope. This wrinkle does seem to capture a reality that was originally ignored--intervals between school ranks may not be equal. I think. All these calculations are starting to get to my head! Thanks, and all the best!

Thanks for bringing up TMT, which I neglected to mention. I can see that working under the tutelage of a controversial advisor does not necessarily wed you to his or her theory 100 percent. Some assertive but diplomatic differentiation--or self-definition--seems prudent. I imagine some degree of flexibility would be desirable within these programs. I wonder, however, if that becomes more challenging when it comes to ambitious theoretical frameworks such as social dominance. Virtually any intergroup phenomenon can be analyzed through the lens of hierarchical power structures (e.g., stereotypes as legitimizing myths that enhance hierarchies). So how much should I agree with a controversial theory before signing on to work with one of its proponents? This is where I'm having trouble. The theory already appeals to me--this is why I applied--but I suspect that my advisor would expect me to endorse at least the core principles of his or her theory, if not most of it. And at this stage in my career I'm not sure I'm prepared to confine myself to a theoretical framework like that. By the way, the theories I mentioned don't all have adversarial relationships with each other, at least as far as I can tell, and I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. The stereotype content model folks and stereotype accuracy folks disagree on some fundamental issues, but I don't believe they argue with anyone else. The decategorization and superordinate categorization camps primarily battle one another. Thanks for your input, and all the best!

Thanks! That does calm my nerves a little. All the best!

Hi folks, Any word from Penn State's social psych program (not joint)? As time passes, I'm getting a more and more ominous feeling about this. I guess they'll have to notify us eventually. Also, congrats to the person who posted that he/she was admitted to Princeton's social psych program! I myself was hoping to work with Susan Fiske there, but I knew it wasn't the best fit.