repatriate

The responses you got in the Applications forum are very good responses. Although numbers matter, the vagaries of psychology admissions dictate that there are no good, general rules. Each department handles applications a little differently; sometimes, individual faculty members will have a lot of freedom in picking individual students for their labs. In those cases, you need to worry about whether each faculty member to whom you are applying has a cutoff score and about the scores of the other applicants to their lab that year (i.e., your score might be at 50th percentile in their apps in year and at the 80th another year). In other cases, an admissions committee may have strong influence over the process and then there may be more formal cutoffs, or it may be more difficult for an individual faculty member to advocate for a student with low scores. And, again, your relative position withing the distribution of applicants might change from year to year (though less so). The best answer is: get the best scores you can. You may be interested in the APA's book on graduate programs in psychology. They publish a new one each year that lists, I believe, mean and median scores of admitted students. Still, those stats don't tell you much. Half of the people admitted have scores at or below the median, so even if the median GPA of admits is 3.8, you have no way of knowing what the bottom-scorer scored.

It shouldn't matter. If you do take time off, admissions committees will want to see that you did something relevant with your time off. Most of my cohort are straight out of college.

Birdcrazy, I am very sorry that your mood disorder has so disrupted your life. I hope that you have some good doctors helping you out. It's definitely possible to recover and do things that you enjoy and accomplish things that make you feel good. And working on achieving your is awesome. I agree with psycholinguist: don't give up. That said, grad school is definitely very stressful. If stress triggers your symptoms, you can work on this with your doctors (as you probably already are) through behavioral therapy techniques (basically exposing you to stress and walking you through how to deal with it and any symptoms you encounter as a result) and whatever other treatments are appropriate for your specific disorder. Keep pushing yourself; many people make it through this process, learn to manage their conditions, and do awesome things. A word of caution: although disability services are very supportive and filled with people who will listen to you without judgment and help you find solutions, you cannot expect the same thing from your home department or advisor. Some departments and faculty will be supportive, but many will not. Graduate level studies are considered more like a job than like school, so, just like your boos might be angry (justifiably or not) if your condition prevents you from meeting deadlines or causes you to be absent, your advisor may have the same attitude. One of my friends who had a mood disorder faced a lot of prejudice in her department for the disorder, and was even told that she should not be pursuing her degree because of it. She entered the degree at a sensitive time, when she was not as good at managing her condition, and so she found this attitude to be severely stressful, on top of the regular stress of academic work. She did complete the program, and it was a great accomplishment for her that I know she is proud of, but it at times made her miserable, and it was painful to watch. That's not to say that you shouldn't pursue your dreams; by all means, go for it! But make sure that you can find a disability-friendly department/advisor or that you can manage your condition successfully enough to deal with the addition stress of knowing that your advisor is not accepting of a disability. As for the accommodations you might be able to get, you should discuss these with your doctor. Disability services groups are generally willing to work with you on an individualized basis, so you can get accommodations suited to your specific symptoms. If your mood disorder involves, for example, extended depressive episodes that prevent you leaving your house for several days or weeks, you may get accommodation for class absences or for working from home. Or if you have a co-morbid anxiety disorder that causes you to freeze up with important assignments and not be able to start them for days, you may be able to get extended deadlines for written work (with prior arrangement with supervisors). Of course, the disability services will probably want any accommodations to be recommended/confirmed by a relevant specialist (i.e., they won't just let you do whatever you say you want). How this would play into lab work (e.g., missed lab time/meetings), I'm not sure. As another of my friends said on entering a degree program with a mood disorder: "I've been miserable before, and I survived. If I end up miserable again, at least this time, I know I can survive, and I know when it will end." Sometimes, just believing you can make it helps you to make it.

I know that this happens in my field. The large conference in my discipline is in late January every year, so it is the ideal format for side conversations about applicants. I know that my master's advisor, X, discussed my applications with several of the faculty to whom I had applied (X knew them already, though) at the conference last year. And when I sent out "feeler" emails, it wasn't uncommon for faculty to put in their reply a note to "tell X I say hi"--even when I didn't mention X.

I scored in the 95th percentile without a psych major (but with 15 credits in psychology). I used Kaplan's book but I also did a lot of independent reading of classic works in psychology (i.e., famous papers like Milgram's obedience studies and Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment). If I recall correctly, social psychology makes up a disproportionate amount of the test, so you might even want to pick up a cheap used social psychology textbook. For the neuroscience/biological stuff, I loved A Colorful Introduction to the Anatomy of the Human Brain: A Brain and Psychology Coloring Book. It probably either sounds incredibly corny or totally awesome to you, but I swear by it. At the time I took the test, it was mostly a matter of knowing facts, but I recall rumors that the test was changing to include some new question types that involved more problem-solving/research skills. Good luck!

I'd be happy to take a look, if you like. PM me.

Perhaps you can ask your research supervisor, then? You will get the best answer from someone who is actually involved in admissions. I would be concerned about the grade because not all schools consider a C+ a passing grade for graduate students. It may look to schools that requires an A or a B for graduate students that you are not prepared for graduate study, especially given your previous GPA. And even schools that consider C+ a passing grade for graduate students may not want to take on a student that might just skate by. The fact that you are applying for an MA and not a PhD will probably lessen this effect. Stats courses are notoriously rough on first year psych students, so it is to your advantage that the class is a statistics class. But you need to provide some evidence that your regular performance in graduate school will be above the C+ level. Emphasize your major GPA. Has your overall GPA shown an upward trend? If you had a rough beginning but smoothed things out towards the end, that will look better than if you have Cs, Ds, and Fs scattered throughout your transcript.

Why not talk to your professor for the statistics class? Tell him you are really eager to enter a graduate program and ask if he thinks your grade in his course would be a barrier to getting into a program like the one at your school.

I am not in political science, so I cannot speak to the specifics of the field. However, I gather that you are asking about teaching positions at the university level. In general, professorships are not solely (sometimes not even primarily) teaching positions. Rather, they involve some mix of teaching and research and are appointed based on skills in each of these domains. Though the degree to which each of these skills is emphasized varies from institution to institution, both will be seen as important in some degree at almost all four year degree-granting institutions. Thus, if a JD has no research training, he or she may be judged as unsuitable for a position which demands research as a principal responsibility. Of course, not all post-secondary teaching is done by tenure-track professors at universities. Adjunct professors and lecturers can teach courses at such institutions without the expectation of research commitment and these positions may not require the same credentials. However, these positions are generally temporary and poorly paid in comparison to tenure-track positions. Professorships at community colleges, likewise, will not face the same expectations for research. If your goal is to teach in one of these positions, a lack of research training may not be such a hindrance.

Wow, that's an outrageous fee! You definitely shouldn't need to pay that. When I was studying in UK, I did not pay such a fee for a current account (at Barclay's). I also didn't need a debit card to have a mobile; getting a sim card only required a post code, and that could be popped into any compatible phone. Perhaps a contract requires a debit card, but I definitely preferred the convenience of topping up as I needed it to paying a monthly fee. It sounds like maybe you are being taken advantage of as a foreigner.

My page headers included the document name (e.g., Statement of Purpose), my name, and the program (most departments had several programs). I put the page number centered on the bottom. For example:

Perhaps the admissions officer meant that you should ask about general application procedures rather than area-related topics? It still seems like a stretch, but perhaps if norms in the two countries are very different, the faculty member from your country could advise you about mistakes that you might make that you wouldn't even be aware of making. For example, it may be common in country A to reference an applicant's non-research related qualities (e.g., manners, community involvement, etc.) in a LOR but in country B, this kind of information could be taken as evidence that the referee did not have enough to say about the person's research skills. So someone from A applying to schools in B might want to advise his referees to exclude such information. The faculty member in question may have some knowledge about such differences. Of course, depending on your own knowledge and experience and on the academic cultures in the two countries, that kind of advice might not be needed or helpful.

When I applied to psychology departments, I addressed my low GPA in my SOP simply by stating that it is not indicative of my talent or potential and by explaining how my more recent scores are better indicators. I didn't attempt to provide excuses, but I was frequently asked about the scores in interviews, at which point I elaborated on why they were low and how the cause of the low scores was no longer a concern.

Some of the information you're after (mean, median scores) can be found in the APA's book Graduate School in Psychology http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4270093.aspx Generally speaking, placement statistics (jobs after graduation) are not standardized and you will need to get them from individual departments. Some people have drawn correlations between IQ and GRE (e.g., http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx) but whether that means you need a high IQ to get a good score is another matter. ETA: I want say that I don't think the GRE-->IQ estimators out there (there are several) are very useful or valid. My own GRE score gives an IQ estimate I think is much higher than my actual IQ, and I'd recommend not taking such things as anything more than a fun, and possibly flattering, gag. I'm sure that intelligence helps, but practice is one of the surest ways to raise test scores, and studying for the GRE will certainly help. All that to say: do not take a fatalistic view of your GRE score; many people's scores improve through practice and studying.

Tell your professors that you are thinking about graduate school. Ask their advice about what they would think of your application with and without additional work experience. Tell them that you might ask them for a letter of recommendation and ask if they would prefer to write one now (and file it with the school) or in a year or two, and ask what they would need when they write the letters (e.g., an email reminding them of what work you did for them and a current CV). Since professors write these letters all the time, many of them develop a system for doing them efficiently and well. The best thing you can do is find out what they prefer.

The US doesn't have separate designations for taught versus research master's. Master's degrees here are typically two years and are most frequently designated as MA or MS (except for some disciplines or schools that confer specialized designations) with no MPhil or MRes designations. Depending on the field, most master's degrees in the US are a mix of taught modules and research.

In general, at the large state university I went to, we called all non-TA instructors (whose actual titles were varied) "Professor" just out of politeness and only PhD-holding instructors "Dr."

A few things slipped my mind yesterday: 1. Being a research assistant is the best way to get letters of recommendation. It means a lot more for a professor to say "Edible worked in my lab for a year" than "Edible too my class" because the former will be followed up details about your work ethic and knowledge of research and literature, whereas the latter will be followed with "and got an A" and not much else. 2. If you struggle to find research opportunities in the psychology department, you can look more broadly. You will find psychologists (including social psychologists) in lots of schools/departments, especially education and business. 3. I get the impression from your spelling that you are outside the US. Most of the forumites here appear to be US-based and/or applying to US schools, so keep in mind that much of the advice you will read here is tailored to the US graduate school system and may need some adjustment if you are applying elsewhere. Familiariz(s)e yourself with the application process in the country where you will apply and seek out advice from graduate students at your home school to get a sense of what things are like where you are (if you plan on staying there).

The APA websites lists accredited dual programs (most are counseling/school and clinical/school): http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/programs/accred-prof-scientific.aspx

Edible, kudos on finding your motivation and thinking ahead about this. Your GPA definitely won't keep you out of graduate school. (I got into some top psychology programs with a 3.2 undergraduate GPA.) But showing a pattern of improvement is important, so really put everything you've got into the rest of your classes. Also be prepared for questions about your GPA in interviews (depending on how high you can get it), and have a ready response to explain why your early performance doesn't predict failure in grad school. There are at least three things you should do starting now to improve your chances. First, as schoolpsych_hopeful said, look for opportunities to work as a research assistant in one or more labs on your campus. This is the most important thing. It is what I hear over and over from faculty when they comment on student profiles. If you don't know what kind of research is going on at your school, go to office hours and ask your professors what they study. They will be happy to talk about it. Or you can find out by looking on the department's website. Ask around about working as a research assistant and get in as many semesters as your can. Second, if you haven't already, start reading journal articles in research areas that interest you. If you like social psychology, look at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. A good way to get into a particular topic is to read a review article, such as those published in Personality and Social Psychology Review. Reading these articles will do two things for you: 1) it will help you write a focused and clear statement of purpose and appear knowledgeable in interviews, and 2) it will help you find out where to apply. As you narrow in on research topics and methodologies you find interesting, start paying attention to the authors of the articles you really like. Find out what schools these people are at and apply there. Third, join some professional societies such as the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). These societies will give you journal subscriptions and useful newsletters with advice for applications. Once you are becoming comfortable with the literature in your field and have some research experience, you can be a reviewer for SPSP and APS student research competitions, which is a bonus for your CV. You can also attend their conferences to network and learn about the topics that are of interest to researchers right now (as opposed to studies they published years ago and may have moved on from). That's all that comes to mind immediately, but it will be a good foundation.

I'm preferential to Moleskine myself, but I know that many of my friends use Paperchase products. They're probably about the same price, though, and I don't know if they lay quite as flat as a Moleskine or have similarly small ruling. I've also been known to buy Paper Blanks books from time to time. (I believe they're sold at Borders in the US.) But, again, that's not any cheaper than Moleskine. You may want to check out D*I*Y Planner or even ask the folks over there. They trend toward high end paper products (think Moleskine, Levenger, etc.), but there are creative people over there coming up with cheap and DIY solutions. There's even a whole forum devoted to notebooks. If you're into DIY, there's a site to teach you how to make your own Moleskine-type notebooks. You could also look into some of the refillable journal options. The covers can range from really reasonable to outrageously expensive (as can the refills). But then you'll have to decide what to do with the pages once you've swapped refills. I've never used these, so I don't have any specific recommendations.

Business cards are passed between equals/colleagues just as they are between service providers and clients. It is common to exchange business cards when networking with people in the same business. I know several professionals who give out business when meeting anyone because they include their cell phone numbers on their cards. Thus, the cards are social as well as professional.

At first, the idea of grad student business cards struck me as pretentious, but the more I think on it, the more reasonable it seems. For many of us, graduate school is a job. The students in my current program talk about "going to work" and not "going to school." I did a quick Google search for "graduate student business card" and saw that many schools offer official versions. The school I'll be attending next year has two versions for students--networking and job search cards. The networking cards are for going to conferences, giving presentations, etc. and include school contact information. The job search cards are for students who are graduating and conducting independent job searches; they have personal contact information.

I agree that the difficult math section was very anxiety-inducing. I was sure I would do poorly, and I had already canceled one score. I didn't want to waste more money! I ended up with an 800, which was shocking to me because the first section was so hard I couldn't believe I had aced it, and I didn't read carefully or check any work on the second, so I was sure I'd made some stupid mistakes. Reasons to believe it was the hard section: 1) getting harder questions indicates I was doing well, and 2) I was relatively rested and was actually paying attention when I took it. Reasons to believe it was the easy section: 1) It seems MUCH more likely I could have gotten a perfect score on that given how easy it was. But would they really have given me that torturous section and worn me out before giving me the real section? That seems cruel!!

To add another anecdote to the ungraded math section discussion: I took the test in the US in 2007. I had two math sections and did not get notice that one was optional (and certainly no offer to win money). The first math section was actually fairly hard and exhausting. The second one was so easy (and I was so tired) that I didn't take it seriously and just breezed through it. To this day, I haven't decided which one I think was the graded portion.