cwe93

Hi Psyburgh, I applied to work with Richard Petty, Russ Fazio, and Duane Wegener at Ohio State; I haven't seen ANY mention of them on the results page or in the forums, so I'm hoping that they still haven't made a decision yet. Who'd you apply to? And I actually applied to Florida State too, but I figured I was out because I didn't get an invite, and I thought I saw something from a FSU grad student that said all the social psych invites had been sent out. For both of our sakes, maybe this isn't true, though

Anyone hear from either Ohio State or University of Washington (Seattle) for social psych PhD programs? I haven't really heard any news here or from the results section ... Thanks!!!

jrg, Could you elaborate on what your research interests are? A lot of times, these research interests can span so many different specialties in psych; for example, I'm mainly interested in JDM and emotions, and there are professors that specialize in that within social, cognitive, I/O, organizational behavior, marketing, etc. As far as applying to back-ups outside of I/O, I think it kind of depends on how your final profile shakes out. The reason I say this is (and just for your reference, I applied to 7 social psych PhD's and 7 marketing PhD's for fall 2011, so I've been forced to explore this a lot) that business schools often require more quantitative qualifications than psych programs -- like higher Q GRE scores, some math courses, stats, etc. So if you absolutely destroy the math part of the GRE, business schools might be a good back-up for you if you can find faculty that would match with your interests. If this is not the case, I think I would echo the sentiment of other people on this thread to say that you should probably stay away from social psych PhD programs as back-ups: Social psych is probably the most competitive field in psych outside of clinical, and often times, you could improve your chances if you applied to faculty in cognitive or developmental (you'd be surprised because a lot of times, faculty can be cross-listed in multiple fields and have very "social" specialties, even if they're not technically social psychologists). If you'd like more info., PM me or ask away. I'm in the process of waiting right now, so I feel your pain lol. Good luck!

With all of the PhD applications that I've submitted in the past month, a couple of them did the same thing, and it usually was due to system issues -- i.e., their IT systems failed in some way, couldn't handle the overload of uploaded app. documents, etc. If they pushed their original deadline back that far, it probably just means that they either had some technical/administrative issues or they want more applicants (and since you said it's probably not the latter, I would say it's the former). Don't worry. Good luck!

GRE PowerPrep from the ETS website really is the best preparation (even with the countless number of GRE studybooks that are out there). Those CAT tests are almost identical to the pattern, structure, style, etc. (even has the same font!) of the real GRE. Doing those will give you the best idea of where you are. Good luck!

This may just be attributed to WHERE you bomb the GRE as well: I know that for many PhD programs (probably not all, but most), the quant part is much more important than the verbal because let's face it -- the verbal is really just a combination of luck and who can memorize the most vocab words. So, maybe some programs just don't care how you do on verbal because they realize that memorizing words is not the best gauge of who will succeed in grad school. Just an idea, but congrats nonetheless!!!

Not strange at all! I think one of the most important things about a grad program is the "fit" aspect with the faculty and advisor(s), so if a lab that you already worked in "felt right," I actually think it'd be a prudent choice if it is good for your field of study. While it's obviously good to apply to a variety of places, this seems like a solid "safety" to me. Good luck with it!

Yeah, I corresponded with the other 2 prof.'s via e-mail, and I didn't receive a reply from the one that's gone now (which makes sense looking back on it), but I didn't think much of it since 2/3 replies was pretty good based on other prof.'s that I e-mailed at other schools. It is really interesting though how much it seems to vary from school to school on how important the personal statement (or statement of purpose) is; some prof.'s I've talked to say it's THE most important thing while others say it doesn't matter as long as you sound coherent. I'd be interested on anyone's insights on this, too! (thanks for the reply, katerific! )

So here's my situation: I finished and submitted a PhD application to UCLA a few weeks ago. Everything's fine with my personal statement except for that 1 out of the 3 professors that I mentioned I was interested in working with left at the end of last semester and is apparently not there anymore (would've been nice if they updated their faculty website before the app. deadline). Will this negatively impact my application at all (i.e., not knowing the professor left last semester)? More generally, has anyone heard anything from any PhD admissions committees on how much specific mentions of certain professors plays into their decisions? Thanks!!!

humdrum, As long as you do your homework on the masters programs that you're applying to, I actually think you have a pretty good shot considering your GRE scores (I think it's actually pretty common for applicants to terminal masters programs to have less-than-stellar UGPA's because people with great UGPA's often just apply right to the PhD anyways, foregoing the masters). I think applying to PhD's might not be the best use of your time since it is purely an academic degree, and the only academic qualification they have to go off from you is your UGPA. But, if you rock a masters and THEN apply to a PhD, it might actually look even better since it would look like you've turned things around (with the GREs too). As far as e-mailing professors to look at your app regardless of your UGPA, that doesn't seem like the greatest idea. Drawing any attention to the UGPA without a really good masters GPA to counter it wouldn't really work in your favor. Just make the rest of your app good so they forget about the UGPA. Good luck with applying to masters programs!

Yeah, I applied to OSU too for social psych PhD, and I'm not a huge fan of their app status system either. It took them like 3 weeks to update the receipt of my GRE scores (which you'd think would go pretty quickly since it's all electronic anyways), so I would give it a bit yet. If it goes past like 3 1/2 wks, then I would call them at be like "wtf people ..." Good luck!

Wouldn't worry about it -- "submitting a correction" seems like it would just draw unnecessary attention for a very small thing. Prof's have to scour hundreds of CVs, so you're probably in the clear for at least a majority of them scanning right over it (it's not like they have to read the words "Curriculum Vitae" very closely -- they know what they're reading). Good luck!

Hi bhikhaari, Thanks for the reply and for the words of reassurance! I know that I've prepared myself the best I can, but the more and more I look at all these PhD's I applied to (7 social psych, 8 marketing), the competition just seems mind-boggling. Like out-of-this-world competitive (most of the programs I applied to have acceptance rates of ~2-5%, which frightens me lol). And that's aside from the fact that I would be a little peeved spending $1,200 just to get 15 rejections. But anyways, hope for the best and thanks again. Congrats on getting accepted to NCState!