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Yeah, it seems your recommender is unnecessarily stubborn - but I will disagree with you about waiving your rights. In my experience (and most people on TGC will agree), although "technically" it doesn't reflect upon in your app, a letter that has not been waived indicates the letter writer is notified in the email notification that the letter will be available to the applicant at their discretion. As a result, this letter can be considered less valuable since the writer *might* not be completely forthcoming in their recommendation. Obviously, this probably depends on school to school and adcomm to adcomm, but in your case I really don't see how this would help you.

I would also be uncomfortable if my letters were not on the appropriate letterhead - however, if your recommender really doesn't want to use letterhead, I don't really see what you can do to mediate it :/ I doubt having 1 letter not on letterhead would be the difference of being accepted or not accepted into a program. If they are unsure about the authenticity of the letter, I'm sure the adcomm would simply get in contact with the letter writer. However I'm not sure how not waiving your right helps your case...it is always recommended to waive your rights, to corroborate the lack of bias.

Too true. If it's any consolation, I had to write 2 of my letters. I used this website as a guide, which I thought was super helpful (if you're still in the process of writing): http://theprofessorisin.com/2012/09/07/how-to-write-a-recommendation-letter/

I wouldn't worry too much greydude. I don't think adcomms are going to be leaning in with a magnifying glass trying to detect subtle similarities between your letters and SOP/WS. If you show overwhelmingly similar & noticeable mistakes in both then maybe, but otherwise - I doubt a busy adcomm reviewing potentially hundreds of applications cares too much.

Similarly to other people here, I am also only applying to a few programs - 4 to be exact. I had a couple more initially, but when I asked myself "Would I accept if my only offer was from this school?" I admitted I would probably say no. As a result, I scratched them. It may be more nerve-wracking, but this way you save money and it probably helps some other poor soul who really does want a place in that program.

Someone with personal experience might be able to chime in, but from what I understand an masters in general psych is only recommended when you're not quite sure what you want to study, because it will most likely give you a very broad overview of different subfields. However if you're sure about a certain subfield (e.g. cog psych), then you might be able to find programs that are more targeted, giving you a more in-depth education on your topics of interests.

I hear you, but that's just the name of the game. it's up to you. If you have the resources to spend applying this year on the slim chance of an admit, then go for it. But note that - depending on the caliber of the school - you will be competing with people with strong grades in the subject matter, years of research experience and defined research interests - potentially with publications. If you're willing to take your chances that's fine, but if you do I would also apply to a couple master's programs as well. You can always turn down the offer, but a master's (especially with a thesis) is one of the best ways to increase your competitiveness as an applicant if you have no previous background. I would also take the psychology GRE.

Who is applying to 13 programs?! That's crazy. You must need a personal assistant to keep up with everything!

What kind of program are you thinking of applying to? I think if you were interested in a master's degree, there is a good chance of admission so long as you have a well developed focus in your SOP - though bear in mind this would probably be unfunded. If you are not interested in a master's and are aiming for a PhD instead, it is highly unlikely you would gain an admission without *some* kind of research experience. In this case, it would be in your best interests to gain some research experience by volunteering in a lab (potentially get hired after a while if you are good/are lucky), taking some psych classes at your local community/extension school and applying next year.

If it's any consolation, my Harvard cancer-biology PhD student of an SO *still* thinks I'm going into psychiatry. For most people, psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis all run into the same "psy". At family dinners I just smile and nod now.

Regarding how schools view GRE attempts, bear in mind you have the option of only sending 1 set of scores, so the schools will only see these scores (regardless of previous attempts). If you haven't submitted your first scores yet, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Yeah, talking about this sort of thing in an SOP is tricky because unless you have a serious excuse (e.g. testing disability, death in the family around exam time, etc) it can come off as complaining/making excuses which might deter from everything else. Your recommender, on the other hand, is more likely to be persuasive to an adcom. If your LOR writers are anything like mine they'll agree the GRE is mostly BS and vouch for you

Being in the same boat as you, I considered doing this - but my advisers suggested I leave it out of the SOP in favor of focusing on the good. The LORs, on the other hand, might be used to counter any holes in the application. In my case, I've talked to two of my LOR writers who agreed that my Q score is not representative of my ability and would be willing to corroborate this in their letters. Could you do something like this?

I think the best thing you could do is email your POIs at your top choices (especially the very competitive ones) - even if the profs don't give you a straight answer, you will most likely be able to gauge from the context if your scores will be a problem. On a secondary note, as you might have read from other posts in this forum, the GRE is mostly used as a screening, rather than an absolute measure - if you pass the cutoff, you're usually ok. For what it's worth, I worked at MIT BCS for a year - while 85th percentile is preferred, I don't think a 160Q alone would keep your application from being reviewed.

I might be wrong, but I doubt a 160 Q for a Cog Neuro program is going to be below any cutoff. If it was MIT engineering, it may make more sense, but I don't think drawing attention to a perfectly good score would do you any favors in this case.

It depends on the school. Be sure to check for each institution.

It might be a little late in the game at this stage - depending on when your applications are due - but for both for my master's and now applying to PhDs, I have found Donald Asher's book "Graduate Admissions Essays" exceptionally helpful. It is a great guide that helped me navigate these types of questions. As a boost, it's a quick and easy read, and surprisingly entertaining. If you have the option of getting it on Amazon Prime, or something, I would!

I'm no expert, but I'd go for the first scores. A Q increase of 2 points is good but a drop in 7 for V is significant. That being said, if CS doesn't care about the V score at all, then that might change things. Could you get an opinion from your current supervisor or POI?

Yeah the dpi is just the resolution of the scan. You can scan your transcript yourself and see if it uploads to the application - if the resolution is too high it will tell you. At that point you can either use Adobe to save it in a lower resolution or use a free online service to "convert it" to a lower resolution. You can find this through a quick Google search I did this myself and didn't have any issues.

This. I found the questions from these practice books to be exactly on par of what was on the test. The explanations they give to answers I found to be a little convoluted (sometimes I found simpler ways of explaining it) but the having the questions alone was worth it.

Yeah, it seems very few fields care about the AWA score. Perhaps journalism or fields based in critical writing, but otherwise, I wouldn't worry too much.

Argh, that sucks. Yeah I think you should def call him at some point if you still haven't heard...

I agree that ETS was a good predictor; that being said, one of the PowerPrep tests I took a week before the exam was gave me a Q score that was 5 (!) points below what my real test was. Needless to say, anything can happen so try to not cling to any practice test too much.