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Cognitive Psychology PhD


ChivPowers

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Ok, did the TA thing this week.. not so bad..

Anyway, I have questions for other Cog. Psychees out there...

If you're in, what kind of packages are you getting? I'm getting 20,xxx + benefits and 5 years 4 summers guaranteed at NU. I'm curious what others were offered. I'm a first year now, but last year was offered lesser packages from CU-Boulder, UW-Seattle, UI-Chicago, and UC-Riverside.

Also, any Cog. Psychees get an NSF? Javits? APA Neuroscience? Ford? (I guess this would be directed to those who are already in programs...) Care to share you essays or have any good essay advice? I'm stumped writing this one I'm workin' on for the 15th deadline.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi folks,

Apologies for the long delayed reply. So, yes, NU is Northwestern, and yes, the psych. program is based in Evanston. However, Evanston is actually much more expensive to live in than Chicago proper (unless you're living in Lakeview or Gold Coast or something...). Also, yes, that stipend is what every entering Psych. grad student gets unless you're externally funded or get a special incoming fellowship. I received a special incoming fellowship, but it was the same amount as everyone else's "University Fellowship." I REALLY love my program and my mentor and my lab on the whole.

To follow up on some comments as well, I think that $20,000/yr is a normal-high stipend. I've got friends who are getting close to $30,000 (Penn) and friends who are getting $17,000 (Temple).

Good luck to all of you who are applying this year! It's one of the best decisions I've ever made, so I truly hope you all end up feeling the same way.

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Yeah, but shouldn't the cost of living be somewhat lower in Evanston (which is where the grad program in Psych is located)?

I wonder if that stipend is what all prospectives are offered in that program?

I got accepted to the Linguistics program at NU with the same stipend. I think its a university fellowship (1st and fifth years). So yes, if you get a university fellowship, it will be the same stipend ($20,500).

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I applied to one PhD in Cognitive and many in IO. I've heard from most of the IO programs, but not the cognitive program. Has anyone heard back from some cognitive programs?

I've heard from some (negative) but on prompting them via email. Some of them are cog psych @ UCD, UCSD (formal, without any prompting), UCB(upon heavy prompting),Minnesota.

BCS @ MIT and Rochester also turned out to be negative. Info from these places also came after I bugged them big time.. I've never received anything official from any of these places. I wonder what they spend the $80 on. (I understand some of that goes into compensation for manual processing of the applications, but they get salaries for doing that too! It is only fair that they send official notifications to everybody regardless of acceptances and rejections).

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I applied to one PhD in Cognitive and many in IO. I've heard from most of the IO programs, but not the cognitive program. Has anyone heard back from some cognitive programs?

UCLA Cognitive is probably done. They already had their recruitment weekend (like an interview but we were already accepted, so no pressure!). Maybe they have a waitlist though?

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The GRE is probably the least important part of your application. Its also one of the easiest to find info about. Almost every school and department I looked at had GRE and GPA of their accepted and matriculating students, at the least, and often scores for all applicants, too. Its things like letters and research experience that are hard to find info about and are much more important. Then ago, I know its hard not to worry about every little part of your application :)

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I have a question about Cognitive psych:

I'm applying primarily to Social psych PhD programs for the fall 2010 semester. But there is one Cognitive program that I am really loving, perhaps even more than any Social program I've found, specifically based on the faculty research match as well as the research match I have to some of this particular lab's members, as well.

My question is, with absolutely NO prior undergraduate experience with Cognitive psychology, will I be completely lost if I jump into a Cognitive psych PhD program? Or will I learn the basics there anyway? Someone in the specific department I'm considering recently told me that Cognitive psych is essentially a sub-discipline within Social psychology anyway, but I'm still not convinced. I don't want to set myself up for disaster.

Any thoughts?

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They're pretty different in most places. Some researchers are really into 'social cognition', which straddles the divide, but I wouldn't say that one of them includes the other, or even covers most of it. In cognitive-psych, you'd be looking at a range of phenomena from psychophysics/perception to higher-level cognition such as attention and information-processing. However, I don't think you'd be too lost if you went for that; I'm working on an MA in cog-psych coming from an undergraduate background almost entirely outside psychology, and the only thing I'm really feeling behind on is statistics.

Edited by psycholinguist
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That's reassuring, because the lab I'm wanting to join is actually called Social Cognition.

My fears are mainly regarding the coursework I may face. Unfortunately, the program I'm interested in doesn't have a list of required core coursework or anything like that. But, for all I know, it may actually be extremely elective-based, in which case I could gear myself more toward the Social psych end of things anyway.

It's such a good fit research-wise, I'd hate to be scared off by something like that. I plan on applying regardless. I'm just thinking into the future, if it came down to me choosing between programs I've potentially been accepted into.

Thanks for the info.

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I have a question about Cognitive psych:

I'm applying primarily to Social psych PhD programs for the fall 2010 semester. But there is one Cognitive program that I am really loving, perhaps even more than any Social program I've found, specifically based on the faculty research match as well as the research match I have to some of this particular lab's members, as well.

My question is, with absolutely NO prior undergraduate experience with Cognitive psychology, will I be completely lost if I jump into a Cognitive psych PhD program? Or will I learn the basics there anyway? Someone in the specific department I'm considering recently told me that Cognitive psych is essentially a sub-discipline within Social psychology anyway, but I'm still not convinced. I don't want to set myself up for disaster.

Any thoughts?

Hi there. I'm in Cog Psych myself and I had NO background in Psychology prior to this. I completed a 5 year integrated Masters in Physics and jumped straight into Cognitive Psychology. I'm doing fine so far. Doing some language stuff for my project, doing memory models for my coursework and its all good. So don't worry about the lack of background. Cognitive science is highly interdisciplinary in any case. I don't understand how somebody could classify cognitive psychology under social psychology. In my opinion, they should be classified separately and one is not a sub-discipline of the other. At least where I am, we have two different areas entirely devoted to each of these disciplines. Which program you want to apply to entirely depends on the kind of research you want to be doing in the future. I wanted to do music cognition. I can use a good broad education in cognitive psychology (memory, language, etc + a few projects related to music specifically) to attain that goal which is why I ended up applying to cognitive psychology programs and a few linguistics programs which had strong collaborations going on with cognitive sciences depts. Hope this helps.

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psycholinguist, that's my next step. i had been waiting to e-mail the department head about it because he had still not responded to me regarding another question i had. but he just got back to me yesterday, so now i can hit him up for another question, or five :)

liszt85, it does help. thank you. now that i'm thinking about it, the person i spoke to who said that cognitive psych is essentially a sub-discipline within social psych may have actually been referring to social cognition, specifically.

either way, it's good to know that both of you have cognitive psych experience and don't think it would be so detrimental to get into a program like that without much prior experience. my goal was to take an undergrad cognitive psych course next semester, but by that time my applications will already be in. hopefully, by the time i need to accept an offer (if i get an offer, that is), i'll have a solid idea of whether or not it's really for me.

thanks again.

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