socialpsych

You are in social psych and a current undergraduate? This is an easy one. If you don't get in anywhere, and grad school is still your goal, work as an RA or lab manager in somebody's lab for a couple years, then reapply. A lot of applicants to top social psych programs are NOT straight out of undergrad -- they have been doing research full time for a year or two. And that gives them a big leg up over people straight out of undergrad, especially undergrad at liberal arts colleges. I don't want to discourage you about your chances, but this just means that if you don't end up getting the offers you want, it may not have anything to do with your potential as a researcher; you just haven't had as much of a chance to build up your CV yet. (Working as an RA or lab manager would probably fix your lackluster-recs problem too, which to my eye is the biggest weakness in your profile as you've represented it here). And a lot of those RAs and lab managers are people who already applied straight out of undergrad and weren't happy with the results. So it's not like you only get one shot. So, if you don't get in anywhere (and, again, assuming grad school is still your goal), don't worry too much about it, and start looking for RA jobs. Then reapply in a couple years. No one at your dream programs will even bat an eye when they see your application again, and your chances will probably be much, much better. Hope this helps. From what you wrote above it sounds like you are aware that RAing could be a logical next step, so I am not sure I've told you anything you don't already know...

In my program we get funding for a laptop so budget doesn't tend to be an issue, and almost everybody has a MacBook Pro. If budget is more of an issue for you, I'm not sure it's worthwhile, although I adore macs. The one place where I would really have run into trouble with a PC is programming in PsychToolbox (in Matlab) -- actually even my old mac Powerbook couldn't handle that, but it wasn't as bad as some newer PCs, and my new MBP works great. If you can hang on to your old computer for just a few more months, until you know where you're headed next year, it might be worth asking the current students in your future program what they use. (And, of course, seeing about laptop funding from the program as we have in mine.) First of all, they can definitely give you the most accurate suggestions in case it depends on the exact software you will need for coursework and research (which varies somewhat by program), and second, there is some value simply in having the same as everyone else so that you can more easily work together on course assignments and projects.

Really, these aren't exaggerations too? These are pretty big things to be saying about academia, and don't forget that you are saying them in a forum presumably full of future faculty members and administrators. If you are not exaggerating, I respectfully disagree with the above. In my (albeit limited) experience with academics, while there certainly are professors out there who act this way -- and all of us should be aware of how to deal with issues should they arise -- there are also many professors who do not act this way, and many who are extremely concerned about the power issues that are likely to arise and do not treat such actions as "normal" at all.

I too heard that quant was more important, but I didn't get the impression that either score was a very important part of the application, as long as you are not far below the program's average.

Well, as far as I can tell the only "repercussions" are that you might get your hopes up or your feelings hurt...just keep in mind that we are not an adcom!

Hmm...not really. Well, maybe it depends on your field/program. I am pretty sure in my program people are expected to get some work done over winter break... Oh and also, my undergrad thesis wasn't due until May, so I certainly hadn't "finished everything" by this time last year.

I was advised to be pretty specific about my interests, and when I read SOPs now I advise people to be specific. Even if you are not totally sure what exactly you want to study, the proposed research plan is an opportunity to show cultural knowledge of the field -- that you know what a good potential research project looks like, and that you can talk about it the way insiders do. We will all be doing a lot of talking about and selling our ideas as grad students and academics, so the SOP is a place to show you have that skill. Of course, what you say has to be true enough to your actual interests that it lands you with the right advisor, but I don't think self-expression is the only purpose of that part of the statement.

Do yourself a favor and don't entrust anyone at GC with your dreams! (: We're just trying to keep it real here.

It can be several weeks, sorry to say. Do check the results page. I for one had mostly December deadlines and heard from most programs around early to mid February. Seems to vary by field, too.

Yes. Happened to me. Probably happens a lot. Imagine if you were a prof -- there might be a lot of potential students each year whose proposals are interesting, but not all of them can get an offer...

I know at least four who married during grad school too -- I think three were already in a relationship and the fourth met during grad school.

I know of several people in psych who've gotten an MA in stats. I thought it (MA in stats for science PhDs) was pretty common and am surprised at cogneuro's response. Perhaps it depends on your school/program. Have any of the other students in your program done that before? If not, have any of them considered it? Talking to them would probably be more informative than talking to us.

You might want to take a look at the results page.

I have nothing to add regarding your first question. About the second: I would 1) wait until you get an official invitation to interview with the psych department, and 2) don't be really in-their-faces about why you're there. Just say (again, in response to an actual invitation) that you're in the area around that time and it would be convenient to move your visit so that you would not have to fly twice. I did this last year, and everyone at the school whose visit I moved clearly knew why I'd moved it, but it was totally fine. Also, I found departments to be really flexible about splitting travel costs and such.

As a current grad student: no! Unless grad students are on the adcom, which is true occasionally. OP, I don't think this is a problem for you -- as other posters have said, it just shows you truly are a good fit at that program. Even if you come in with identical research interests, you may not end up doing identical research, because interests change. The only thing that would be a problem is if the adcom actually thought you'd lifted your SOP from their website. But I don't think you need to worry about that very much if you can explain your interests in a way that makes it clear that they're yours. You can imagine what a fake would actually look like: the person might not seem to understand the topics completely, for example, or might talk about them in a strange way. I think such an SOP would be easy to spot. Since yours is authentic, I wouldn't worry about it.

You have made a slip between "contacting faculty" and having "a faculty member [say] they are very interested in the research you want to do." Contacting faculty does not at all guarantee that someone will really take an interest in you, nor does not contacting them mean that no one will be interested! In fact, that is the only way (to my knowledge) people get in to PhD programs: by having one or more faculty members take an interest in them. If your direct contact with faculty has resulted in some people saying they are very interested in you, then obviously that's a good sign, but it probably just means you have gone through the process of sharing your research interests earlier than other applicants who may not have contacted faculty beforehand. Your SOP is supposed to convey precisely the same information as your contact presumably gave to faculty, and I don't think there is any (or much) magic in getting there first. Does that answer your question? Regarding how much of an extra boost you get from having a dean/a chair/multiple faculty interested, that seems to me to depend on the nature of the department and especially the structure of funding. First of all, often your funding comes from a specific professor, and which profs get funding in which years is not really up to them -- in those cases, whether or not the chair gets funding for his/her own students in a given year may not be up to the chair, so whether or not your POI is the chair may not matter. Also, in some programs you are really expected to work with just one prof, and in those cases I don't think having two people interested in you would help -- but in other cases it probably would.

As a successful business school applicant, I disagree. If you are female, there are definitely other options. I don't think a single woman at either of the business schools at which I interviewed last year (except for me!) was wearing a traditional suit. That said, you certainly wouldn't go wrong with a suit, but don't imagine that it is the only option. Of course, you should pay attention to whatever instructions the school sends (and most will say something about attire, in my experience) -- and again, if you are male, probably a different story. Here is a clothing tip that may be obvious to you guys, but it wasn't obvious to me: how nicely you are expected to dress seems to covary with how competitive the visit situation is. If you are already in and just visiting, business casual is definitely fine, but the more people the school has invited per offer, the more formally you should dress. I visited two schools that explicitly specified "business casual, no suits please" -- one where the visiting prospective students had already been accepted, and one where they were there to interview -- and despite the identical instructions, the attire was noticeably different.

For future reference, don't worry about it. I never picked up my phone during the application season last year (on the advice of some grad students I knew -- so I could always seem prepared and not flustered!). They will leave a message. They may not leave an interview invite, but at the very least they will identify themselves and ask you to call them back. It isn't a big deal at all to let it go to voicemail. How funny though that, if I'm reading your post correctly, a lot of people on the Internet thought your real Michigan caller was a telemarketer!

Haha. I actually did forget to change the name of the school in one of my statements (it wasn't the SOP, but one of those additional statements some schools want). Still got in to that school!

Yep...that's what the watermark is there for. Don't worry about it, they know there's nothing you can do.

Just to add to the chorus: I COULD have mentioned 6 or more profs at a few of my schools last year, but I always stuck to the top 3, and I think it made for a better SOP.

I didn't include one and it worked out okay for me...but if they ask for it, do it!

For my one paper app, I used regular white computer paper for both statement and CV; put my name, "Statement of Purpose," and the page number in the header; stapled the CV and SOP (separately from each other, but each one was multiple pages); had no cover letter; and sent everything, unfolded, in a big manila envelope. And I got in, so I guess it worked. I should add: no one told me what to do. Maybe I should have worried about it more than I did, but at the last minute I guess I couldn't convince myself that it would matter! So I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else uses nice paper, etc...but as you can see it's not strictly necessary for making a good impression.

This is a very good point too.

Assuming the second school doesn't have rolling admissions, I don't see any reason why it is "risky" to wait...unless you think you might forget to submit it? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really see what the problem is. Chances are you won't hear from your first choice within 2 weeks, but since I suppose there is a nonzero chance, and there is probably zero harm to waiting with the second school, I don't see why not.