Notifications and Decisions




Schools may start to contact you as soon as early January, or within a week or two of the application deadline. On the other hand, some programs wait until late March to start sending notifications of any kind. Some programs have interviews, and some do not. Nearly all psychology programs do have interviews, but in most cases the interview means you are very likely to be admitted. In some fields, interviews and campus visits are paid for by the school, but sometimes you will be paying out of your own pocket. Also, individual programs at different schools will notify at different times. Decisions are always made at the departmental level, even though you will be formally admitted under the graduate school as a whole.

In most cases, good news preceeds bad news. This is because good news often comes quickly over e-mail or phone, whereas bad news is more likely to come through the mail. As a rule of thumb for psychology programs, if you have not heard anything from a program by mid-February, you are unlikely to be admitted. The week where I heard the most was the last week of January. This is also because in psychology, most programs had an interview, and they wanted to give you sufficient time to buy your tickets and to plan your trip.

When you go on interviews, remember that you are interviewing the school just as much as the school is interviewing you. Make a good impression, but don't be afriad to ask questions! Don't waste your time while on the interview. Make sure you get as much information as possible in order to make an informed decision. Here are some questions you should consider asking of your professors and graduate students:
Making Decisions
Please refer to this site for advice on how to accept or decline offers. Nearly all graduate programs have April 15th as a deadline to give and to accept offers. But if you can decide before then, you should let a school know immediately.
Theoretically, once you have two offers and you have visited both of the schools, you should decide between the two as soon as possible. Some students feel as though they need to visit each school before they can make a decision of any kind, but this is not true. If you go on four visits and end up with four offers, after the first two visits you should be able to decide between those two schools, even if you have the other two left to visit and you might end up deciding on one of them over both of the first two. You don't need to decide where you are going in order to decide where you are not going. Be vigilant about making your choices. Think of the other student on the waitlist behind you (maybe you are on a wait-list somewhere else?) and think about the professors at the school. They don't want to have an empty spot. Once you decide to turn someone down it is ok to send an e-mail, though a personal call may be faster and appreciated. Thank the professor for his/her offer and tell him/her that you are sorry you will not accept it.

Important factors
There are many factors to take into account when deciding on graduate school. Some prospective students, in my opinion, weigh certain factors much more than they should, and don't take into account other factors nearly enough. Here are my opinions in what is overrated and what is underrated. But please decide your own factors!
Overrated
1) Overall Prestige of School, Irrespective of Individual Program.
If you do want to go into academia and get a professor job, then overall prestige of the school doesn't matter. Don't go to Harvard if it's ranked 20th in your field and you've been accepted to the #1 in your field that happens to be a state school. I met so many prospective students who took this "Harvard Factor" or "Ivy League Factor" way too much into account. This is the number one biggest mistake people make when deciding on grad schools, in my opinion.
Additionally, you should be paying closer attention to your sub-field than your overall field, so that you get good training in your specific interests. 2) Location: a big, fun city with lots to do.
Think instead -- location: low cost of living. If you are completely obsessed with and enamoured by cities, then fine stay in one. However, even if you are normally a city person, you might realize that graduate school is a good time to save on costs and live somewhere cheaper that is also less distracting. Face it -- there is NO way you will have time to truly take advantage of what Manhattan, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco etc have to offer. If you are a dedicated, hard-working student you'll have a hard time running out of things to do even in a smaller city like Pittsburgh, New Haven, or Ann Arbor. You might as well save some money and live one of those places instead, if your stipend is the same. Which is the transition to #3:
3) Absolute Stipend Amount
remember to consider cost of living. There are several websites you can use as well as word of mouth to compare costs. Often a $15,000 stipend in a town can be better than a $23,000 stipend in a big city.
4) The Visit
You should trust your gut when deciding on grad schools, but also try to deconstruct WHY you want to go to a particular school. Was it because they had the best recruitment weekend with the tastiest food and the nicest hotel room? Well think about it -- in grad school they're not going to be treating you this way again. If you had a phenomenal visit somewhere, try to think about what made it good. If it was the research match, the professors and the students, then you should attend the school. If it was the organization, the events and the amount and quality of information they provided you, these are superficial reasons to choose a school.

Underrated Factors
1) Research Match
This is the most important factors in choosing a graduate school. If you don't have a match, don't go. You should choose somewhere you click with in terms of research over more prestige.
2) Personality Match
In addition to the research match, make sure you like the professor(s) you'd be working with. Also, make sure their current students like them.
3) Departmental Collaborations
If the department has issues and drama, it is not a good place to be. If everyone loves each other, it is a good place to be. Get the dirt on the department to see what type it is. Don't go somewhere where they backstab. It can really ruin your graduate school experience. One good way of measuring collaborations is looking at publication records.
4) Other Students
These are your colleagues and are also a wealth of information. Listen to them on the visit. Are they happy? Are they competitive? Do they get along? Are they smart and passionate about their work? The ideal students will get along with each other, collaborate with each other (not compete), be effusively happy with their program, and be extremely brilliant and passionate about their research. Don't attend a school where the students are boring or bored.