Fall 2019 Psychology PhD Applicants!

[loffire]

4 hours ago, superglobal said:

I screwed up my GRE yesterday. I want an opinion on whether this is still worth a shot. I'm an international applicant with a strong work background in the areas I'm applying in (3 yrs of work ex in trauma, juvenile justice and global mental health). I have a Master's in Clinical Psychology from a prestigious university in my country and some publications.

GPA - 3.89

GRE - 162V, 152Q and (probably) 6 AW.

I have strong letters of rec and hopefully a decent SoP. Need to know if the Quant score is enough to rule me out.

I don't think you need worry too much about your gres. Your quant is on the slightly lower end. but your verbal and written (especially) should make up for it.

[ResilientDreams]

14 hours ago, superglobal said:

I screwed up my GRE yesterday. I want an opinion on whether this is still worth a shot. I'm an international applicant with a strong work background in the areas I'm applying in (3 yrs of work ex in trauma, juvenile justice and global mental health). I have a Master's in Clinical Psychology from a prestigious university in my country and some publications.

GPA - 3.89

GRE - 162V, 152Q and (probably) 6 AW.

I have strong letters of rec and hopefully a decent SoP. Need to know if the Quant score is enough to rule me out.

I think it's definitely still worth a shot!! I have a similarly lopsided GRE score.

[Jung&Psyched]

I'd love ya'lls opinion regarding my SOP.  My undergrad gpa was lousy....talking like 3.0. I did have pretty good reason for this and demonstrated a lot of improvement in my last 60 hours, as well as all As in some post-grad courses I have taken.   Is this something I should address in my SOP? I have my SOP pretty much completely finished...and I just can't figure out a good way to work in what was going on in my life to have effected my gpa back then without making my SOP unnecessarily long.  I have been out of school for six years ...so I'm wondering if they will be more focused on the classes I have done post-grad and if taking up space on my SOP may not be worth it? 

[hahowell]

Heloooo I was wondering if anyone has a moment to give me some feedback on my SOP!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qt2Sj5PJMldRSBKeHV5cHVshjuwYRAZD7ay4nccmy7s/edit?usp=sharing

[Jung&Psyched]

38 minutes ago, hahowell said:

Heloooo I was wondering if anyone has a moment to give me some feedback on my SOP!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qt2Sj5PJMldRSBKeHV5cHVshjuwYRAZD7ay4nccmy7s/edit?usp=sharing

Your research experience is great and your essay is well written for concisely describing your work.  I would consider rewording some of your sentences, many sentences in a row start with "I".  Just  look for more active ways to describe your work and experiences, rather than simple "I" statements.  . Otherwise, looks good!

[ResilientDreams]

Almost ready to submit my second application...

[Clinapp2017]

16 hours ago, hahowell said:

Heloooo I was wondering if anyone has a moment to give me some feedback on my SOP!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qt2Sj5PJMldRSBKeHV5cHVshjuwYRAZD7ay4nccmy7s/edit?usp=sharing

Overall, a good start, but I have some suggestions after a brief read-through (from a clinical student perspective):

 

Paragraph 1:

• The sentence about "psych going beyond psycho-analysis" is kind of weird, and as a reader I was thinking "Okay... so when you were in intro to psych?" I would consider ditching this entirely. 
• I would talk more about a specific experience or something in research regarding prejudice or intergroup relations. The paragraph feels empty when you say "I have done research" but don't talk about what that research topic was.

 

Paragraph 2:

• Expand on what "SONA and Qualtrics" means. What were the surveys you were doing. What were you studying.
• Re-word your sentences to tell us what your funding you received was used for
• Actually... reword everything about your study... it was hard to follow what you actually were looking at for your pilot
• Say you gave a "talk" not a "power point presentation"
• I don't know what SEPA conference is... spell out the acronym and don't assume readers know what you mean
• Reword paragraph to say you worked for Dr. Delaney for 2 years. It sounded like, from the early part of the paragraph, that you only worked for them for 1 semester, and then it turns out later you say 2 years. Just say how long you worked for them once and then say what you did.
• I would never say "I am prepared for success in a PhD program." That's for the committee to decide, and your qualifications should speak for themselves. 

 

Paragraph 3:

• Again, explain what surveys and variables you were analyzing
• Third sentence is weird. Consider rewording. It sounds like you are rating photos of how attractive participants are...
• Define SPSP conference. Again, don't assume we know the acronym

 

Paragraph 4:

• I am not sure how useful or not useful it is to talk about classes like this... seemed a little dry to me
• Perhaps this could be done better by weaving courses related to your research into other paragraphs. For example "At the time I was researching topic Y, I was enrolled in Class X which bolstered my ability to pursue that reserach topic." Not exactly that, but you get the point.

Paragraph 5 

• I would almost move this paragraph up into the first paragraph, bc it sets the stage early on for what you want to do and why the university you apply to is the place for you

 

Hope this helps. I am happy to send you my SOP for my clinical program if you want another idea of what a SOP can look like.

 

-CApp

[PsychApplicantFall2019]

17 hours ago, hahowell said:

Heloooo I was wondering if anyone has a moment to give me some feedback on my SOP!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qt2Sj5PJMldRSBKeHV5cHVshjuwYRAZD7ay4nccmy7s/edit?usp=sharing

I like all of the recommendations for @Clinapp2017 but I wanted to add a couple of additional things. I think that at times, you may be too detailed about things that the reader may not care about. For instance "two-way between subjects ANOVA" is too specific. If you were doing a more complicated analysis method like principle component analysis or something, maybe that is something that you would want to show off in your SOP. Make sure that the details you are sharing matter. 

Further, the phrase "statistically significant" needs to be dropped from your vocabulary. Here is what I mean by that. If you make the claim "changing X feature about the stimulus causes a Y increase in reaction time," for example, that necessarily means that the results were significant. If the results were not, you could not make that claim. Thus, you can just say "I found blah blah blah." 

[brainwrangler]

Lab manager with 5.5 years of research experience in a few different fields. List of schools is still in flux, but definitely applying to UT Austin, Boston University, Northwestern, and UCSD/SDSU's joint program.

3.9 psych major/neuro minor at well-regarded SLAC
2.5 years of developmental psycholinguistics experience
1 summer working in a behavioral pharmacology lab (loved working with clinical population, but changed my mind about drug research)
Worked in a cognitive lab as an exchange student (1 semester)
1 year in clinical neuropsychology lab (honors thesis earned highest honors from my department, gave presentation to departmental audience, presented this at regional conference)
1.5 years in cognitive neuroscience lab

I have a number of first authored posters, mostly at school-level conferences. Two first-authored posters at larger conferences and some middle authorships (including on a presentation). I'm a middle author on several publications currently in submission and have just submitted a first authored paper. I'm also working on another manuscript (won't be submitted by Dec 1). I have background in programming (mostly MATLAB), neuroimaging, psychophysics, statistics, and some neurobiology.

GRE 170V/157Q*/6AW, 800 on psychology GRE.

Rec letters from psycholinguistics prof, neuropsychology prof, and cognitive neuroscience prof. All three of them were very happy to write for me, and I've been assured the recommendations will be good.

I'm concerned about my lack of clinical experience, slightly subpar quantitative GRE, and irrelevant experience in my first few years of undergrad. I can definitely tie my background in cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology to what I want to do, but I don't actually have experience with the populations I want to work with.

Anyone have thoughts on this profile?

*I reported a slightly higher quantitative GRE on some other sites, but just checked my scores again--turns out I was thinking of my practice score. (D'oh.)

[hahowell]

3 hours ago, sendmeadvice said:

I like all of the recommendations for @Clinapp2017 but I wanted to add a couple of additional things. I think that at times, you may be too detailed about things that the reader may not care about. For instance "two-way between subjects ANOVA" is too specific. If you were doing a more complicated analysis method like principle component analysis or something, maybe that is something that you would want to show off in your SOP. Make sure that the details you are sharing matter. 

Further, the phrase "statistically significant" needs to be dropped from your vocabulary. Here is what I mean by that. If you make the claim "changing X feature about the stimulus causes a Y increase in reaction time," for example, that necessarily means that the results were significant. If the results were not, you could not make that claim. Thus, you can just say "I found blah blah blah." 

Thanks for the feedback! I totally understand where you're coming from. Best of luck with your applications!

[pgt2018]

9 hours ago, brainwrangler said:

Lab manager with 5.5 years of research experience in a few different fields. List of schools is still in flux, but definitely applying to UT Austin, Boston University, Northwestern, and UCSD/SDSU's joint program.

3.9 psych major/neuro minor at well-regarded SLAC
2.5 years of developmental psycholinguistics experience
1 summer working in a behavioral pharmacology lab (loved working with clinical population, but changed my mind about drug research)
Worked in a cognitive lab as an exchange student (1 semester)
1 year in clinical neuropsychology lab (honors thesis earned highest honors from my department, gave presentation to departmental audience, presented this at regional conference)
1.5 years in cognitive neuroscience lab

I have a number of first authored posters, mostly at school-level conferences. Two first-authored posters at larger conferences and some middle authorships (including on a presentation). I'm a middle author on several publications currently in submission and have just submitted a first authored paper. I'm also working on another manuscript (won't be submitted by Dec 1). I have background in programming (mostly MATLAB), neuroimaging, psychophysics, statistics, and some neurobiology.

GRE 170V/157Q*/6AW, 800 on psychology GRE.

Rec letters from psycholinguistics prof, neuropsychology prof, and cognitive neuroscience prof. All three of them were very happy to write for me, and I've been assured the recommendations will be good.

I'm concerned about my lack of clinical experience, slightly subpar quantitative GRE, and irrelevant experience in my first few years of undergrad. I can definitely tie my background in cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology to what I want to do, but I don't actually have experience with the populations I want to work with.

Anyone have thoughts on this profile?

*I reported a slightly higher quantitative GRE on some other sites, but just checked my scores again--turns out I was thinking of my practice score. (D'oh.)

are you applying to clinical psych programs?

i think adcomms in general care more about research experience (which you have a lot of). i wouldn't worry about clinical experience as long as you can demonstrate that you have good understanding of clinical implications in your population of interest (and how you got to your decision to work with that population). maybe your volunteer/life experiences can help in that aspect. i think your GRE score is strong, i was always under the impression that the verbal is more important of the two for psych programs. 

[brainwrangler]

15 hours ago, constructivistbrain said:

are you applying to clinical psych programs?

i think adcomms in general care more about research experience (which you have a lot of). i wouldn't worry about clinical experience as long as you can demonstrate that you have good understanding of clinical implications in your population of interest (and how you got to your decision to work with that population). maybe your volunteer/life experiences can help in that aspect. i think your GRE score is strong, i was always under the impression that the verbal is more important of the two for psych programs. 

Yep--I'm applying to clinical psych programs with an emphasis on neuropsychology. I'm also looking at some neuroimaging labs. My programs of choice tend to be very research-oriented.

Unfortunately I don't really have volunteer experience (the options I tried out fell through); most of my interest in specific populations is driven by research questions.

[Yiyu Liu]

On 10/12/2018 at 5:50 PM, loffire said:

I am an international applicant and my awa score was 4.0 as well. It is something to be concerned about as an international student. But hopefully they'll notice your toefl scores. Another thing a POI mentioned during my skype call with her was to make sure your SOP is written really well and free of errors (best to get someone from america to help you read through it. We tend to use words or phrases that are grammatically correct but not commonly used in america that can be a bit weird for them). apart from that, maybe send in a written sample that proves that you can write well. All the best! fingers crossed for you (especially since you an international applicant like me ;))

Thanks for your feedback! And I quite agree that SOP is especially important. Actually I revised it a couple of times before I sent it to an US professor for a review. And he frankly told me there were so much to critique. Then following his advice I revised it for another couple of times and hopefully he'll find it better. In general, faculties care most about our competence, motivation and our career goal. They are the things that must be reflected in our SOP. As international students, it is also helpful to bug native speakers to revise our language. Best luck for you!

[Yiyu Liu]

On 10/25/2018 at 4:53 AM, hahowell said:

Heloooo I was wondering if anyone has a moment to give me some feedback on my SOP!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qt2Sj5PJMldRSBKeHV5cHVshjuwYRAZD7ay4nccmy7s/edit?usp=sharing

I agree with some previous comments that you are putting something too detailed. People won't really care about it. Say, instead of going into details of what you find, it is probably more helpful to talk about what you learned from this experience, and how this experience could help you specify your interest and succeed in your career. In addition, you are saying something like,  after a couple of semesters (2 years?) you went into a lab better suited to your interest. It seems a little weird and you didn't really clarify it. Why you're interested in A but spent 2 years doing B? How did B help you in shaping your interest and skill set? Furthermore, I also agree with previous comment that it is not necessary to devote a paragraph talking about what you learned during the SPSS course. The statistics you mentioned are actually very basic, which won't make you stand out. If you really would like to talk about your statistical analysis ability, a better way is probably reflecting your statistic skills in your research accomplishments. For instance, " With the statistics I learned on XX course, I was able to analyze the data we collected in an appropriate and efficient way. " This should be informative enough. 

All in All,  faculties care most about our competence and motivation in pursuing a PhD degree. To Specify:

1. What did you learn and what kind of skill set could you bring to their program?

2. Why did you choose to do PhD? What do you plan to accomplish while there? What is your ultimate goal after graduation?

3. How your past experience shaped your interest?

These questions shouldn't be condensed in one graph, but you want to make sure each of the sentence you are writing is not irrelevant. If you find words does not address any of those questions, go ahead to drop it! English is not my native language so I won't be able to help you reword it, but these more general ideas I learned from faculty and PhD students are helpful anyway, and is exactly what I would like to share with you. I'm also applying this fall as an undergraduate student. Best luck for both of us

[ResilientDreams]

I'll be submitting my second application later this week guys...

[aokanlawon]

Hey all,

I would also like some help and advice on my personal statement. Any constructive criticism are welcome.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14nOIigPLnU-WlpkpI9nB-rJKvkyHQCTI6lp-wGao6II/edit#

Thank you

[wannabeschoolpsych]

This is my first time applying for PhD programs and I’m NERVOUS... but excited haha. My focus is school psychology and the programs I am applying to are University of Memphis, Universiy of Washington, University of Virginia, and Northern Arizona University!

Good luck to everyone!!!

[jk616]

15 hours ago, aokanlawon said:

Hey all,

I would also like some help and advice on my personal statement. Any constructive criticism are welcome.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14nOIigPLnU-WlpkpI9nB-rJKvkyHQCTI6lp-wGao6II/edit#

Thank you

Hey! I just gave it a quick read over, and it looks pretty good! I would just make a few suggestions. 

- Maybe mention your POI earlier in the SOP, it could fit in the first paragraph and be something like "specifically, I am interested in the work of Dr. XXX" 

- I would take out mentions of how you couldn't find or obtain the types of experiences you were looking for. It seems like you've had some pretty relevant experiences so you want to focus on the positive! I think it's good to mention that you went out of your way to get research experience because your school was small but I'd leave it to one sentence maximum.  

- I would also describe your honors thesis in a little more detail and take out some of the procedural stuff like doing stats in SPSS and IRB stuff. I think if you give a quick few sentences about your project and findings, it is just assumed that you are able to do those things. I was told to include some details about the findings of my projects when I was doing my SOP because it shows the POI that your are able to talk about your work clearly and that you understand it.  

-I also think it would be good to connect your research interests with your POIs work a little more explicitly; maybe mention a few specific things they research. I also think it can be good to talk about the topics you're interested in looking into in the future which are different than what you've already done.  

Hope that was helpful! 

[gottagetthedata]

Hi all! Attempting the application cycle for a second time this year.. *DEEP BREATH*!

I'm applying to Clinical Psychology Ph.D. programs with a Child focus, with POIs researching child maltreatment/family violence/risk and resilience factors.

I'm not a great standardized test taker, especially one that gives you less than 2 minutes to answer every question (AHEM. GRE). My GRE Quant score last year was bad, and when applying I knew I was taking a gamble. Scores were: V 155, Q 147, AW: 4.0. I re-took the GRE this summer and scored: V 154, Q 155, AW: 5.0. I'm really proud of my percentile increases for Q (26th to 58th) and AW (59th to 92nd) but unfortunately dropping that one point for V brought me from 69th percentile to 65th. 

Here's where I need some advice:

I'm planning on re-applying to some of the same schools as I applied to last year, in addition to some new schools I've never applied to before.

Re: the schools I'm applying to for a second time: Should I opt for the Score Select option and send the schools my scores from both of the test dates in order to show them my improvement from my application last year? 

And re: the schools I'm applying to for the first time: Should I just send my most recent (mostly better, minus the V 1 point/4% drop) scores? Or should I send both test dates' scores? I want them to see that I've scored in the 69th percentile on Verbal, but also that the scores for Q and AW for my second test improved.

AH! Please give me some advice lol. I have two apps due 11/15 and the rest are December dates. Thank you!

[PsychApplicantFall2019]

@gottagetthedata If it were me, I would just send the most recent score to all the schools. Others have said it before, but I think that as long as you have an alright GRE, it is not worth giving it any extra thought. 

[Steph93]

Hi fellow applicants! Is anyone here applying to neuropsychology programs or programs specifically to conduct research in aging? Looking forward to submitting my applications again this year! 

[EileanDonan]

Hey folks! Throwing my hat in the ring as well.

I'm applying to programs that offer training in forensic psych. My research interests include factors that contribute to deficient experience of empathy, difficulty in emotion regulation, abnormal pleasure-seeking behavior, etc. I'm also interested in developing new/better forensic assessment tools.

Basic stats: GPA 3.81, major GPA 3.93. GRE 161V + 155Q + 5.5 AWA.

Expecting solid letters from two research supervisors (one of whom was also my advisor) and a professor. 2/3 volunteered before I even asked.

Research experience: ~1 1/2 semesters on a qualitative project doing narrative analysis, ~2 semesters helping on a different project from the ground up (including lit review, IRB proposal, survey design, etc). Only authorship is on an APA presentation of the qualitative project (I wasn't even third author though, so...)

I've gotten generally positive comments on my PS too, should be tight by the time I apply

Things I'm concerned about:

1. I realize my GREs aren't the best, hoping my GPA will compensate for that.
2. Not nearly as much research experience as some, but I feel like I gained some good basic skills and I know my sups were pleased with my work. No serious authorship yet however.
3. Applying straight from undergrad

 

Best of luck to everyone!

Edited October 29, 2018 by EileanDonan

[loffire]

3 minutes ago, EileanDonan said:

Hey folks! Throwing my hat in the ring as well.

I'm applying to programs that offer training in forensic psych. My research interests include factors that contribute to deficient experience of empathy, difficulty in emotion regulation, etc. I'm also interested in developing new/better forensic assessment tools.

Basic stats: GPA 3.81, major GPA 3.93. GRE 161V + 155Q + 5.5 AWA.

my interests are in emotions and how regulation of emotions relates to things! though im applying to affective science/social side

[aokanlawon]

I had a quick question for you all.

Are you using APA standard double space and 12 point font size for your personal statements?

[Clinapp2017]

26 minutes ago, aokanlawon said:

I had a quick question for you all.

Are you using APA standard double space and 12 point font size for your personal statements?

That is completely unnecessary, but if you do that I would not exceed 4 double spaced pages. I did 2 single spaced pages. 

 

Honestly, my opinion (and many in my research area): APA is a dumb citation and writing style. It wastes a lot of space and kills tree. 

Okay, rant over.  GL with your statement!