PsychGirl1

School: Yale Area: Clinical Rationalization: Well, they take about 4 people a year and it was my super duper stretch school. And I will probably find out I have a better fit school elsewhere on my list. (Take that, Yale!). I'm assuming I got rejected, anyway, due to a lack of interview invite. Which is a pretty safe assumption in this case :-).

There's no harm in saying that your interest is the overlap between self-esteem and adjustment. Saying that, as long as you know how/why/whatever they overlap, shouldn't hurt your chances with anyone who studied self-esteem or adjustment. Just be confident about it and don't worry too much :-).

Here's my take: don't overthink it. Interviews are about fit, which is bidirectional. While it may feel like the interview is purely about judging you, it's also about seeing how well you two communicate, and mesh, and have overlapping interests. Would you want to have that same type of interaction every week if she was your mentor/advisor? Things will work out for the best, whichever way it goes. And, of course, it's always possible she was trying to stay neutral- interviewing candidates are awkward for both the candidate and the interviewee. And interviewing over the phone, instead of face-to-face, just amplifies that :-).

I wouldn't bother- she is probably quite busy now and it's a moot point. :-) Good luck!

Thank you!!!! This was really helpful. I really appreciate it!!

It's okay- thanks for your feedback! I've actually been reading as many sources as possible and as far as I can tell, that number is correct for detecting two-way and three-way interactions for a 2x2x2 factorial ANOVA. Apparently one of the benefits of using a factorial ANOVA is that you can look at a lot of things without significantly increasing n (I think because you can collapse groups when comparing certain interactions). However, this power analysis only takes into account your ability to detect the interaction- it doesn't take into account the ability to decompose that interaction using simple main effects or anything like that, which would increase the n significantly. Either way, my thesis is going to be underpowered, so I'll probably just make a note of that in my presentation and hope nobody questions me too much :-). The actual study is running more people, I'm just using a subset of the sample for my thesis due to time constraints (I'm graduating in June), so there isn't much that can be done about it, and the power analysis is more of a formality. But if you (or anyone else) has any feedback, suggestions, comments, or if I'm saying anything outlandishly wrong, I appreciate anything! I'm stressing out about my proposal tomorrow :-)

I'm trying to do my first (real) power analysis and I'm running into some issues :-/. I was hoping someone here could help me out- I'd really appreciate it! I have no idea if I'm doing it correctly and my advisor hasn't given me much guidance. I'm doing a 2x2x2 ANOVA, and I'm interested in both 2-way and 3-way interactions. So I've done a power analysis for both, and I keep getting the same n. What I'm entering in makes sense to me, but I was hoping someone could verify everything for me (thank you in advance!). Two of the factors are experimental manipulation (participants are randomized to one of four groups) and one is a measure given at baseline. I'm using G*Power 3.1, assuming a medium effect size (since we have no idea what the effect size is), and going for 80% power with an alpha level of .05. So for the 2-way interaction, I enter in: effect size .25, alpha .05, power 0.8, numerator df of 1 (because (2-1)(2-1) = 1), and 4 groups. Based on this, G*Power says that the critical F is 3.917, and the total sample size is 128. For the 3-way interaction, I enter in: effect size .25, alpha .05, power .8, numerator df of 1 (because (2-1)(2-1)(2-1)=1), and 8 groups. I get a critical value of 3.920 and a sample size of 128. Am I getting the same answers because my df is 1? My advisor basically told me there should be a big difference in the number. In order to get a large increase in sample size, I basically I have to enter in up to 100 groups, and even 2 groups gives me 128. Forgive me if this is a silly question, but I'm presenting on Monday and I know my advisor will ask me why these two numbers are identical! I tried looking through power analysis resources online but I haven't found any resources that are geared to early grad students who haven't formally learned how to do power analyses yet. Since my proposal is Monday and this is a thesis, not a dissertation, please don't suggest anything fancy (like I go program a model in R or something like that), even if it would be more proper :-). Thank you!!!!!! Again, I really appreciate any help that people can give me.

No problem! Not at BC, but I applied there- I'll PM you about where I am and my thoughts on the other programs I applied to :-).

Why don't you ask graduate admissions if you can talk to a current student there? That's an easy enough request, and the student should have a fairly good sense, if not exact numbers, of what people do after the program.

I took graduate courses in the evening while working before applying for my master's (and now I'm applying for PhD). I found that it helped me a few different ways- first, I could talk about it within my personal statement. This was probably more important for me as a non-psych major career change, but I think it's still great to say you can't get enough psych :-). As someone else said, you can probably use it in your "Psychology GPA", which a few schools used me for. Other than that, I can see it being used to solidifying research interests, expanding your knowledge base, etc. On top of that, it might help prepare you for graduate school so it is less difficult than it would be otherwise once you get there (especially if it's in areas you aren't currently strong in). So, I think it's win-win. And I'd definitely go for graduate-level over undergraduate-level.

Weird reaction from your female peer, sort of embarrassing for my gender! Tell her to stop being offended every time someone says the word "female" and to put on her science hat :-) First off, I doubt if you write up a manuscript and say you excluded half your data based on gender because of a potential confound you could have controlled for, and that it wasn't significant until you excluded half of the people, that they would be okay with that. But I can see running the enalysis for exploratory purposes, and/or looking at differences by gender, and discussing the issue within your paper, especially in the scope of future research. That totally makes sense. There is also the issue of what firstsight said- you do run into hormonal differences within males as well (or at least, theories of hormonal differences- I do not know if it has been proven/disproven) that are not as easily accounted for by just asking about their last menstural cycle. This may be one of the reasons why you see a good number of pilot neuroimaging studies only use females for their small sample size experiments, in addition to asking about menstrual cycles. I don't know much about cortisol differences by gender throughout the month, but you probably can't remove half of your sample due to hormonal changes without showing that the other half doesn't have hormonal changes. To be honest, I would have probably laughed because I thought you were joking if you mentioned that at a talk. "Just exlude half of your sample size basd on gender- whatttt!" But it wouldn't have been a mean laugh, and you do raise some valid points, that maybe some exploratory analyses could be done that could clarify some of the directions future research should take.

Very normal! You are paying your dues :-). At least, I think that's how the system is supposed to work. Although, cherubie, if you are leaning towards academia as a career path, it's probably due to certain priorities and personality traits you have. The business sector can be a painful surprise. I worked in business for a few years and it had me running back to academia incredibly fast. Yeah you get paid a lot and there are a lot of "perks", but there are a LOT of downsides that someone who enjoys academia would be driven crazy by. Just a thought :-)

I couldn't really answer your poll because my answer is a mix of the options! My 2-year back-up plan, developed in one night last week: - continue on in my lab part-time as a volunteer to continue getting papers with my mentor, if he'll have me :-) - find an RA/RC position for 2 years that is in my field with the potential to get papers as well as more clinical experience for my CV - if the RA/RC position I find has no clinical experience, then I plan to get more in some volunteer capacity (telephone hotline, co-leading groups for studies in the area, etc.) - teach Psych/stats courses at a local community college (I'm graduating with my M.S.) and/or get a second master's over the 2 years (at night) at a local university in applied statistics I feel like that will put me in a great position if I don't get in anywhere this year... if I don't get in after all that then who knows what my plan will be???

Drexel! I liked their master's program significantly more than any other I looked at (even turned down a stipend at Villanova for it).

Concur with Darwin, for the most part. Try looking at average GRE scores for each program. Some you will see ridiculously high quant scores (ex. average of 750+ for quant on the old scale) with more moderate verbal scores- in which case, go with the score with the higher quant. Others you will see more average for both, or verbal slightly higher- in which case, maybe go with the higher verbal score. As long as your scores aren't worryingly different from the averages posted for the program, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I still have no idea what the new scores mean. I've looked at conversion charts before but it's all just jibberish to me. Any scale where 152 is significantly different from 155 blows my mind.

It depends. Some master's programs, like BU, really aren't mentor-based at all. Others, like Drexel, are very much mentor-based. If you read through the website for each program you should get a good sense. When in doubt, specify.

I've been sleeping a lot, eating junk food, and driving my friends crazy with mood swings. So I'm really not one to ask about coping with the stress :-). Although to be fair to myself, I'm also in a master's program and getting pummeled with end-of-term projects as well as my thesis proposal presentation next week. Grad school apps are just the icing on the cake! Although if the stress/anxiety really IS getting to you, you could look into some behavioral stress management techniques like progressive muscle relaxation and guided imagery and spend a few minutes each day practicing them. It's going to be a tough few months for all of us, and having some of those tools in your toolbox probably wouldn't hurt :-)

Last night I panicked and started developing my plans for if I don't get into grad school this round (my first) :-). Today I'm too tired to care. Tomorrow I'll probably decide I'll get interviews at all 12 places I applied. I can't figure out the best approach for the next month or two- denial (which probably goes hand-in-hand with large quantities of wine), false self-assurance, or admitting defeat and developing an awesome back-up plan. Sigh.

All done my apps- and I'm dying. I hate waiting!

What about a sentence mentioning the other projects you've worked on and then transitioning like "But xyz has been my main focus over the past x years" or whatever?

Thank you! Not to say they are done perfectly but at least they're finished! Good luck to you too :-)

I've officially submitted everything as of this morning! And one of my 3 LORs are in everywhere. <Deep breath>. Now on to the 100 other aspects of my life that I haven't been paying enough attention to...

Yes, it varies from "submit a personal statement" to directions as explicit as yours.

I agree with most of the other posters. In addition, you really don't know the background of people reading your essay on the admissions committee or really of the PI you're applying to work with. Maybe some of them work with a psychiatrist to give therapy to children who are medicated. Maybe they even feel that for those children, the medication is essential to help with the rest of their therapy program. Maybe they even took medication as a child. There is really no way to approach your experience without accusing people in the field of overmedicating and potentially insulting a good number of people who would potentially read your essay. IF this is relevant to the research area you are applying to work in, you could approach it like: throughout your life, you have seen people struggle with the question of whether to take medication for their depression as a child and/or give it to their children, and as a result, you want to explore when it is appropriate to prescribe medication for child mental illness compared to not, and how to reduce the stigma for people who decide to take medication, etc. Your statement almost seems to suggest the opposite- that people who take medication or see doctors are lazy, which is kinda insulting, and this "idea" is a major issue for the field of psychology/psychiatry that stops many people from seeking appropriate treatment. And not to get too personal, but you do seem to be upset about your childhood experience- but think of it from your parents' perspective. Maybe they were concerned about your mental well-being, took you to see someone, and that doctor recommended that you be on medicine, and explained why. Instead of thinking that your parents decided you were too much to handle, there's a real possibility that your parents were just concerned and leaned on medical advice- like many parents do today who medicate their child, whether it is, in the end, essential or not.

Concur with Darwin. If you do mention it, do it vaguely. As in, "While growing up, I became aware of how self-esteem could be affected by xyz whatever. This intrigue led me to study xyz in my senior thesis blahblah". Maybe somewhere between what I said and what you said. To paraphrase someone in this baord, you don't want to come across as if you're going into research to discover yourself- you want to come across as if you're going into research because you have a passion for learning and furthering knowledge. It's fine to be inspired by events in your life and in the life of others, but getting into too much detail can really backfire. Then again, if you've had faculty members review it and they think you handled it well, then go for it. But if you can pare it down, it will be less of a risk.