naizan

I'm not a mean person, but the impression that one might get in their initial few interactions with me is "competent but unempathetic". So it's going to take me a fair bit of effort to develop rapport with the faculty members of the programs that I will be visiting (I dread the dinners more than I did the GREs). But that's all right--I feel reasonably mentally prepared for this. But what about the current graduate students? Will their opinions of my character have some kind of influence on the selection process? I know that at some departments, graduate students have a say in whether candidates for faculty positions are hired or not. Is there some similar tradition in graduate admissions? I assume I will be spending a fair amount of time with the graduate students, but I would like to avoid having to play the role of "the amicable undergraduate," because I probably already know more about the discipline than most of them, in addition to having more life experience. I would like to be my usual myself, which is, I guess, "competent but unempathetic". I know I sound like Ebenezer Scrooge, but I just wanted to get some feel of what the people on this forum think about this.

My application to Princeton is for cognitive, not social.

Hi. I know that the faculty at Princeton selected a batch of applicants for interviews around Jan. 11. I don't know if there will be further invites, but if there are, they would certainly be within the next few days, since the joint interview date is approaching (unless they have a second interview date). Like you I am waiting for a response from Cornell. If anybody has info, please let us know. (interview date, what you know about the decision process, etc.)

Maybe... they just want to see how you react to a difficult question. I might do that if I were an employer, in order to avoid hiring someone who will e.g. display aggression when faced with pressure.

In case anyone is interested in this topic, I've found out that the University of Oregon psychology program allows students to do lab rotations as a substitution for their first-year projects. You can see the details on the graduate student handbook available at the program's website. Lewin and 3point14: thanks for messaging me your affiliations.

Joeyboy, If you're talking about the University of Tartu, their semiotics program is very well known, at least within the world of semiotics. I think semiotics is more prominent in Europe than it is in North America.

I know that psychology programs don't usually offer the opportunity to do lab rotations: you enter the program with the intention to work with a particular faculty member. But I would like to be able to try working with multiple researchers before committing myself to a particular lab. So, although my true object of love is psychology, I'm thinking of mostly applying to neuroscience programs, since they do have lab rotations (I have a background in cog-neuro). I've decided that for me, flexibility trumps many other factors. Here's my question: Do you guys know if there are any psychology programs out there that encourage entering grad students do lab rotations before formally choosing an advisor? Thanks.

Thanks!

Say you're applying to a psychology department somewhere, and you state your wish to work in a particular lab whose PI happens to be a "superstar". I think it's obvious that well-known names are going to entail higher competition, but do you think this will this reduce your probability of being accepted into the program itself? To tell you the truth, I don't really understand how the whole thing works. Is it possible that you're accepted, but the PI whose name you stated is taking another student instead of you? Or does the department accept you only if the PI who you want to work with has an open spot?

It's a bit pricy, but Magoosh.com was a huge help for me when I took the GRE in the summer. Their math problems are a lot harder then the actual problems that appear on the GRE (but they will walk you through the logic of each problem with a video), so when you take the actual exam, it will seem unbelievably easy.