What should I be doing/what are my chances?

[do it to julia]

• Psychology major, 60+ hour super-minor in chemistry.
  
• GPA: Overall 3.00, major 3.86, last 60 hours 3.34 (33 hours of the last 60 were in the chemistry major).
  
• GRE: 800V, 750Q, 4.5AW; don't like the writing score at all, and could probably bring the quant up by 20-40 points, but taking the thing once was stressful enough and I don't want to do it again.
  
• Research: 4 semesters in chemistry, first author on a poster at a very minor regional conference in 2010, second author on a poster that won second prize at another very minor regional conference in 2011. 2 semesters in psychology with no publications or presentations yet.
  
• LORs: 1 glowing letter from my chemistry research adviser, 1 strong letter from my psychology research adviser, 1 unremarkable letter from a psychology faculty member.
  
• No honors or scholarships, and a seriously unholy mess of a transcript. I'm an eighth-year senior graduating this spring, and I've left school for a total of five years, so I've been at this for 13 years. Before I got my head on straight, I flunked out twice and changed majors more often than some people change clothes. But I took a few years off, worked crap jobs, and came back to school in 2008 wicked driven. I never took a semester off again, not even in the summers, and I maxed out literally every last penny of my financial aid eligibility retaking just about every class I did poorly in the first time around. I'm not going to waste anyone's time with tales of woe about why I did so badly before; I'm not saying anything about it in SOPs except to call attention to how drastically I've improved since coming back and to explain why I changed majors from chemistry to psychology so late in the game.
  
• Mostly irrelevant stuff: pretty heavy involvement with student government for the last 3 semesters, American Chemical Society student chapter officer for the last year, and working 10-20 hours a week as a high school & college math & science tutor since 2008.
  

I want a PhD in Social Psychology and most of my POIs happen to be at very competitive programs. My top POI is a 'rock star.'

Despite my major GPA, my background in psychology is honestly not that great. My UG is a behemoth state university, the curriculum wasn't very rigorous, and my only stats course was 10 years ago. I know myself well enough to know I won't get the most from a PhD program without some more coursework and research experience first.

So: I want to do an MA/MS with a research/experimental focus. I absolutely must have a tuition waiver plus a stipend or a paying assistantship. Where should I apply and what are my chances?

It's very late in the game for this, but I still want to apply for fall 2012 admission wherever I can.

I'm super appreciative for any help anyone can offer about where to go and how to get there.

[Arcadian]

Interesting story. How did you take up an interest in social psychology after majoring and researching in chemistry? I read your whole post thinking you would say you were going into biopsychology or psychopharmacology, so I was surprised when you said social.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Arcadian

[do it to julia]

Social's always been fascinating to me, but money's a big problem and I went with chemistry when I came back in 2008 mostly because of the degree's marketability. Then I got involved with the process of research and fell in love with it, but once I was to the point of blowing off chem to read social journals, I knew I had to work with the subject I really love or else spend my whole career underachieving.

[Arcadian]

Heh, I started college as a chemical engineering major for similar reasons. It was really a terrible decision, though, and I quickly fell into academic probation. Then I switched to psychology and everything was fine.