IOPsych83

Yeah this is the most common idea I have heard tossed around. You are there to learn, but you are also there to enhance the field and your career, either through applied experience or research (depending on end goal).

It looks like you are in the range for a master's degree with an 1170. The quant. being high is also very helpful. I can't answer for how competitive it was this year, dherres would be a better judge of that. From what I saw the down economy caused a lot more people to apply to graduate school, so master's might be more competitive than they were a few years ago. I have never heard anyone mention the analytical section when talking about qualified or unqualified students, I think a 4 is something they would just pass right over. Now below a 4 might raise some eyebrows, but I tend to think you are fine.

they don't matter, B= PhD

I agree with alot of what dherres said , but in I/O programs they don't really expect you to know exactly what your research interests are and they expect they might change (unless you already have a master's in the area). I do think you should at least decide what areas interest you (you just don't need specifics) and definately frame that around why you would want to work with TWO professors in their program. The reason I say two is because some profs may have too many students or are not taking students that year and you could have by mistake shot yourself in the foot for that program by only choosing one prof. Both management and social psych programs will put a lot more emphasis on research experience, so I agree that will hurt you. Both of those degrees lead to professor positions (almost exclusively) where you will be doing research, so they want to see you can do research and understand what it takes.

I would recommend focusing on improving/working on the quantative score of your GRE (not that I know what you have, haha). Above a 700 in quant will greatly increasing the chances of being accepted into I/O programs.

From what I understand GWU and Columbia are still Org. programs, they have said they were adapting a balanced program to follow SIOP guidelines, but I don't believe they have yet (you can tell by looking at the faculty research interests). When I was applying 3 years ago I had a few people tell me some pretty discouraging things about GT, regarding the profs fighting for students and not collaborating on research (very competitive environment). I have heard Illionois Tech invites multitudes of students (30-35) and then they weed students out, you need to be very proactive to get attention from advisors, etc. I have heard good things about GMU, USF, UIUC,UMD, and PSU. PSU and UIUC prefer to train individuals for academia, so if you want to go there make sure you put that in your SOP. Let me know if I can help more, I am beginning my 3rd year in a PhD program.

GPA is usually used as a weeding out process (its hard to compare a 3.6 at one school to a 3.7 at another), but GREs are actually a little more important and can actually get you in a program almost by itself. Many schools apply for fellowships from the school (ie. arts and sciences). These fellowships can only be given to individuals who have 1300+ GREs. So some students are selected for those fellowships based on their GRE scores. I am sure that most have some sort of experience doing research, but a person with a 1320 with a year of research will get put up for that fellowship whereas someone with a 1280 that has a published paper, and multiple years of research can not be put up for that fellowship. Especially with the amount of department funding that has been being cut recently GREs are becoming even more important. So do not skimp on the GRE it is very important, also I/O programs really like to see high quant. scores as we are a very methods/statistics based major.

research experience or work experience is fairly important. You will also need to do very well on the GRE (particularly Quant; 700+) to offset your average GPA. From what I understand and have heard from professors in the field, the Big Ten universities (Penn St., Mich. St., Illinois, etc.) look for individuals that are interested in academia, so not having research experience and wanting to go to Penn St. could hurt you. If you are fairly set on going applied I would not mention that in your statement of purpose to a school that prefers to train academics. If anything mention you are very interested in both aspects of the field and would love the chance to further explore what both have to offer.

usually 9-10 hours. Obviously I am only familiar with my program, but we take between 9-10 and it is similar for other I/O programs.

A first year in my PhD program came from SFSU with his MA, so you can definately get into PhD programs from SFSU, so if that is your long term goal I would suggest, not going 40k in debt for a master's degree, I think schools look more at your research, letters of rec, GRE, etc., than the name of the school. I don't think it is worth going into a large amount of debt for, considering almost all your credits probably won't tranfer. Just my opinion though. Edit: I am referring to I/O psychology, I just realized you weren't referring to a particular field, my advice might advice was regarding I/O as I am not as familiar with other fields of psych.

Sorry to hear your dilemma psychgrad. I am a 2nd year student in an I/O program, so it is not the same as clinical, but we have 3 individuals that are now in our program that transferred from other programs they were not happy with. Do you have any contacts at other univerisites that you are somewhat close with? Having someone on the inside of the program you are considering transferring to would be a huge help. I hope it works out for you, I would hate to have an advisor that did not give good feedback and help. That is why I like the idea of not having an advisor when you come into the program. This way you can work with all the professors and then decide which one has the most in common with you and which one you click with best. I hope it all works out for you.

Have fun!! I love Kevin Fox! Such a nice, honest, down to earth guy. He helped me alot with my decision and application process.

Pedhazur, E.J., & Schmelkin, L.P. (1991). Measurement, Designs, and Analysis: An Integrated Approach. (We used this in Advanced Methods I & II) Gorsuch, R. L. (1983). Factor analysis (2nd ed.). (Methods III) Raykov, T., & Marcoulides, G. A. (2000). A first course in structural equation modeling. (Methods III) I also agree on the Tabachnick & Fidell book. (Used in Methods III and very helpful for all methods courses) These are all texts that were standard in our program whether it be Human Factors, I/O, or Clinical

Don't know much about Master's programs, but I have heard good things about Minnesota State. I believe Dan Sakau (SP?) is there. He is a very good guy, easy going and fun to be around. I have also heard they have several applied projects and work with several companies to prepare students for the applied world. However this is just what I have heard. Not familiar with any of the other programs.

I do not go to CMU, but almost went there. I went up and visited. The program appears to get good funding for a psych. program and Dr. Christiansen is a nice person that does do a lot of publishing. The town of Mt. Pleasant is one of the things that turned me off about CMU too. The town is extremely small and not very close to any major urban areas, so you are limited in internship experiences etc. (at least that was my thinking, Dr. Christiansen assured me that was not the case). Overall I thought it was a very good program but the town was not for me and the cold weather until May was also not for me. But again congrats!! Yeah GWU sent me a letter saying the I/O PhD program was not for me, however they would waive my application fee for their HR master's program, haha. It appears they preach a balanced program (I and O), but they are still an Org. program at heart. Good luck the rest of the way, at least you don't have to worry about not getting into a program, now you have to worry about deciding which school is best for you.

Congrats Uberskooper, who do you want to work with at CMU? Just curious what side you are more interested in and what your research interests were. Are you leaning more O or more I. Most of my interests were I and GWU told me I would not be a good fit for their program, so I am curious what your interests were.

no problem...yeah it is stressful, I feel obligated to help people out as I know I would have liked help when I was in the exact same seat as you. So any more questions fire away....by the way I am a 2nd year I/O PhD student.

the funny thing about this process is....that if you are not at the top or the bottom you won't hear much. If you don't hear anything in the next couple of weeks you are most likely on the unofficial waiting list. I didn't here from Clemson or UMSL until after April 16th. Most schools will send a denial of admission letter if you are a bottom applicant, I believe I got one from Depaul around this time, so you are most likely still in the hunt at a lot of schools.

The year I applied (2007) SLU had a day where they invited all the people they wanted, I don't remember exactly when it was, but I do not believe it was any later than mid-march. I can't say for sure about when the acceptances went out for SLU as I never got an official acceptance, I just knew one of the profs and he assured me they would find me funding if I decided to go there. But as I said for Central Michigan I received a call and a letter in early February. All of them vary. However like I said earlier, from what I have heard there are a lot of very strong applications this year, I am very glad I applied when I did. This is very good for the field though as this shows more people are hearing about it.

Unless something has changed in the last couple of years you ( I applied in 2007) probably would have heard from Central Michigan...I believe I heard the first week of February. I was impressed with their program, the only other program I applied to that you did was SLU...from what I have heard at my school their are a lot of very qualified students applying this year.

Yes it has a solid reputation in the field. I didn't really look into it much, but I have heard nothing but good things about it.

Consulting firm or internal consulting for a large corporation.

I recommend doing very well on the GRE. From what I have seen most programs use the GPA as more of a cutoff...if you have around a 3.5 you are fine..now obviously if you are looking at the very top programs that will not be the case as they can be much more selective. However schools in the Central Michigan, UCF, SLU,..etc. range you should be fine with a 3.5. The reason for this is because most program directors realize that grade inflation is becoming very common in universities nowadays, so how can you compare a 3.5 at one school to a 3.7 at another school? Now everyone has to take the GRE and it is a reliable and valid measure, so you can draw more direct comparisons between applicants. My program director has also told me that they look at the quant. score more than the verbal score. If you can get a 1300 on the GRE you have a good shot at getting into a lot of decent programs even with a 3.4.

The reason most I/O programs don't interview is for a few reasons....1. It is expensive to pay to bring every candidate out to an interview and 2. If you look at performance research, interviews...even structured interviews do not explain much more variance in performance than Cognitive Ability does...so it does not make much sense..they are hoping the letters of recommendation can throw the red flags that your test scores/gpa does not give them.