giles

And as far as if you stand a chance in the less directly related psychology fields, see the GradCafe results page where someone in Cognitive and Behavorial Sciences won the fellowship in 2011 (http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=ndseg&t=a&o=&pp=25). If you spin your research interests in a good way, their uniqueness may end up working in your favor.

I'm in Chemical Engineering, and when I applied I made sure I had a couple of sentences that spelled out exactly why the DoD should be interested in my research. I think you only need to address it; don't beat it into the ground. Your focus should be on your actual research. If you talk at length about all the wonderful ways the research could be of use to the DoD, this may come across as contrived.

Are you for serious?? Dude. MIND. BLOWN. Alright, now I'm nervous as hell --- I wasn't supposed to have to worry about this for another month!!

Update: I've have also been accepted into Delaware (1/25) , Georgia Tech (1/31), and Florida (2/1). I find it funny (in a desparate sort of way) that all five schools I've yet to hear from are also the five highest ranked schools I applied to (MIT, Berkeley, U. Minnesota - Twin Cities, UT Austin, U. Wisconsin - Madison). A friend of mine (who is actually in the running for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship) got accepted to MIT a couple of days back. By the way, NC State did eventually send me an e-mail notification, just a week after it had already been posted to the online application. Good luck everyone.

Hi, if I'm understanding you correctly, what you've done should be fine. It is neither required nor typical to obtain a Master's degree before obtaining a Ph.D. I hope you have heard some good news back from these schools.

Greetings, I applied for the following: GA Tech, Florida, NC State, U. Michigan, Wisconsin - Madison, UC Berkeley, MIT, U. Delaware, UT Austin, and Minnesota - Twin Cities. With the exception of the Minnesota app, I also sent all mine in around early December. I got accepted to Michigan and NC State --- I reckon we MAY hear from Delaware soon. Even though their deadline was Jan. 4 I believe, their website says they have "rolling admission" and they seem to review the apps as they come in. Keep your eyes peeled. NC State didn't send me an e-mail notifying me of an admission decision --- I logged back onto the "ApplyYourself" database today, and voila, there was my acceptance letter. Best of luck to you. Stephen G.

I, too, had purchased the Princeton Review book to study for the GRE. It was a very poorly edited book. I found a much more beneficial aid to be the free GRE practice test offered by Kaplan on kaptest.com. I found this test to be quite representative of the GRE and an accurate score predictor. I made a 158 and 168 on the verbal and quantitative sections, respectively, on the practice test... compared to 161 and 169 on the real deal. The Kaplan practice test is also very handy because, upon completing the test, it will give you a detailed breakdown of your strengths and weaknesses.