cogneuroforfun

It seems like you're kind of going about this backwards. What do you want to study? Does anyone at WV neuroscience do that kind of research? If so, are they productive and active members of the field? Are they prominent and well-known? The department/school doesn't really matter. Harvard is great and all, but if there is no one there you'd like to work with, why apply? WV is no different. If there are good labs for you, apply and hopefully get an interview and see the school for yourself. If there aren't good labs for you, then you shouldn't apply, whether WV is strong or weak in cognitive neuroscience.

Transferring to another PhD program after the MA is going to be very difficult. One of the more important components of a PhD application is the letters of reference. Who at your first program is going to write you an amazing letter under those circumstances? As the other poster mentions, leaving after an MA to get a job is possible (although it is pretty disingenuous to start a funded PhD program planning to drop out after a couple years). But leaving one PhD program for another is really not a good plan.

If I had applied to do a PhD at UA, it would have been to continue working in his lab. There are a couple major reasons why that wasn't ideal: getting experience/mentoring in different labs opens you up to different methodological and theoretical frameworks (for example, going from fMRI -> electrophysiology, or cognitive psychology -> systems neuroscience), and there were plenty of other labs doing similar interesting research (I applied to 10 PhD programs all to work specifically with one or two PIs at each program). Basically, staying in Tucson would have been convenient and easy, but there were better options in terms of my specific interests, diversifying my "network," and going to the strongest program for which I was competitive.

No, sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm in another PhD program currently. I considered applying to the CNS track in psychology, but my undergraduate advisor recommended going somewhere else for PhD and there were plenty of other interesting programs and labs. So I can't help if you're looking for info on the current admissions decisions or anything, but if you have more general questions about psychology at UA or Tucson, I should be able to help.

I was a psychology undergraduate at UA and did research in two labs that had clinical/CNS grad students. The two clinical grad students I worked with both got internships this year at their top choices, so it seems like a good program. I can't add too much else, except that it really was a great department and living in Tucson was fantastic.

Did you get in touch with any faculty before applying? It sounds like their system might be to pass your app around to whichever faculty you listed, but if they had no idea who you were and had already been emailed by a couple promising applicants, they might not have really taken a serious look.

Going to a lesser-ranked school is not a big deal, provided the advisors you would work with are well-known. School prestige is not super important, but PI prestige/connections/impact is definitely something you should look for. If your option is "well-known PI at better-ranked school" vs. "unknown PI at unranked school" ... that's not really a tough decision (if all the other factors are relatively equal).

This isn't really very specific or narrowed down. Do you have specific research experience related to any of those areas? Why are you interested in them? Assuming you're a junior right now, you still have the rest of this semester, the summer, and fall semester before you apply. Go get some experience in a lab or two doing the things that are interesting to you. Applying to places where you have good fit and have gotten in touch with a professor or two can really overcome weaker areas in your application.

Having experience in India is not a big deal. But I don't see anything in your past experience that has anything to do with cognitive psychology or cognitive neuroscience. Your work experience is completely irrelevant, unfortunately. You don't talk about your specific interests in cognitive neuroscience, but it is very tough to see how your counseling internship is at all relevant. If your dissertation only took 6 months and was in health psychology, it is also not a great indicator that you have any idea about or interest in cognitive neuroscience. Finally, with only a minor in psychology and master's in counseling psychology, it is doubtful you have too much relevant coursework. Unless you forgot to mention your 2+ years working in a cognitive psych or fMRI lab, I don't think your chances are very good. I think Stanford and Berkeley are absolutely impossible (sorry ) unless you beef up your research experience substantially. Without doing that, even "good" PhD programs in cognitive neuroscience are probably out of your reach. I don't want to be too harsh or anything, but I don't think you'll be very competitive for cognitive / cognitive neuro programs without some serious research time.

I'm laughing, not being melodramatic I recognized that your logic destroys everything in it's path; I couldn't beat it, so I had to join it! I am a supporter of the SOG25 educational system, not an opponent.

Hah, alright. Well, you've convinced me anyways. I've seen the light. I will now describe the SOG25 system of education, inspired by and named for our very own SOG25. 1) All it takes to be an effective teacher is familiarity with the basic knowledge base for a course. Sounds reasonable, right? 2) Then, the people best suited to teach a course are those who have taken that and similar courses. Obvious, really. 3) Seniors/just graduated poli sci majors are then perfectly suited to teach almost the entire curriculum, or at least any courses they have personally taken. Why have a stuffy old tenured prof leading a lecture when your fellow peers can teach it just as well? So we can now have poli sci seniors teach the upper division poli sci courses. 4) This logic continues: juniors teach sophomores, sophomores teach the into poli sci 101, etc. etc. 5) But wait, this applies to all fields, so there's no reason to have faculty in any department, when the upperclassmen can teach the upper division courses, etc. 6) But why stop there? College freshman have clearly taken all the high school courses, so they should be perfectly able to teach the high school seniors, etc. etc. 7) ... all the way to: 4 year olds know the alphabet, so they can teach it to 3 year olds. 3 year olds know how to speak, so they can be speech instructors for the 2 year olds. 2 year olds are pretty helpless, but I guess they can walk, so they can be expert walking instructors to the 1 year olds. I think that's as far as we can go, because what the hell can 1 year olds actually do? The logical consequence of JD's teaching in political science departments: babies teaching babies. Is that really something you want, SOG? Can a 3 year old really help a 2 year old overcome the beginnings of a speech deficit? If you think that is a bad idea, then you cannot in good faith support JD's teaching political science.

I don't get why law schools don't hire poli sci PhD's to teach most of the courses, since they're all theory based anyways. SOG, I think law schools should hire poli sci PhD's as faculty, not JD's. Apparently you now have the burden of proof to show why this is not a good idea.

Why would a poli sci department want to pay a JD to teach those courses when JDs would cost more, have less training in terms of time, have less applicable training, and cannot carry out as many functions as a poli sci PhD (research, graduate training, etc.)? You're basically saying that poli sci departments should hire JDs as adjuncts, except even an ABD or PhD poli sci adjunct would be better suited in terms of training and cost far less. Why don't practicing physician MDs teach intro biology courses? Even if a physician had basic knowledge of the material, they would likely do a worse job as an instructor (less training in biology and less training in teaching than any biology PhD would get), cost much more, and provide no benefits to the department besides teaching that undergraduate course (no research, no graduate training, etc.). So again, tons of people have told you exactly why political science departments do not usually hire JDs to faculty positions, and you've provided no counter-arguments as to why they should beyond "the only thing they could do is teach a few courses at exorbitant cost." Tell me why law schools should not hire English PhDs to do writing-based courses, communications PhDs to do clinics, and political science PhDs to do all the rest of the courses? I don't think you ever really responded to this. If they did this, the costs of running the law school would drop dramatically, and these savings could be passed on to all the JD students in the form of drastically reduced tuition. Even just replace the instructors for all those theory courses that JDs take that give them such good training to be a political science professor, and the savings would be huge. There's a huge glut of PhDs on the market, so any opening would get hundreds of applications, allowing law schools to pick the best and the brightest and set salaries at a reasonable level (even ~$50,000 would look great to many fresh English or poli sci PhDs).

I forgot to add one thing. Whether you end up in an economics or psychology program, doing research on how humans actually make decisions requires understanding of many areas of cognitive psychology. Attention, memory, and emotion are all very important, and you need to have a basic understanding of those types of psychological processes. Even if you decide you belong to the more mainstream economists who think psychology isn't very important, if you do research in decision making you will be working and competing with researchers who do make use of psychological concepts, so you can't just ignore them.

What type of program you apply to depends largely on what type of work you want to do or who you want to work with. Many researchers looking at decision making in humans using fMRI are in psychology departments, so it would make sense to apply to psychology programs to work with them. However, many (if not most) would definitely be open to taking an econ PhD student into their lab. You are going to need to learn a good bit of cognitive psychology along with your game theory if you want to go that route. Another option is working with researchers who are primarily economists, but do behavioral/psychology economics. The people the last poster mentioned fit that mold, along with people like Ernst Fehr and Colin Camerer. You'll still likely be able to use fMRI if you want, but many of these researchers still do a ton of behavioral econ experiments with no neuro component. Those are probably your best bets. You don't want to go the social psych route, as I think you'll find the rigor very much lacking. I also don't think it makes any sense to do macroeconomics if you want to look at individual decision making; don't you think that sounds like a strange choice? I don't think you should worry overly much about admission into a psychology program, provided you can take a couple cognitive psychology courses. Basically any psychologist interested in decision making would jump at the chance to get an economist (and statistician!) as a student.

That is a wonky profile If you're applying to programs/labs where your past research and skills are relevant, I think you have a decent shot, as long as there isn't a hard GRE cutoff to even get your app looked at.

Corny or not, I do it. I also think it isn't corny, especially if you go to a place like Yale or MIT where the number of grad students equals or exceeds the number of undergrads. Then it should be corny for the undergrads to wear school gear.

Sounds good. Yeah, you didn't apply to unknown programs, so I wouldn't worry about the prestige of those programs being a hindrance or anything. But if you can find interesting labs at Stanford/Berkeley/Harvard or wherever, I think you'd have a shot at getting in. Just don't shy away from the big name programs either, you don't want reverse-snobbery or whatever to get in the way of you working with a great PI who happens to be at a prestigious program

Your stats and research look very solid, so I think you can shoot for a couple top neuro programs if they have interesting research for you. Any reason you decided not to do that?

Definitely fit and research experience are more important than GPA or GRE, although all need to be excellent for Stanford psychology. Of the places I looked at, Duke (http://gradschool.duke.edu/about/statistics/admitpsy.htm) and Arizona (http://psychology.arizona.edu/programs/g_each.php?option=9) both list applicant statistics. That may give you some idea of good to great program expectations, along with Wisconsin's as the previous poster linked. But you need to focus much more on research, especially if you have a year or more left in undergrad and can do something about it.

Fit really is important in many fields. You shouldn't just apply to the top 5 schools in your field if there's no one at them doing anything related to your stated interests. It is fine to have a specific project in mind if it fits well within a lab's objectives. It isn't fine to have a specific project in mind if it isn't related enough to get the PI interested. If not being a good fit was a common theme, you should reevaluate where you're applying and make sure your interests and the interests of a PI or two at each program are good matches. It also wouldn't hurt to apply to more than 7 schools, although I think that depends on the field too (7-10 is normal for my field, but I think is overkill for others). You also didn't say anything about your record in courses. By non-traditional, do you mean you did a for-profit online bachelor degree or what? Do you mean you did a "choose your own major" type thing, where you may not have hit the common prerequisites for study in your field? Fit is something you can improve now, by applying to certain programs, but you may have a hard time overcoming these other issues (if you have them) in the short-term.

I was thinking Davis or Irvine (or both), as long as you can find labs at them that will be good for you.

This is very good advice. It is much more important that your background prepares you for the work done in the lab you want to join, and less important that you meet the overall departmental requirements. Of course, meeting both isn't bad either

That is a pretty tough list of schools to get into. Along with Michigan and Duke, I think you should add WUSTL and UT Austin as reaches, too. It sounds like you're realistic about your chances, which is good. But as you said, there will be a number of applicants with better GREs, better GPA, and better letters of rec. If you can find more labs that will be a good fit, I think you would do well to apply to another couple top/mid-range schools, like mid-level UCs, Brown, Arizona, Vanderbilt, etc. Schools like that are still very good and should all have labs that will be of interest to you (feel free to PM me if you want suggestions for labs). You'll have a better shot at each of those than places like Michigan and Duke, plus applying to more will give you a better overall shot at being accepted somewhere.

Honestly, as a fellow student, I think it will look weird. Whatever they say to your face, I doubt many people will really accept right away that nothing happened before you left the lab / graduated. As others have said, even though it isn't fair, people will be questioning whether you can stand on your own or whether you have gotten favors or help. That is all related to your 'professional' life as a student, though. As far as ostracizing someone who is dating a professor (at another school), I really really doubt that will happen. I don't think other students will care who you're dating, except that it is slightly more interesting than your typical significant other. In terms of your social life, I don't think you can or should hide it; trying to be 'covert' will only make it seem more questionable when it inevitably comes out.