PsychGirl1

99% of the time: no. The classes you took in high school should not count in your undergrad GPA unless any credits were transferred to your undergrad and appear on your transcript. Also, make sure to read the directions for each school- one school I'm applying to specifically says do not include community college grades. Most schools want GPA by school/institution listed, in which case you'd list the two separately, two separate GPAs, and send in two different transcripts. But mostly, they don't usually care about the classes from when you were younger, and since you send in your transcripts, if you get shady with your grades I'm pretty sure they will notice. Honestly, being dedicated enough to pursue education in addition to just plain undergrad could be an asset to you- I'd just suck it up and list them separately.

Thanks! You too! I will probably study the day before hahaha (and no, not cause I'm cocky, but because I need 40 hours in a day! expecting less-than-stellar scores...).

I'm having the same stress! Also taking it on October 13, and I know I won't have any time to study. But yes, psychdork is on it- they only will send it to the places you request.

Is there some way you can consolidate? For example, take out local poster presentations, call the section "Selected Poster Presentations", and only list the more prestigious ones? Or if you have multiple entries for the same projects in the same lab, consolidate them under one heading as "research assistant" for the lab and put specifics in bullet points? Your CV should really contain highlights. For example, in college, I worked in 3 labs, then after college, I worked part-time in a lab for a year, worked full-time as a research coordinator for 1.5 years, and now i'm in graduate school. So that's about 6 different labs, all with very different roles, focuses, and projects. But on my CV, my research experience is only one page. I dropped one lab that I worked in for a short period of time a long time ago and wasn't relevant to Psychology, and consolidated the rest into thorough bullet-points, one for each lab. For things like teaching experience, i consolidated all my TA'ing jobs at the same university into the same "entry" and then just listed the courses under it and general duties I performed in general. I have sections for education, awards/honors, research experience, clinical experience, teaching experience, posters & presentations, publications, organizations & memberships, other experience, and skills, and mine is about 2.5-3 pages, which I think should pretty much be the max.

I generally wouldn't email them unless I had a genuine question. Usually they list that on the website so that they aren't bombarded by prospective students, and some professors don't like being emailed ahead of time. The main thing to know is that they're taking a student. If you genuinely like their research, apply, and they will review your application come December.

That sounded a bit harsher than I intended- but yes, I would consider that 5-6 pages too long.

Get your CV down to 2-3 pages. The only 8+ page CVs I've seen have been full-fledged, 50-year old Professors and the main reason it's so long is from publications. If an undergrad sent me their CV and it was 8 pages, I would probably laugh. And honestly, most PIs are so busy that it takes some harping to get them to review a 250-word abstract in a timely manner- let alone an 8-page CV for a prospective student. Find a way to highlight the most important things, or consolidate. No matter how amazing you are, I find it hard to believe that you need 8 pages to explain all your accomplishments over your 20whatever years of life.

No, I've seen it happen fairly often (writing LORs when also applying to the same lab). I would sit down with your PI and go through your list with her and ask her for suggestions. I'd first explain your two separate interests, and make it connected. (For example, when I did it with my current advisor, I explained that I had taken our main research area and then expanded it to include related things in multiple directions- so main research area + health psych focus, main research area + social psych focus, etc.). Just conceptualize it so that it would make sense why you are stretching in multiple directions without saying that you don't have passion for the area she works in. Then I'd tell her that you narrowed it down to a list of x schools and wanted her advice on schools/programs and PIs. On your list, I'd mention that you looked at the program where you work and that you really liked it and were interested in talking to her about possibly applying. If you keep it on that level of sort of picking her brain and getting advice, I think it's a much less awkward conversation than the other possibilities.

My opinion- I think that if you hear from word of mouth that someone isn't taking students (ex. your friend or someone in your lab tells you mr. x isn't taking students), I'd go ahead and email them anyway to double check plus get some name recognition. But if you email a faculty at a school and they reply that they don't decide until january, I definitely would not email other people in the same department at the same school asking the same question. Sounds like you will probably apply to that school anyway, since there are multiple people with interesting research interests, and by the time they are looking at applications in December or January, I doubt they will remember one specific person who emailed them 4 months ago. But they would remember if they somehow found out you did that- for example, if a PI responded "We don't decide as a faculty until January, but you might also want to check out the reserach of mr x and mrs y" and CC'ed those other profs you had already gotten answers from. It just seems pointless and not worth the risk/potentially weird situation. Contacting POIs isn't a mandatory part of the process, and I think it should only be used when needed (ex. deciding what schools to apply to).

I totally agree with Lewin. If you don't get in this year, consider getting a job as a research coordinator and taking some night grad classes to prove that you can get those As. And of course, acing the psych GRE would be helpful.

I agree with lewin00.

Done! On page 1, for the questions, the phrase is "To what extent", not "In what extend" :-)

^^ second jmbrown88. if you don't do it now, you never will. your age means you will probably have much more life experience and professionalism than the other students, which can work to your advantage. then again, you probably won't find a job that pays incredibly well in what you want to do, so if you care more about the money, maybe look at some average salaries for people in that field and decide if you can handle it. in my mind, 4 years of sacrifice- even if it means living home with your parents- is nothing compared to the next 30-40 years that you'll be working and doing something you love :-)

I think you missed a fairly important I/E- that the person has to live in Australia? I'm not sure how many people from Australia are on these boards.

Abel- There are lots of past threads on master's programs, funded and unfunded. With your stats, I'd say most are applicable to you. I'd go through and compile a list and then check out their websites. Good luck!

I would just apologize to her, and very politely tell her that she had actually told you to enroll in the course and then, after you registered, told you that you couldn't take it- so you were just looking for a second opinion since you were confused and unsure how to proceed. I agree that you need to be polite and respectful, but at the same time, if this is an ongoing thing, I think you also need to (politely) call her out on it.

Darwin- first, good luck. Second- do you have any idea how much 25 schools is going to cost you between transcripts, GRE scores, and application fees?? You might want to add it up :-). I think 10-15 is pretty standard... 25 might be overkill. It's definitely your decision, but I imagine it's difficult to find 25 programs you love, all with professors in your exact research interest who are taking students. If I were you, I'd think carefully about whether I really wanted to end up at each school for 5-6 years of my life. Sorry for the unsolicited feedback- just something to this about!

Better yet, find a professor at your school who is studying what you want to study, and ask them if they can take out 30 minutes and give you some guidance on how to prepare yourself and your application for your career goal.

First: I'm definitely not an expert in what you want to study and the requirements/best course of action... it's just what I would think, so please take with a grain of salt :-) I'm not sure exactly what Developmental Cognitive Psych covers. I mostly just included Developmental becaus it's considered one of the core areas of Psychology, plus if you ever take the GRE psych, you will be asked questions on it. It's probably a bit out of the area you want to focus on, so maybe Developmental Cog Psych would be a good compromise- I'd look for sample syllabi for the two courses and compare. As far as system dynamics, I'm not really sure- it's hard for me to know without seeing a course description. Our system dynamics course was based in the management science department and basically focused on modeling interactive and complex systems. It was one of the best classes I've taken and it really changed the way I think about and approach things. It sounds like your class would be similar, and if so, I'd recommend it. As far as probability/stats, I'm thinking more of a Psychology or research-specific class. While advanced statistics/probability theory can get complicated, I consider the stats you'll need in most grad programs to be more of a trade- knowing what tests to use when, what post-hoc tests to use when, etc. While my general stats and probability classes gave me a good knowledge foundation, it didn't give me the tools to actually sit down at SPSS and know what sorts of tests to run and how to inerpret the output. Of course, things may be different in areas like computational neuro, which is really out of what I study (which is more clinical/health focused). As far as language and sensation/perception, I think only take them if they are related to what you want to study. I took a linguistics class and hated my life. On the other hand, I found sensation/perception interesting. Ask the professor for a course syllabus from a previous year, read through, and figure out if you get excited or not. If you get excited, take it. I wouldn't consider those psychology/decision sciences core classes, but I'd probably consider them cog/neuro core classes. Maybe people actually in those specialties could chip in? I could be way off base. So, again, I'd go back to the programs that look interesting to you and have areas you want to study, and look at their admissions requirements and curriculum. That should give you a good idea of what you should be focusing on.

Psych- you seem pretty set, just make sure you are covered with the basics like psych 101, developmental, social, abnormal, cognitive, and research methods Neuro- you seem set Decision sciences- I think game theory, behavioral economics is good. As an undergrad I also took system dynamics, if you can find a course like that I'd go for it. Math- I'd make sure to take as much statistics and probability as possible. I took lots of math including a basic statistics, multivariable calc, differential eq, linear algebra, etc. in undergrad and I still find myself struggling with advanced statistics since I haven't yet taken advanced stats classes. I'd also maybe look at someone who does similar things (like Dan Ariely maybe?) and look through the types of courses he teaches or things like that. Or find some potential programs and see what types of classes they require and/or have in their curriculum. Good luck!

The websites for most programs address students who are coming in with a master's and how they handle the credits and/or thesis. I'd look through a few programs you're thinking of and see what they say.

Drexel (Philadelphia) has an M.S. program that- while not funded- gives some level of scholarships to most of the students. In addition, there are a few stipend positions avaialble for 2nd year students to help cover tuition. They also pay you for TA'ing classes. So while not as sweet as fully funded, it's a great program and probably worth checking out.

PS In my opinion, talking to current students is the best route- there are definitely pros/cons to every path and from what I've seen, grad students are very honest about what they like and don't like about their programs. Try contacting admissions and getting the contact info for a current student?

Darwin- I definitely agreed with some of your points! :-) Lauren, I honestly have to say to go with your gut. I had an untraditional route to psych, and when I was making the decision about attending a master's program, I talked to a LOT of professors who I worked with or took classes with. A lot of them told me that I was a great candidate, and a master's was a waste of time- I should just apply directly to a PhD program, and figure it out as I go. Some did tell me the master's was a good option- including a few Clinical Psych PhD students who went the master's route first and felt like it really matured them and gave them a solid footing for PhD programs. After applying to different master's programs, interviewing/touring, talking to current students, and examining my finances, my gut told me to go with my current program. I got into a few master's programs, including one with tuition remission and a stipend, but the one I ended up with just felt like the right thing for me at that point in my life, and I was willing to make the accompanying sacrifices. I'm incredibly happy with my choice, and I feel perfectly centered and focused with upcoming PhD applications- not to mention that my current program probably opened up a few doors for those apps. So, if you love the program, you don't feel ready to go right to a PhD program, you've examined more traditional routes like working as an RA or a coordinator, and you've thought a bit about finances, I say go for it. There is certainly no harm applying!

I actually decided to do a master's before my PhD (but not in counseling) and I think it was a really great decision for me. I learned a lot more about my research interests, made a lot of connections, got lots of fantastic/grueling research experience (more than I got working as a research coordinator), and built up my confidence that not only was this was what I wanted to do, but that I was capable of doing it. I did have to take out some student loans, but I found a way to live cheaply, and I do get paid through TA'ing and I also got a stipend position for my 2nd year that covers about half of my tuition, so all in all I think it was worth it- I really won't graduate with that much debt, especially when compared to living in a city like Boston and making pennies as a research assistant or research coordinator. In addition, a lot of my classmates have been figuring out they want to do different things over the two years- ex. some want to go the PsyD, some counseling, some realize research/grad school isn't for them and having a master's degree is enough for what they want to do. In my opinion, I wouldn't committ 5-6 years of your life to something that you don't feel 100% mentally ready for.