Fall 2018 Quantitative Psychology PhD Applicants

[MutedSeraph]

13 hours ago, letstrythiswinston said:

(Also: Congrats on the interview MutedSeraph!!  )

Thanks!

 

10 hours ago, schenar said:

Congrats! My professor got a call from them earlier this week, but I haven't received an interview invitation. Must be a really selective process. Good luck!

Thanks to you as well!

I can't say for certain whether they're done contacting students or not but my PI did inform me today that UCLA will be sending out formal interview dates for all prospectives by Monday.

[wnk4242]

Finally, I have been officially admitted to FSU measurement and statistics program. Yay!

Edited January 26, 2018 by wnk4242

[Quantitative_Psychology]

Had my first Skype interview today. I think it went pretty well. It was very sudden. Didn’t have much time to prepare  

 

6 hours ago, wnk4242 said:

Finally, I have been officially admitted to FSU measurement and statistics program. Yay!

Congrats! That’s awesome ?

[cupofsugar]

I did an interview with UVA. I think it went quite well for me.

They said that they have a lot of people to review, so it seems that some large portion of the quant applicants are not being represented on this site.

 

6 hours ago, wnk4242 said:

Finally, I have been officially admitted to FSU measurement and statistics program. Yay!

Good to hear  Congrats!

[letstrythiswinston]

1 hour ago, Quant_Psych_2018 said:

Had my first Skype interview today. I think it went pretty well. It was very sudden. Didn’t have much time to prepare  

Congrats! What program was it with? 

1 hour ago, cupofsugar said:

I did an interview with UVA. I think it went quite well for me.

They said that they have a lot of people to review, so it seems that some large portion of the quant applicants are not being represented on this site.

Do you mind PMing me your POI? I'm not surprised that most of their applicants aren't represented on this site. I think their website said they had 20 applications in the 2015-2016 season, and my guess is that that has increased. 

[Quantitative_Psychology]

10 hours ago, letstrythiswinston said:

Congrats! What program was it with? 

 

It was for UC Merced

[Quantitative_Psychology]

About how many questions do you guys have prepared before your interviews? Everyone always says to not run out of questions, but I want to make sure I'm asking meaningful ones.

[cupofsugar]

6 hours ago, Quant_Psych_2018 said:

About how many questions do you guys have prepared before your interviews? Everyone always says to not run out of questions, but I want to make sure I'm asking meaningful ones.

I prepped about 10 questions to ask, a half of them were generic ones and the other half of them were more specific ones.

Oh, and in one of my interviews the faculties were the ones asking most of the questions, and I had time for about a couple of questions to ask. I guess it varies from school to school.

[squirrelene]

6 hours ago, Quant_Psych_2018 said:

About how many questions do you guys have prepared before your interviews? Everyone always says to not run out of questions, but I want to make sure I'm asking meaningful ones.

going off of this do you think it's ok to have my questions written out and with me during the interview?

[wnk4242]

1 hour ago, squirrelene said:

going off of this do you think it's ok to have my questions written out and with me during the interview?

Absolutely. I printed out my questions and brought the piece of paper with me. When the POIs saw my questions, one of them said something along the lines of "it's good that you have a lot of questions to ask, because that shows you really did your homework and really are interested in our program." So, don't be afraid to show them that you have a lot of questions to ask even if you might not get to ask all of them! It's a sign of being proactive!

[wnk4242]

One good tip I want to share with you guys if you are preparing your answers to the most common interview questions is that keep your answers succinct, easy to understand, and to the point. I don't think they expect you to give very detailed and long answers within 30 minutes (that's the normal length of an interview). A very complicated answer is very likely to make them confused because when you are being interviewed, you will feel nervous, and your speech may become unorganized under pressure.

Also, think of an interview as a conversation, not a test. This is very important. If you think of it as a test, you are going to feel very nervous and uncomfortable. If you think of it as a conversation and an opportunity to tell them how great you are, you will feel very confident and look very confident. They want to see that confidence.

Some important interview questions I have prepared include (and I think everyone should be prepared to answer these questions very confidently and fluently):

Your educational background;

Your best quality, characteristic, personal trait- this should be something that can facilitate your future research career;

Why do you want to pursue a PhD- for me the answer is definitely that I love research; I love teaching; being a professor is a rewarding career;

Why do you want to do a PhD in this area (quant psych/methods)- my answer is that I am more interested in methodologies and statistics; this is an area full of opportunities for growth; I love coding; great job prospects;

What are your research interests- I just gave a very general answer, something along the lines of "I'm interested in SEM, longitudinal data analysis, Bayesian statistics." If you have a more detailed answer and if your interests match your POIs, that's even better;

What are your career goals- when it comes to goals, I think you should be specific, like I want to get 5 first author publications (you can even name a few prestigious journals in which you want to publish) ; I want to graduate within 5 years; I want to become an assistant professor in 6 years; I want to create very popular R packages; choose some challenging but realistic goals;

What is your greatest strength and weakness (yes, they asked me what my biggest weakness was)- I said that my greatest strength is my ability to solve problems in very challenging situations and I gave an example (very important); as far as my weakness, I said I don't have a strong background in math/stats but I'm planning on taking a few refresher courses like calculus online and after I begin the program I will take as many stats courses as possible;

Which research project are you most proud of- they are giving you an opportunity to impress them, so be prepared with a great answer;

Why you want to join their program- I said my research interests match yours very well and I like the courses your program offers.

The last one is that what statistics software/packages do you use- I hope you guys know some programming languages in addition to SPSS. Again, be specific here. Saying I know how to use R is not good enough. Say something like I know how to use R to do t test, anova, multivariate regression analysis; basic structure of writing a function;

If you have these questions prepared, you will talk confidently in the interview.

I never try to memorize my answers. I practice these questions by asking myself these questions while I am walking, cooking, doing exercises. At least for me, It's a very effective way to prepare for interviews.

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by wnk4242

[wnk4242]

Also, show your eagerness to learn and do research! They want to see that you are driven to do a PhD.

[cupofsugar]

I received rejection letters from UIUC and UWM.

Not gonna lose my confidence!

[wnk4242]

8 hours ago, cupofsugar said:

I received rejection letters from UIUC and UWM.

Not gonna lose my confidence!

I'm sorry to hear that. What other programs did you apply to? PM me if you want.

Edited January 31, 2018 by wnk4242

[Quantitative_Psychology]

Anyone going to APS? I'm scrambling to get my abstract in. Last minute decisions are the best. 

[letstrythiswinston]

14 minutes ago, Quant_Psych_2018 said:

Anyone going to APS? I'm scrambling to get my abstract in. Last minute decisions are the best. 

Yep! I enjoyed it a lot last year, so I think this year'll be pretty fun  

[Quantitative_Psychology]

3 minutes ago, letstrythiswinston said:

Yep! I enjoyed it a lot last year, so I think this year'll be pretty fun  

Boston was great! It was actually what got me interested in quantitative psychology.

[letstrythiswinston]

On 1/31/2018 at 2:08 AM, cupofsugar said:

I received rejection letters from UIUC and UWM.

Not gonna lose my confidence!

UIUC rejected me too. I actually haven't heard that they offered anyone anything, which surprised me a bit because I know a few other qualified people who applied. I'm curious about how many slots they had available this year and whether it's one of those programs that likes to take students from their existing masters students. Not that it really matters at this point. 

[letstrythiswinston]

5 minutes ago, Quant_Psych_2018 said:

Boston was great! It was actually what got me interested in quantitative psychology.

I love Boston  My sister lives there so I get to visit pretty regularly. Did you meet any other Quant people there last year? One of my advisors has offed to put me in contact with some quant people she knows who are going this year. I'm super excited about that. 

I had no idea what quant was until early 2017. I'd always been drawn to data analysis, statistics, and measurement and all of my independent projects have centered around those themes but I had no idea you could actually get a Ph.D. in quant until I started working with a new faculty member. And then things just took off  

[Quantitative_Psychology]

52 minutes ago, letstrythiswinston said:

I love Boston  My sister lives there so I get to visit pretty regularly. Did you meet any other Quant people there last year? One of my advisors has offed to put me in contact with some quant people she knows who are going this year. I'm super excited about that. 

I had no idea what quant was until early 2017. I'd always been drawn to data analysis, statistics, and measurement and all of my independent projects have centered around those themes but I had no idea you could actually get a Ph.D. in quant until I started working with a new faculty member. And then things just took off  

I didn't run into any quant people last year, but I wasn't actually looking for them. I got really excited about quant psych by watching some of the talks at APS (especially the ones on network analysis). I did see Andrew Hayes talk about PROCESS which was pretty cool though. 

[Quantitative_Psychology]

Any news? We've been quiet for a while (admittedly I have nothing to share).

[cupofsugar]

I’m still waiting.

[Jason2018]

5 minutes ago, wnk4242 said:

Hi guys...I've been admitted to the University of Houston Measurement, Quantitative Methods, & Learning Sciences PhD program. I start feeling very calm and peaceful when I see acceptance letters now. I kind of feel very guilty about this feeling...

That is good! No need to feel guilty, multiple acceptances means that you are hot on the market.

And I have decided to go to Penn State for a social psych program. So not in the running for QM programs now. Wish everyone best of luck! 

[wnk4242]

1 hour ago, Jason2018 said:

That is good! No need to feel guilty, multiple acceptances means that you are hot on the market.

And I have decided to go to Penn State for a social psych program. So not in the running for QM programs now. Wish everyone best of luck! 

Thank you Jason2018!

[cupofsugar]

Just got a rejection letter from UVA this morning. Disappointed, honestly.