Behavioral

And though I don't necessarily agree with some of the statements in the article, this is a fun read nonetheless.

What ktel said. As it stands, it's a group of people who are angry at generally everyone. They started off being angry at bankers on Wall Street, and now they're angry at "the 1%" (including those in the top percentile that didn't contribute to the economic recession; i.e., physicians); and now they're angry at government in general. Until they get their argument at least somewhat coherent, I'm just ignoring the movement.

Don't you even dare talk about 'windy'! -A transplanted Californian in Chicago

I was born and raised in Southern California (LA then SD for school/work), and I'm tackling the winter head on. Sure I might freeze to death, but I don't plan on being outside my apartment and office much, so the suffering will hopefully be minimized to just the trip to and from campus. And yeah -- I lacked all the confidence in the world and only applied to two top 10 schools (really wish I applied to a lot more), but I can't (and don't) regret where I ended up. Apply broadly, but if you're even itching to see if you can get in somewhere, I'd hate to regret not applying to a school for the rest of my career.

If you can't call them by their first name now, when do you actually expect to be able to? After graduating? After you're done with a post-doc? After you've gained a professor position? After you're tenured? If your professor has enough confidence in you to tell you to call them by their first name, then do it. You may never consider yourself a peer to them, but that doesn't mean the inverse is true.

Why not Kellogg? You'd get direct access to Galinsky and also to Derek Rucker in Marketing (who is THE 'power' guy in Psych and Business).

The sample sizes aren't large enough to draw straight inferences, but the data don't seem to be too far off from what I would have expected.

Yup. There's good reason why everyone here recommends the book to all the prospective applicants.

I never restricted myself to only being friends with people in my department; quite the contrary, I just found friends based on my hobbies (i.e., intramural sports, biking, mixed martial arts, etc.). I also hang out at bars whether I'm just relaxing or need to read while stepping out of the office. Sometimes other grad students are there doing the same thing, so I talk to them when it seems like both of us could use a productive distraction.

Besides finding niche programs like Princeton's ORFE program, you're really going to have to just make a leap of faith; if you can be happy with either discipline, then apply broadly to programs in both and then choose based on fit post-hoc.

Nice to see some positive posts here for a change. I feel very much the same. I'm having fun finally getting a chance to be a full-time student (I worked two jobs simultaneously throughout undergrad, which really took time away from classes and research), and be able to spend all my time attending classes, studying, and reading journals. We, too, have three weekly seminar series, though food is only free sometimes (meh, I steal free food from the MBAs in my building all the time, so no complaints). I'm also thankful I go to a top program in my field since the invited speakers that come here are among the most prolific and respected in our discipline. Even people on the market giving their job talks are of highest-quality, so it gives us a basis to model off of for when we're about to graduate. I've had a great time getting to know my cohort (only five of us all together, and three of us in our specific subfield) along with all the older students in my program. The social atmosphere between the students is one of the biggest draws that helped me choose which school to matriculate to after I had narrowed down all my acceptances. The faculty are awesome -- I'm working with three professors already, and even though it's a lot of work, it's something I enjoy doing and it's only going to benefit me in the future. I've also been involved in GSA (Graduate Student Association), which helps me get away from reminders about my specific research. I love my friends in my department, but I need a break sometimes from the 60-70 some odd hours I spend learning and reading about my research. I joined the volleyball IM team, have gone on a few bike rides with the NU Bike Team, and have a few friends I go to the gym with, so my health hasn't slipped too badly (something I was genuinely worried about before starting my program). Anyway, I'm having a great time. I'm only a month into my program, and I realize it does get much more difficult, but I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

Good to hear you have a contact at Indiana. Leverage that as much as you can and talk to your advisor. No clue on the hard cutoffs, but most schools still have soft cutoffs that they use during administrative culling (unless a professor is on the lookout for your application a priori). Sucks that a standardized test that doesn't measure research ability is so important, but it's part of the system and you have to accept that schools adopt it as a metric for a good enough reason that they won't just overlook it. I love Kellogg so far. The faculty here are among the most famous and respected in all of marketing. Management and Organizations here is no slouch either. I'm sure you've heard of Keith Murnighan (actually taking a behavioral economics seminar with him this quarter) and Adam Galinsky -- both are prolific and extremely well-respected in their research, and best of all, both are so approachable and open to working on projects with students. I don't care much for advertising for Kellogg, but Murnighan and Galinsky alone are enough for many to put Kellogg on their application list; add Kellogg's overall reputation for being a research powerhouse, the ability to cross-enlist with U of Chicago classes, and the weighted emphasis on inter-disciplinary research (I'm working on pitching Keith an idea for a study; lots of other students work with Psych faculty), it's hard not to give us a nod.

Yeah I'm talking specifically about PhDs (which the OP was referring to). In STEM fields, you sometimes do rotations and work on projects already in progress, but you probably won't be able to turn them into a thesis or dissertation without a lot of evolution and input from your own insight.

http://orfe.princeton.edu

If your professors are anything like mine, you'll know ahead of time if you need to work on bringing up your grade due to class participation or lack of preparation.

How's everyone liking the city so far? I've been able to head down to downtown a few times since the start of the quarter, but I'm starting to see my free time dwindle more and more and more.

Can't even come up with a topic? You probably won't come up with results.

Only for a very (by very, I mean I can probably count the number of programs with my fingers) select few do, and they're all Experimental Psychology MAs.

You really think all that coursework is a stupid formality? You think you're better than everyone else who've done things before you and helped revolutionize your discipline? Even if a seminal paper has little to do with your precise research interest doesn't mean it doesn't hold monumental value over the way you go about conducting research. There's a REASON why these papers become benchmarks in fields and why people today still read and cite them heavily. Having such a narrow view is what causes gaps between related disciplines, and that segmentation only weakens a science. And I know this is a forum that's supposed to be, more or less, encouraging and all, but why are you even in the program then? If you're going to be this negative and cynical of academia, then get out. No one's forcing you to stay in. If you have to think twice about whether or not this path leads you to what'll make you happiest in the long run, then get out. There are easier ways to make a lot more money than getting a Ph.D.; if you're unhappy with what research leads you to, then there's no point in staying in a doctorate.

Aversion to being perceived an imposter will also light a fire under you--embrace it.

You take intermediate stats in most experimental doctoral programs (i.e., regression, ANOVA, SEM, etc.), which isn't too bad. I know a lot of schools do allow students to audit undergrad courses if the student chooses to.

I know in my program (Kellogg Marketing), internationals easily outnumber domestics -- it's also like that for the entire entering class of 2011 with 20/32 being international (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Programs/DoctoralProgram/Admissions/AdmissionsStatistics.aspx)

No.

The research experience is definitely going to be a huge plus, for sure. You're unfortunately going to HAVE to re-take the GRE (or be like me and take the GMAT instead, since most b-schools prefer it over the GRE) since I believe all schools have a hard cutoff of 1000 at least. For IU-Bloomington, are you applying there for OB or Social Psych? If the latter, they're not a safety; if you're applying to Kelley SOB, then they're easier, though still not an easy program to get into (I did get in for Marketing last year, though). And you're most definitely going to have to apply to more than four programs, especially when three of them are considered top 5-10 in their disciplines.

In California, I typically slept with my window open year-round, and during the winter, the temperatures would drop down to 50F outside, which would of course cause the indoor temperature to approximate towards that, too. I think I've been relatively good at acclimating to more extreme climates because I try to minimize the polarity in temperatures in- and outside by not relying on AC and heat TOO much. I also tend to go on walks a good amount, whether it's hot or cold, sunny or raining outside. Now that I'm in the midwest, I might eat my own words, but I seem to already be doing better than some of the students from around here when temperatures drop at night.