+Whiskey

No idea on a scale for you Paul, but are you on researchgate? If not (and if you've tried every other search method available to you - don't waste others' time), research gate is probably the ideal venue to crowd source this.

Agree with everyone else that this "dreams shattered" narrative is a little dramatic. You just need to retake the GRE, and as you study for it, focus more on how to learn the test than a list of words. Understanding the ins, outs, and consistencies in every verbal section of every GRE will boost your score more than memorizing hundreds of new words. It's also the easier and more entertaining strategy for test prep. Princeton Review books are the best for this route.

Agree with previous posters. Your experience will help and your lack of publication record won't hurt. I'd like to add: Retake the GRE! You will need better than above -average scores to be competitive, especially in clinical programs. Study like it's your job and retest.

I wholeheartedly agree with most of the above advice and would like to add: Get some sleep! Sleep can be so important to curiosity and motivation but it's so often overlooked. Get some rest. And then try to gauge and be honest with yourself about what amount of genuine rest is most efficient for YOU. Good luck! I know it's weird and maybe counterintuive to work fewer hours when you're facing difficulties.

Sometimes focusing on coming up with something original has the opposite effect. Maybe you're just freaking yourself out. Keep reading, become knowledgeable on the subject (if you still want to, that is), but try to relax a bit. Get adequate rest. Realize that this is a small part of a big career. Celebrate. YMMV, but I come up with good ideas when I'm curious and able to really comprehend what I'm reading, and being stressed and/or sleep deprived is a detriment to both. At the end of the summer, or especially sooner, emailing to say you'd like to help but you feel behind or not ready to contribute something revelatory isn't a huge failure on your part, and I can't imagine he/she would think so as long as you're up front about it. Good luck and congratulations!

Congratulations! I had two kids in my four years of undergrad, and I'm starting an awesome PhD program in the fall. It will be difficult, but honestly I think having young children in grad school is probably easier than having young children in many other careers or phases of academic careers, due to having a bit more flexibility than say.... a new lawyer or an assistant professor. If I were in your position, I would learn everything I could about the resources that will be available to you and the policies that will affect you right away. At some schools, you can sit down with someone for a personal consultation to sort all that out, which can be very helpful and specific. Your school probably has parent groups you could check out to get info from people who have had babies as grad students at your institution, and hopefully even in your department. Also, I wouldn't necessarily wait to tell your adviser until you arrive in person visibly pregnant. There might be advantages to letting him/her know as soon as you're ready to share the news with other acquaintances. When I told my adviser that I'd be moving cross-country to join the program with two young kids, he immediately put me in touch with other parents in the department, who've already been invaluable sources of information. Sharing the news and getting some support in place before you arrive might soften your landing and spread out the stress of the first term a little. Good luck!!

Due to a luggage mishap (long story), I had to interview at a top choice PhD program wearing a horse dress and moccasins. And when I say "horse dress" I mean a dress with little horses printed all over it. Yellow and blue ones. I joked about my outfit with grad students and other prospectives, but I didn't waste what little time I had with my POI talking about my clothes. It was a west coast interview, so a lot of people weren't wearing suits, but I was definitely the only person with animals printed on her clothes. I don't know if the story got around or not, but I did get the offer. Hopefully your attire won't be a deal breaker either. Good luck!

Moving expenses? I wouldn't have asked, but my POI wasn't encouraging me to ask for the moon. It's worth a shot.

I've seen everything from $10,000 - $40,000 for social programs, depending on public vs private and cost of living. The APA's Graduate Study in Psychology has funding numbers for programs.

I have three top choices and an interview at one of them. I applied to 11 programs and have 2 invitations to interview weekends. I haven't heard from any of the other 9 programs, but I've seen phone interviews and/or invitations to a couple of them, so those might be implicit rejections. Congrats EastCoasting and good luck to everyone!

I'm planning (hoping?) to begin a PhD program in the fall, and I have two young children. They will be 2 and 4 when I begin. I agree with previous posters that extraordinary time management skills are a must! I have a super supportive husband who does a lot of the cooking, cleaning and childcare. Personally, I don't think I could do it without him. I strongly recommend NOT scrimping on self care. While balancing two young kids, a full time course load, a TA position, and two independent research projects, I still make time for a reasonable amount of sleep (6+ hours, for me), nutritious meals, and time with my friends and spouse. It can be done. And I've found that when I do not eat and sleep, every single other thing suffers. For example, if I'm up against a deadline, so I choose to only sleep 4 hours or so for a few nights and eat out of bags, everything I do takes longer, I make more errors, I'm irritable with my sweet kids, I forget to take the trash out, etc., etc., etc. Everything just goes to hell. It's much better for everyone for me to take care of myself and use the hours that are set aside for work very efficiently. It took me years to figure out how to do everything well at the same time, though. It's not easy. Though my situation is different, I do have a couple of friends who have had babies during grad school, and they're doing okay too! Overall, I think everyone agrees that being a student parent is tough, but so worth it. If you really want to have a demanding career and a family, there's no great time to have young kids. It probably won't be easier during the pre-tenure years. It may not be possible after. I think you just have to do what you feel is best for you and your family. Good luck!

*sigh* Can the person who heard from Social Psych at WUSTL pm me your POI please?

Their website still says invitations will be extended by the 25th, and it's probably not super common to call on a Saturday evening. Don't count yourself out yet!

I read journals, the Observer, follow the APA and APS on facebook and visit lab websites of places I want to attend.

I mentioned at least two per school in statements, but I always picked a favorite. There was always one person I really, really wanted to work with and one or two more whose interests aligned with mine well enough that I would be happy working and collaborating with them and that made me think that the department as a whole would be a good fit. I think I wrote a paragraph on my favorite POI and a paragraph on the one or two others who were reasonably good fits for each school, making the preference pretty obvious.

Univ of Oregon February 1 - 3

I'm playing The Sims 3, reading the Game of Thrones series, watching the first two seasons of Downton and knitting hats for everyone I know. Fortunately, I return to classes on Monday.

I'm not an expert on LOR etiquette or anything, but based on what I've been told and what I've read in the chronicles of higher ed. forums I think it's generally considered poor form to write blatantly negative letters and reflects at least as poorly on the letter writer as the student. Given how expensive and high-stakes the application process is, professors who don't have anything nice to say usually either decline to write when asked or write lukewarm, strictly factual letters and let ad comms read between the lines. I'm assuming the lit professor knows you'd be leaving another program to join his or her's and that your current advisors might not be overjoyed at such a move, and has already considered the implications of that decision, without receiving a negative letter. If your other letters are great, the more objective parts of your application are impressive, and you were urged to apply by a professor who was aware of the situation, I can't imagine the negative letter would be a deal breaker. But again, take my advice with a grain of salt.

I applied to a couple of developmental programs (also social and evolutionary programs). I got an invitation to interview weekend for Oklahoma State's lifespan developmental program on the 23rd of December. I haven't heard from any other schools so far. I've seen some other developmental programs in the results section though.

Anyway. Thanks again to everyone who responded thoughtfully. I know asking questions about marital or parental status during normal job interviews is improper, but a few of the schools I applied to asked for marital status right on the application, so I wasn't sure what guidelines, if any, are followed for doctoral interviews, or what else I might be expected to disclose during the process. This thread has clarified things a lot, and I feel better prepared to steer around any family-related discussions during interview weekends, and have an idea of how to get all the information I need later on, to make final decisions.

Thank you for all of your thoughts, suggestions and statistics. I'll avoid any mention of my children until I have an official offer, even during casual conversations, as gross as that feels. I'm sure that completing a PhD program with kids will be difficult, and we completed our family and got the kids through babyhood before I began grad school with this in mind. The only other thing I'm worried about related to interviewing and kids is being asked why I only took 12 hours during a couple of semesters if I didn't have a job. I'm afraid my schedule might not look very rigorous during that time. My daughter was born two weeks before finals and I was up several times per night the following semester, so I kept my courseload relatively light. I carried a 4.0 that year and conducted some independent research, but that probably doesn't seem very impressive if the potential advisor is not aware that I was doing anything else at all. IF that question comes up (not sure how likely it is), do I say I just wanted to focus my efforts on those particular classes, mumble something vague about family obligations, or at that point do I have to admit to having a child or risk someone feeling "duped" later on?

I'm interviewing next month and I can't decide how open to be about being married with young children. I haven't mentioned my family in any correspondence or in statements because it hasn't really seemed relevant, but now that I'm preparing for weekend-long visits to cities where we might all spend the next five years I wonder if I can or should ask questions about the family-friendliness of cities and programs, what kinds of resources are available to student parents, etc. I've received two (radically different) pieces of advice from female professors in my department who don't have kids themselves: 1) I took off my wedding band for interviews, and so should you. Like it or not, women are still discriminated against, especially mothers in competitive fields. They'll worry that you won't put in the hours or that you'll have another baby and take time off. Make sure that it doesn't even come up until you have formal offers with funding. 2) This would be a non-issue if you were a man, and it's becoming less and less of an issue overall now that so many women are in academia. Be honest. You're going to get plenty of offers. Do you really want to attend a program that wouldn't have made you an offer if they'd known you had kids? I think they both make good points, so I'm still unsure of how to approach this. One description of an upcoming interview makes it sound like I'll be surrounded by current grad students and faculty for most of the weekend, with a lot of that time being pretty informal. It seems like, given this format and duration, I would have to go out of my way to lead everyone to believe that I'm planning to move there alone. I wouldn't want people to find out later and feel insulted that I intentionally hid the fact that I have a family. Would they? Anyone have experience dealing with this, either as a student parent or from the other side of the admissions process? I'd appreciate any insights, opinions or suggestions. For what it's worth, I'm mostly applying to social psychology PhD programs (competitive, but not really male-dominated).

I do not know of any good, fully online masters programs in clinical psychology, but they might exist. If you decide to go that route, I would avoid for-profit schools and look for something with a preexisting brick-and-mortar campus. I think your job prospects with an online masters would depend mostly on what you wanted to do with it. Are you interested in counseling? In the grand scheme of things, three years really isn't that long. If you want to become a psychiatrist there are plenty of things you can do to work towards that goal while you're overseas besides earning a masters degree.

I'm just a lowly applicant too, but for what it's worth, my sense is that your first and last statements are pretty much the whole story here: You're starting to second guess yourself because the wait is freaking you out. The way you describe your interests and how you progressed from developmental coursework to applying to specific programs makes sense the way you sum it up here, and your stated interests don't seem so broad that you might lack direction or so narrow that you're likely inflexible. I'm sure you laid this out in more detail in your statements. You mention that you have taken some cognitive courses, and there can be quite a lot of overlap between areas anyway. This doesn't seem like a problem at all.

Yup, this. I've considered back-up plans, but I don't have one. I applied to a couple of programs that are drastically less competitive than the others, with acceptance rates around 20%, but that I would still be happy to attend. If I don't get in to at least one of those, I honestly don't know what I'll do. Right now I can't imagine reapplying or giving up on my dream and going down some other path. I'm considering applying to masters programs as well, but I could really only attend if funded, and funded masters programs are more competitive than some PhD programs right now...