psychedout11

You can email the graduate admissions coordinator - who is typically an admin assistant - usually they'll know if offers have been extended or not.

I would definitely tell them - having other offers demonstrates that you're competitive. It also gives you the opportunity to let them know that they are your top choice school (if you haven't already) and you are waiting on their decision.

Usually stipends require you to perform some service either through being a TA, an RA or even teaching a class. And in your first year, yes this is normal.

This isn't necessarily always true. My department gives out all offers with no wait-list. So some programs may have a wait-list and some may not.

This is interesting, but for me the amount of money I'm getting paid to go to school and get my PhD degree isn't nearly as important as my mentor. I expected to be poor in grad school and I had offers from schools with higher stipends and even a huge fellowship. The stipend at the school I chose is pretty low, but I picked it because my advisor is awesome and really supports student training. So I think that the mentoring I'm getting (research experience, co-authorship on publications, grant writing) is setting me on a path for a higher payoff career-wise compared to schools I got into that had higher stipends.

I would not email the POI. You can email the application coordinator, who is usually a departmental admin assistant, and ask if interviews have been extended.

Since most psychology departments have different areas (Cognitive, Clinical, et), my understanding is that usually each area has command over their applicants. Typically, the budget dictates how many students the entire department can accept and then the Chair dictates how many students each area can accept. So the faculty in each area vie for a position if they want to accept a student, and students are ranked accordingly within the area.

It is perfectly fine to email and ask them where you are on the waitlist. If you have an offer already from another school you can tell them that you are sitting on an offer and they are your first choice, but you'd like to know you chances. They may tell you nothing useful - but it's not a "faux pas" to ask.

The NRC rankings are here http://chronicle.com...erview-/124708/ Honesty, this is not like undergrad when it comes to rankings. Graduate school is a whole different ball game. You can go to a top ranked school and have a horrible advisor and it will do nothing for you. Converse...you can go to a lower tier school with a crazy awesome advisor and it will do wonders for you. If you want to go on to do research/academia as a career - your advisor is the most important piece of the puzzle. They can make or break you. For example, some schools are ranked high because of publications per faculty - but if those pubs are not with students, then it does you no good as a student to that faculty. So get out of your head "elite" and listen more to how much you like your advisor because that is all the difference.

You're welcome. The NRCs just came out and they factor in graduate student training and success - as polled by the actual graduate students themselves.

In research-based psychology PhD programs, funding equals a program's commitment to your training, imo. And that means tuition and a stipend. It says that they are willing to invest precious resources towards ensuring that you are successful and complete the program and they are invested in you. Personally, I would not attend a PhD if it were not funded. And do you want to have the worry of finances on top of your coursework. And PhDs in psychology are not like doctors or lawyers - the income you make will not offset the cost to attend. I turned down a non-funded position at a school with an excellent rep for a funded position at a lesser rep school - and have never looked back.

It depends on what you want to do. Assuming you want a career in research at a top school, then what matters is top notch research skills, grant writing potential, and several (if not more) publications in top tier journals. To my way of thinking this depends much more on how much your advisor is willing to invest in you and your training than it does program prestige. There are excellent mentors at not so highly ranked schools or small programs who produce excellent students - just as there are mentors at excellent programs who have a ton of students and it's a fight to be the top dog student and shine. If rankings are important to you, you might want to check out the National Research Council rankings of psychology programs http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124708/