JungWild&Free

If you did decide to switch schools, you would need to contact the school you have already accepted and see if they will release you from your commitment. You should also be prepared to lose your deposit completely. I would agree with ADLNYC though, unless you are going into a high-paying field, you shouldn't be shelling out that kind of money for a masters. $45,000 is a lot of money if School 2 isn't going to give you a significant amount of job prospects you wouldn't have had coming out of School 1. Also, what is the reputation difference of the two schools outside of rankings? If it really isn't that much of a difference, I would stick with School 1.

Everything everyone said above is right. There's no way to recommend programs when you haven't narrowed down your interests. There are a ton! But, in the meantime, the best way to be competitive in a "generic" fashion is to have a good GPA and a great major GPA, a competitive GRE score (which depends on the school's standards and the other people applying as someone mentioned above), and as much research experience as possible, preferably in your intended area. I would suggest looking into the research going on at your school, maybe talking to some professors you might be interested in working for in the psych department and try out a lab in the psych department. I am starting a Social PhD in the Fall and I worked in a Developmental lab as an undergrad. It still counted as research experience, but it isn't nearly as relevant as working in the Social lab when you are applying for a Social degree. It would make you the most competitive to have direct experience in your intended area. I think the next steps for you are to do a little lit searching about what is going on in your department, see what kind of stuff excites you and then apply to work in a lab or two, keep your grades up and make sure you nail the GRE. If you haven't already, take a Developmental and a Social Psych course, you will start to realize what draws you in more. Once you narrow down your interests, you'll be able to find the programs that are a good fit for you. Making sure programs are a good fit is the best way to be competitive.

I'm finding $1000-$1350 being the range for most of the nicer 1 beds

Agreed, 2 masters in the same thing would be useless to you and would look very odd. You need to contact whatever school you are going to back out of and tell them you have chosen to attend a different school. I'm not sure how it works for Masters programs, but you may need a written release from the first school you accepted to attend the other school.

Sounds like B is the best choice, hands down. More funding, a better POI (a lot of people in Social say the POI matters more than the school anyway), more kinds of interesting research to pursue and in sunny SoCal? I think you nailed it.

Like others have said, this was a freak occurrence, the likes of which we have really never seen before (in terms of the protracted manhunt, lock-down of a major US city and an insane amount of police and military mobilization. It was a horrible week for all of us. I work at MIT and this whole incident really spooked our community. But both MIT alert system and, well, Twitter really, kept us informed of all of the activities. Like Biscuits pointed out, the police response to this incident is really without fault. I am very proud of the way that Boston citizens responded to this with acts of compassion towards each other, as well. Cambridge and most places in Boston are safe (the worst parts are Dorchester, Quincy, Roxbury and Southie, but Southie is improving). However, any large city in America is going to contain some sort of small criminal element such that you should not be walking alone on the street late at night anyway. I would also not advocate walking across MIT's campus in the wee hours of the morning, I have heard more than one bad story begin that way. That said, I also work as a waitress in Harvard Square and there are always people around. I walk to the bus or my car alone late at night all the time and am surrounded by people. I would say it's an especially safe place to be, as is Cambridge in general. You can look at crime maps of the area near any US address but beware that they are sort of alarmist. My old apartment area had a fairly active crime map but was actually really safe.

It's probably a good point that some people may be more likely to tell you why you were rejected. The administrators at the grad school will probably be less likely to do it than the POIs you were in touch with. When I reapplied, most of what I changed was having 1+ years of lab manager experience and I swapped out (what I can only assume was) a fairly generic LOR with a great one from my current boss. I also did a better job of getting in contact with POIs to see who was taking students and was SUPER critical of my SOP to make sure I didn't waste any of my word count.

Congrats to you! Go for UCIC unless you really don't think it's a good fit. Like everyone says, it's probably going to be even more competitive next year. But, if you do reapply, I would consider expanding your list to include a few schools with a slightly less selective applicant pool. There are no real safety schools when you're applying for PhDs, but there definitely are "reach" schools. You may have put yourself at a disadvantage by applying to such selective schools across the board. No matter how great you are, those schools probably see an insane amount of qualified applicants.

ETS usually provides one free practice exam but this software from ETS gives you 2: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/powerprep2

Absolutely. Especially if you got any personal rejections from professors you were in contact with. You can say something like, "I really appreciate your consideration this year. I'm really interested in attending program X and would appreciate any advice you could give me on how to make my application more competitive in the future." Most professors won't mind telling you, and it's probably going to be something generic like, "you need more experience." But there is always a chance they will tell you something that could be important to your application, like your LORs weren't that strong, your GRE wasn't as competitive as others, etc. You paid good money to apply to these schools, you should know how you can improve your application for next year. And if you plan to reapply to any of these schools, I would definitely ask those schools so you know you aren't wasting your money. Obviously, you want to be tactful and polite in the way you ask though.

I have not heard of Bardford Ridge, but someone in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill thread made some comments about University Apartments. I would look it up (pretty sure it was this year), but I remember the review was pretty positive.

You will probably get a MA on your way to the PhD anyway. All of the I/O students I know are planning on going into industry jobs. Plus, they pay you for the PhD.

I was a fashion-merchandising major (in addition to my psych major) in undergrad, and I would say that Parsons is going to help you break into the fashion scene way more than LIM. Parsons and FIT are like the Ivies of fashion institutes, and marketing and management are pretty much synonymous in fashion. Fashion marketing is brand management. In terms of course-work, an undergrad major in FM (at least at my undergrad) would teach you retail math (basic accounting and formulas for ordering), consumer behavior and marketing basics, history of the fashion industry, line development, principles of business, economics and business ethics, global sourcing, the basics of textile testing and textile manufacturing. From my program, many people immediately got jobs after graduation in NYC and LA with top houses and at mass retailers as management all over the country. People in FM rarely have advanced degrees, so I would say that the most important thing for someone without a FM background would be to learn those fashion basics and a person with a FM degree would probably want the MBA because of the usefulness of an MBA in general. Lacking the FM background makes me think you would benefit from the Parsons program, not in small part because of your access to the best fashion internships, but mostly because of your inexperience in the industry.

I don't think you should let the funding being higher at Davis sway you in this case. Gainesville is a cheap place to live and it sounds like you are going to have almost enough to live on with the relocation money at UF anyway. Like you and others have said, it's dangerous if there is only one professor you can work with at Davis. What if they move to another school? Who would you work with then? It sounds like UF is going to offer what you need with at least some money. Bummer about Indiana being so slow with the funding but you don't want to pay out of pocket for the degree, especially when you have funded offers.

Yes to everything Juillet said. You definitely don't want to be left with no funding at one school, wishing that you had reapplied to places with better fit. You should be really psyched that this professor basically indicated an informal acceptance. I would nurse that relationship and continue to build your CV while you wait to reapply.