lilgreycells

I've PMed you ChoSundari. And congrats!

I'll echo what haihai said and add that it definitely depends on the department. Some departments invite a bit more than the budget they have knowing that they will not be accepting all the students invited to recruitment weekend and others consider recruitment weekend a formality and it's just a matter of whether the prospective student chooses Peabody.

Someone messaged me about my post in last year's thread offering to chat with PhD students attending the interview/recruitment weekend. Forgot to mention I'm willing to do it again this year. Just message me and we can talk about the expectations for the weekend, events, etc. Good luck to everyone in their cycles!

When the information did appear on the website. I believe they were numbers from 2007 which is why they took them down.

On the PhD notifications for those invited to the weekends, should be soon my friends!

@StheBD I believe user haihai explained that he/she was not contacted until April and was eventually admitted off of the waitlist. I'm not sure if he/she attended the recruitment weekend and then didn't hear until April or was never contacted about the weekend. So that would mean that there is a chance that you could be on the waitlist though haihai is from a different department than the one you're interested. For the past 3 years at least, the entire cohort for LPS has come from people at the recruitment weekend. Not to say that has to happen this year (who knows what can happen in a given year). Just trying to give out some information. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

@jackinstyle Huh you have an interview next week? PM me if you want to chat about preparation and all that. Are you chatting with the faculty early for some reason? Feel free to answer that in the PM if you don't want to put that all out in public!

@lucerovespertino the Dean's office of Peabody has sent out the invitations to Recruitment Weekend for all of the departments. This is only for the PhD program. Master's students have a different timeline (for anyone reading who is applying to a Master's program).

Ah thanks for that haihai! I wasn't sure about the timeline for students not invited to the weekend.

All of the PhD programs at Peabody hold their interviews the same weekend (that's the recruitment weekend referred to previously). And yes while it can sometimes take longer, a majority of students hear back if it's going to be an acceptance by very early March (often within 2 weeks of interviewing). If you were not invited to interview I am not sure how long it can be before a response. That's not to say that the timeline I just outlined is set in stone. Just that's how it has generally worked in the past. Edited to add: for the PhD in Psych I never remember if they come the same weekend because of the joint program with Arts and Sciences. Apologies wish I could help more.

For PhD students in general, Peabody invites students who each department are seriously considering for acceptance to recruitment weekend. While getting invited to the weekend is not an automatic acceptance it is a great sign so congrats if you got the email last week! And not getting an invite doesn't mean an automatic denial either, though the chances are more slim. If you have any questions about the weekend (interview questions, general setup, dress) or Peabody PhD life in general feel free to PM me. I'm either in one of the programs y'all mentioned or have friends that are in them. Good luck to you all!

I can't speak to the sciences but for during my cycle I submitted a writing sample that was 24 pages including references. And a number of colleagues submitted samples around the same number of pages. So I don't think 15 is a crazy number of pages.

Most of my experience comes from Ed Policy/Public Policy programs. For them, I think in general work experience means actual postgraduate work experience not semester internships. Maybe those other people who only have summer/semester internships say that they have work experience but if you asked their departments they would say not really? Like there's just a miscommunication between the department and the students about what they're calling work experience?

Not a current applicant, but when I applied for my MEd and my PhD I used the same base statement and then just tweaked where needed. Much more tweaking necessary for the PhD statement since I needed to talk about how my research agenda fit that specific institution as well as which faculty members I wanted to work with.

I've DMed you.

Definitely agree with Physwimic. People will often apply to 5+ institutions and letter writers know this. So they'll have a generic letter and then make tweaks to make it match to each institution. That's why I found it helpful to send them an overview document along with my packet for the LOR that had the institution name, program name, who I wanted to work with (more applicable for doc programs) and any specific information I thought might be pertinent for that institution. That way the letter writers have an easy way to start the tweaks for each letter.

Right I agree with MsDarjeeling. It is part of the diversity category. So it never hurts to disclose but it won't be the reason you're accepted somewhere.

You can always check with the institutions you are applying to in order to get their official stance on this. I will say that in one of my previous lives I worked in admissions and we viewed students like you (parents had not earned a postsecondary degree before the student entered college) as first generation. So my guess is that yes you would be first gen but it never hurts to call an institution and ask them. Good luck with your cycle!

Peabody LPS PhD student here. You definitely want to re-take your GRE. It is not the most important part of your package but, due to the high number of quality applications, GRE scores are an easy area to cut someone out of the process. And wildviolet is definitely correct that the quant scores matter a lot for us. PM me if you want to chat more and good luck on your admissions cycle.

I've PMed you!

Definitely check out the Education threads for the institutions that other people applied to along with Vandy. I took the old GRE so I'm probably not as helpful in that regard. As far as Vandy is concerned at least it's generally just a gateway, not something that makes or breaks a decision. I did apply to Vandy and get admitted for entering in the fall of 2012 so PM if you had any questions along that line. Good luck with your search!

armadilla, STATA was built specifically to handle regression and I think that's why so many people like it. Plus the options available to create complex econometric models are top notch.

Vanderbilt's Recruitment Weekend is the same weekend for all departments of Peabody. It happens in February (think a friend said weekend of the 8th this year). Like I said before people get invited for the weekend and for some departments those are the people they are admitting, for other departments they will still be choosing to deny some of those people. If for some reason the people invited for the weekend are not what the department is looking for, they can then go back to the students they did not invite for the weekend. That is however, more of a rarity (not impossible just trying to be honest). Therefore, if you get invited for the weekend the department thinks you might be a good fit. If not, that doesn't mean you're automatically denied but your chances have decreased. Edited to add: And yes in general Education programs are not as clear as some of our hard sciences friends about interviews and whatnot. That's one of the reasons I was so grateful for this community last year to help me know what to expect for each of my institutions.

I've PMed you IdlerWheel.

For Vanderbilt, I'm not sure if every program in Peabody has the interview process. I do know that every PhD program at Peabody invites students for the Recruitment Weekend. However, just because the title is Recruitment Weekend does not mean that those students are already admitted. Students are not guaranteed admission just by being invited to the weekend. Also, sometimes departments choose to admit students that they did not choose to invite for the weekend (though this is a bit rare). If not invited for the weekend you normally are not notified for a bit (no clue exact amount) because they may still choose to admit you. Hope this helped clear some things up.