Chances

[Hopeful678]

Dear Grad Cafe future Psychologists,
          

Sometimes, I look at these messages and think that they are way less personal than I feel like they should be, the people applying to these programs are people, with different backgrounds and experiences. I believe by understanding someone’s history you can better assist them. Here is my story, growing up I struggled a lot in school. I was diagnosed at an early age with a learning disability that affected my ability to read and write, I was also diagnosed with a communication disorder. I was stratificated into lower educational classes, yet managed to graduate from high school. Upon graduating, I got kicked out of my dad’s house. This subsequently lead me to a lower GPA than I had hoped. This was at the start of my college career, which just so happened, to be at a community college. At the time I was living on my friends sofa and often times was  unable to even attend classes, somehow, I still ended up graduating. I ended up transfering to a strong undergraduate university with a 2.8 to study psychology. During my first semester at university I met a professor who invited me to do research with him. We studied physiological psychology and PTSD, I accompanied him on this work for two years. I fell in love with the research and knew at that moment, I wanted to be a research scientist. This became my impetus for future courage and tenacity which I leveraged to be a better student. My grades improved, and I ended up graduating with a 3.78 in my last 60 credits, and a 3.52 GPA in psychology, however, my initial performance when starting college still haunted me and I still had a 3.1 cumulative GPA, tantamount to a demon on my back.

 

Determined to prove myself as a graduate student coupled with this new sense of purpose for my future career, I decided that I wasn't ready for a PhD, so I applied to Columbia University in New York for a terminal master's degree which I thought would show the admissions officers that I was capable of graduate work despite my prior academic performance. I ended up working in 2 labs for the 1 and 1/2 years while I was there and ended up finishing the program with a 3.6; my master’s thesis was on dyslexia. Admissions season came along and with my previous GRE's being as abysmal as they were, I only applied to two schools, needless to say, I did not received any offers for  PhD programs, So, I applied to Upenn and soon thereafter, I was given a scholarship to attend for a Master’s of Science in Neuroscience & Language, which I allowed me to improve my research background. Since then, I have maintained a 3.73. After much pondering, I felt the time was right to decide to apply for a PhD in Psychology & Neuroscience, which I initially felt not ready for in the previous years. Since, that meta-cognitive moment, I have made strides to build rapport with many different professors, and have met with professors for a few top schools and am applying to work with them Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in Psychology; Upenn, Stanford, and Vanderbilt in neuroscience. Throughout my academic career, I have accumulated 5 years of research experience and have gotten 1 paper published, additionally; a project I worked on at my old university won the 2013 NTSA Governor’s Award for Excellence in Modeling and Simulation from the National Training and Simulation Association. I am currently working at the Penn Hospital doing research in Glioblastoma, got second author and this paper is being submitted for publication in the Journal of Neurosurgery. I have a proposal to speak at a conference waiting to be approved also. However, my GRE's still worry me (154V 144Q 4.5W). I have never been a great test taker; I am studying the quant, and am taking the GRE again on the 1st of November.
Best,

Hopeful

PS. Sorry for the long message!

Edited October 16, 2014 by Hopeful678