HyacinthMacaw

Thanks! I don't think there's any limit to the number of criteria you can use. The examples I gave were just for simplicity's sake. Most likely people weigh half a dozen or more factors in their decision (factors that are probably not all equally important). Come to think of it, this ranking system could work for any comparison where decision criteria are not equally weighted. You could shop for a car, a house, etc. If I knew web design, I would try to create a website that does all the calculations--users would just plug in criteria and ranks and then judge how important the criteria are to them. Again, all the best to everyone!

Hey folks, I've been trying to develop a way to rank offers of admission that incorporates weights for different criteria. Important criteria might be research fit and financial aid, while less important criteria might be the attractiveness of the campus, nightlife, etc. I've attached a method below that I've just hammered out, but I don't have a quantitative background and welcome comments and suggestions. What first occurred to me is that we can't simply add the ranks of each school for each criterion; this assumes that each criterion is weighted equally. What also occurred to me is that the intervals between the criterion ranks may not be equal. For instance, research fit may be the most important criterion, followed by financial aid and then nightlife, but the interval between research fit and financial aid may be much smaller than the interval between financial aid and nightlife. I think the method I outline here solves these problems, but I doubt I've explained it coherently. It involves summing the criterion ranks and distributing shares of the rank sum for each criterion. So if I were ranking three criteria, the rank sum would be 1+2+3=6. If my three criteria were research fit, financial aid, and nightlife, I would ask myself, "How much do these criteria account for my decision?" Let's say that research fit accounts for 50% of your decision, financial aid accounts for 40%, and nightlife accounts for 10%. So then the share of the rank sum for research fit would be 50% of 6 = 3; the share for financial aid would be 40% of 6 = 2.4; and the share for nightlife would be 10% of 6 = 0.6. Then all we have to do is multiply these weights by the rank of each school for each criterion. Highest ranks will have the highest number. If we are deciding between 2 schools, A and B, and School B has the best research fit, its raw score will be 2, but its weighted score will be the raw score multiplied by the weight for research fit, which is 3. So 2 x 3 = 6. This is the weighted score of School B for research fit. Likewise, School A will have a raw score of 1 and a weighted score of 1 x 3 = 3. In this manner, schools earn higher scores for having high rankings on important criteria. And schools will be penalized less harshly for low rankings on less important criteria. Add the weighted criterion scores to obtain a total weighted score. The school with the highest total weighted score may be the best match. Comments/suggestions are definitely appreciated, especially if I'm violating some mathematical principle that renders all this work moot. Thanks, and all the best to everyone! And P.S.: I hope it's clear I don't want to be presumptuous--I don't have any offers to weigh would be lucky to receive even one. This was just a fun exercise while waiting to hear back from admissions committees.

Volunteer at a suicide hotline; become a Big Brother or otherwise mentor a kid who needs support. I've always assumed that if this academic life didn't work out, I might be happier as a high school guidance counselor. That would require a master's in school counseling as well as some kind of experience working with adolescents.

Thanks for the comforting remarks! I applied to 19 social psych programs and contacted POIs who have been publishing in intergroup relations (superordinate and crossed categorization, stereotyping/responses to counterstereotypical targets, contact theory, social dominance theory, intergroup emotions, benevolent prejudice, etc.). I suspect this is a popular area with lots of qualified candidates. It may be reassuring to know that sometimes being denied admission has little to do with lack of merit--there's a point at which the process can become very capricious indeed (I am paraphrasing a graduate director I spoke to). Again, all the best to everyone!

Congrats and all the best!

Hey folks, Anyone else disappointed at the incongruity between good correspondence with POIs and lack of interviews? I honestly thought POIs were interested in my application--they encouraged me to apply and recognized my fit with their research program--but I haven't heard back from these schools and am losing hope. Even if I was a great fit, did I simply fail to meet the admissions standards (combination of GPA, GRE, research experience, etc.) of these programs? Given that programs reject 90% or more applicants, chances are there are a lot of people who believe they are excellent fits but nevertheless didn't receive even an interview. Join the club!

[After reading my SOP]: "This guy has no idea what he's talking about."

Hi folks, Hope everyone's doing OK as they await word from admissions committees. I was just wondering what you think is the fraction of grad school applicants that post on the results page. 10%? 25%? I'm only curious because if I don't see interview invites for a certain school, I'm not sure whether this is because invites haven't been sent out yet or because the few people who did receive an invite just aren't on grad cafe (or didn't post on the results page). And for every invite posted on the results page, I'm thinking there are at least 5 that haven't been posted. I guess there's no way to know for sure, but I think it would be great to come up with a ballpark figure. Thanks!

Hello myanlee, I think you can definitely feel proud of having a stellar GPA accompanied by a good deal of clinical experience and some research experience. My background is social psych, but I think most people would agree (as you suspect) that research-oriented clinical science Ph.D. programs emphasize research experience, especially the kind that in turn shapes your clinical interests, and especially the kind of experience in which you play an active role in experimental design. That can be tough in clinical psych when most projects are spearheaded by professors or grad students who rely on undergrads for relatively menial data collection and administrative tasks (I worked in a clinical psych lab for several years). You've probably heard that publishing a paper will impress admissions committees, and no doubt it will, but often a poster presentation at a major conference is sufficient to demonstrate engagement with research. Indeed, many successful people in social psych have no publications and just have an unpublished thesis. One question you might want to ask yourself is where you see yourself after obtaining your graduate degree. If you would like to go into academia and publish clinical psych research, then the clinical science route is probably for you (link to a list of these programs is here ). But there are a lot of other routes as well, PsyD and MSW among them if you see yourself as primarily doing clinical work in your future. Even among PsyD programs, there are those that incorporate significant doses of research. You might also wish to explore how your research interests converge with those of potential faculty advisors; no doubt you have heard that fit with faculty is an important if not most important determinant of admission, probably to any Ph.D. program. Maybe you enjoy working on psychological assessment and want to work with faculty who are also doing research in that area. Or maybe you like working with a certain population of clients. I could go on, but I'm probably not qualified to since I'm not even applying to clinical psych programs, though I seriously considered a clinical psych career at one point. As with any psych program, it's important to know exactly what you want to get out of your graduate degree, and this requires some introspection. Feel free to take my comments with a grain of salt, and I apologize if I have not been as helpful as you would have liked.

Here is a list of some funded (partial or full) master's programs that might address your concerns. It's taken from another thread on this site. As a master's student, you can definitely gain access to a social psych lab, maybe even do a master's thesis. I totally understand your predicament. I didn't think I was adequately prepared/qualified straight out of my senior year of college, so I've been doing unfunded RA work for the past two years since graduating. I couldn't find any way to apply my psych bachelor's (as in an NSF funded study whose principal investigator was recruiting research assistants with a bachelor's degree). There is also a great one-year master's program in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. Kent houses the research center that publishes the Group Processes and Intergroup Relations journal. Lots of great faculty there--Dominic Abrams, Richard Crisp, etc. I contacted the psych admissions office, and they said to apply by Easter at the latest, but earlier if you would like to be considered for assistantships. I am thinking that I should know by late April if any Ph.D. program offers me admission, and if none do, I will apply to the Kent master's program as a backup (of course, going abroad for a year comes at a great personal expense, but it is something, at least a "Plan Z"). Best of all, I believe the admissions rate for their master's program is higher than most U.S. Ph.D. programs. Here's the link to info about the MSc program at Kent: http://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgrad/subjects/psychology/group-processes-and-intergroup-relations-msc/outline For anyone looking to apply to master's programs with funding (full or partial) here is a list (not sure if it is comprehensive) feel free to add to it if you know of any others: Augusta State University Ball State University Bucknell University College of William and Mary Indiana State University Montana State University Mount Holyoke College University of Hartford University of the Pacific University of South Alabama Wake Forest University Wesleyan University Western Caroline University Villanova University

Thanks for the info! Your interests sound pretty cool, and I think you would definitely be a great fit with Madeline Heilman. I'm glad that State College isn't a very expensive place to live. I commute to Manhattan every week or so, and I like the idea of getting out of the city so that I won't have to pay $5 for a gallon of milk or $1,200/month for a 10x10 studio with no windows, no heat, no A/C, etc. I also love hiking, and I read that there are lots of trails in Central PA. It's good to know that a car is not necessary but may be nice to have. How is the weather there, by the way? Lots of snow, or just cold? If you have any questions about NYC or NYU (I took master's classes there briefly), feel free to let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks again for starting this thread. Again, all the best!

Totally feeling the "drown your sorrows" vibe and sympathize with everyone here; I'm sorry to have started this thread! I totally agree with a previous poster: Let's focus on the positive. All this endless self-criticism, while it's probably good to know that others are feeling the same way, gets us nowhere towards our goals. Let's practice self-compassion and avoid being so hard on ourselves!

Awesome, what a fantastic opportunity! I'm really interested in the consequences and manifestations of benevolent sexism, as well as mediators of men's responses to competent/agentic women. What projects are you interested in? Dr. Vescio has said that she is stepping down from her post at JPSP, so I think it would be great that she will have time to devote to mentoring students. Mind if I ask how you like living in State College?

Googling my name yields a testimonial by someone with severe depression who had attempted suicide. Fairly or unfairly, will this place me at a disadvantage if committees Google me? Thanks for your comments! In an ideal world of course, even if the testimonial were my own, I think most people would agree that admissions committees should not penalize people for suffering from a medical condition such as depression; doing so just further stigmatizes mental illness. What do you think?

Hi socandwomen, It's great to hear from someone who seems to share an interest in gender bias. I, too, would love to work with Terri Vescio at Penn State. I also applied to UConn, but to work with Felicia Pratto. POIs at other universities include Laurie Rudman at Rutgers, Susan Fiske at Princeton, Monica Biernat at Kansas, Linda Tropp at UMass Amherst, Marianne LaFrance at Yale, and Sarah Gervais at Nebraska. Come to think of it, only a few POIs at the 19 programs to which I'm applying are men--Jack Dovidio at Yale, Charles Stangor at Maryland, Sam Gaertner at Delaware, and Randy Larsen at WUSTL, etc. (maybe a few others). All the best during this process--I hope you get to work with at least one of your POIs. And let's hope programs don't make us wait too long before making their decisions. I am checking my email and the results page every 2 minutes! Take care!

Hey folks, It's still early in this application cycle, but I'm wondering if there is anyone out there like me who is already second-guessing themselves. I'm really wishing I had been more aggressive about asking professors to read my personal statement. I asked four professors, but one declined and three never responded. I didn't press the issue because I didn't want to seem disrespectful or annoying. In all, only one person, a recently graduated Ph.D. student, read my statement, and she offered only very general comments. I guess there's nothing I can do about it now except hope for the best. I'm sure we all have regrets to share. Maybe we know we didn't represent ourselves the best we could have on our applications. Maybe we should have applied to more schools, contacted more POIs, etc. Hope this forum allows everyone to get these thoughts off our chest.

Congrats on landing an interview! I forgot to mention that Jack McArdle at USC does work on longitudinal and cross-lagged designs, though I haven't worked with him or taken classes with him. I really do believe one of the ancillary benefits of graduate study at USC is a solid quantitative foundation. Having a diverse statistical arsenal makes data analysis a great deal more enjoyable. It also helps you obtain publishable results--classic operations render null effects where contemporary operations reveal more interesting patterns. Hope you enjoy the royal treatment the department will likely give you! Best of luck!

Congrats on your success!

To the folks who applied to applied to USC, would mind my asking who your professors of interest are? I did my undergrad there and did research with Profs. Huey and Miller. As an aside, I'll add that grad students at USC get great advanced stats training from Rand Wilcox. You'll learn a lot of robust statistics, including bootstrapping, as well as R functions (a stats program). Goes way beyond Student's t and Fisher's F. Also, more than a few faculty at USC are experts in meta-analysis (Miller and Huey among them), and if that's your thing you will definitely have lots of people from which to draw support. All the best!

Sorry, for some reason the image wasn't included in my previous post. Hope it works this time.

Here is my Wordled statement. I'm applying to Ph.D. programs in social psychology that specialize in intergroup relations. All the best during the application process!

Thanks for the info! I've also inferred from the gradcafe decisions list (and confirmed by reading another thread) that Yale accepts people only on the basis of their applications and then invites admits to a recruitment weekend.

Sorry--That is, I'm generally mortified of interviews, and it would be nice to know if I will have to worry about preparing for them for the schools I mentioned. It would be great if I've already given admissions committees all the information they need and so wouldn't need to interview.

Hi folks, I'm applying to a total of 19 schools with social psych programs in intergroup relations. I'm not an exceptionally strong candidate, so I am hoping that by applying a large number of programs, I will have the good luck of admission to at least one. I did vet all programs for fit--my research interests in prejudice converge with one or more faculty at each program to which I'm applying. I would recommend this site (also on gradcafe, incidentally) if you're interested in gaining a general idea of the timetables for each program for sending out interview requests, admission offers, and denials. It is at once terrifying and comforting that so many qualified people have been rejected--often for reasons that have nothing to do with merit and everything to do with the economic crunch. Admissions decisions haven't even been sent (some apps aren't even due yet), but I'm already trying to avoid being so hard on myself. A word of unsolicited advice: Practice self-compassion during this process. Admissions can be very capricious (I am quoting the director of graduate programs at NYU). Does anyone know how interviews work? Is it true that many schools don't even interview applicants, while some do, and others sell themselves by inviting to campus only applicants who have been admitted? Among the more popular programs I'm applying to are Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Penn State, Northwestern, Columbia, and WUSTL. Anyone know how whether these programs interview people? All the best, and may your hard work pay off!