It's May 1, 2024. I meant to write this post before April 15, but the semester got really busy (I'll do a separate post about that later). Hopefully, this will help students applying next year.
Let's back up a minute.
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April 15 is tax day (Still haven't gotten my refund yet! Grumble). But it's also "Commit to a graduate school in psychology day." Basically, the APA (American Psychological Association), which accredits clinical psychology programs, mandates that Ph.D. programs with clinical training all have the same day at which students commit. And that date is April 15. And by the way, a school like Brown, which has a Ph.D. program that is not clinical, goes along with that date (I suspect that it's just easier to do so, but it might also be mandated by APA or another governing body). Anyway, what this means is that graduate programs admit students anywhere between the end of February and the end of March a and then give them until April 15 to decide whether to accept the admission offer.
This academic year (2023-2024) was the first in a few years where a student in my lab was not applying to graduate school, so I did not have direct experience talking with a student every day. But last year, I had two students apply directly (one to clinical programs and one to experimental programs) and this year I did have two alumni of my lab (one class of '20 and class of '22) apply to graduate programs - both Ph.D. programs in Clinical Psychology. I emailed them to ask about how they went about making their decisions once they knew where they were going. I could basically categorize their responses in two ways, and I'll cover that below.
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Roughly speaking, there were a few themes that my students mentioned in making their decisions and questions that they asked. Almost everyone mentioned to me that they spoke with their potential advisor, but also graduate students in the lab and program, and that talking with the graduate students was the most important in getting answers to questions and in making their decision.
1) Advisor and Lab Environment. How invested was their potential advisor(s) in mentoring their graduate students. Did the PI have an active grant(s) that would fund students? Had former grad students of this advisor received F31s or NSF grants? Had former graduate students graduated and received postdocs/matches/internships/etc? Did the PI's research interests and future directions align with my interests and goals?
2) Professional Development. Was the program preparing its students for careers in research? Did the program offer opportunities for professional development (grant writing, stats training, writing workshops, certificates in teaching, travel expenses for conferences or off-campus training activities)?
3) Stipend and Benefits. How much of a stipend would I receive? Does the stipend cover the summer and if so, what are the expectations for that time? Did the amount of the stipend align with the living expenses of the area? Would the program provide me with insurance coverage? This was critical for some programs (where the stipend was relatively low in comparison to the cost of living; one student indicated to me that his decision was made solely on this basis - he would have had to take out loans to accommodate a simple cost of living at one program, and thus chose another). There's also a question here about how long the stipend was guaranteed for and what expectations the department would have for it. That is, if you are in a 5-year Ph.D. program, would you be guaranteed funding for all 5 years or only a subset of that time? Would you have to be a graduate TA for the entire time, or is some of the time spent on a fellowship? To what extent can your advisor support you on grants?
4) Training: How strong did the training seem at the institution? For clinical Ph.D.'s, were the faculty licensed psychologists? Were the faculty active and publishing? For clinical Ph.D., what opportunities were there locally for clinical externships? Did most students get matched with their #1 choice for their clinical internship or you their top choice of postdoc program? What was the average length of stay in the Ph.D. program. Did anyone finish in less than 5 years? Did most people finish in more than 5 years?
5) Location and Weather: How close would I be to a place I would want to live in? For some people, this is a large city. For others, this is a smaller environment. How different would the weather and climate be from where I grew up or Providence (where I've been for the last few years)? Moreover, how do I personally feel about the environs? Were the people nice? Were people high competitive or more collaborative? Would I resonate well with living and working there for a long time. If I have a partner, would my partner be happy living there?
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I was admitted to two programs for graduate school, which factored into my decision: University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois. Previously, on this blog, I have talked about how I made the decision to apply to these (and other schools), and if you've read that, you'll know that I didn't really know much about what I was doing, nor did I have advisors to talk to about the process. I went to Cal. And on the surface that might have been an obvious choice. But it wasn't at the time. Here was my thought process.
1) Berkeley had no resources. I would get a guaranteed stipend for three years and no guarantees for the summer. I would have to TA from my first semester and be a TA every semester I was there. My potential advisor did not have grant funding, so that was not an option. The program, by the way, was a 5 year program, so I would need to get a job to support myself outside of the program. Illinois, in contrast, gave me 5 years of guaranteed funding with the first year on a fellowship. My potential advisor there had NSF funding. The stipend at Illinois was about 30% higher than the stipend at Berkeley, and the cost of living was about 30% lower, so financially everyone was more comfortable. The graduate student that I stayed with during the visitor's day at Illinois owned her own house. That was not possible in Berkeley.
2) The lab space at Berkeley was terrible. I would be given a bench and a table in a lab in the sub-basement of Tolman Hall. My potential advisor had two other graduate students - the more advanced one had a desk; the other one would share the bench with me. At Illinois, the lab space was part of the new Beckman Institute - the building had opened the year before. I would have a private office. My potential advisor at Illinois had 4 other students and 2 postdocs. It was a much larger lab.
3) I had met my advisor at Illinois. He was a Swarthmore alum and had given a talk there my junior year. We had a lot in common and I was clearly interested in what he worked on (language processing). At Berkeley, I applied to work with someone working on vision, which I was becoming less interested in , and was also different in scope.
4) The weather at Berkeley was obviously better year-round than the weather in Illinois. But, I was coming from New York and Philadelphia, and was familiar with winter and cold weather climates. One of the disappointing aspects of my visit to Berkeley was that I only brought sandals, and it was only about 55 degrees there the entire time I was there - so much colder than I expected (I visited for the first time in March). Both were also a plane ride away from my home and family (around New York City), so that was a wash.
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But here's the thing - I went to Berkeley. And from other posts, I have already written about how I didn't wind up working in that lab and switched to another. But I didn't know that at the time. Why did I go to Berkeley? Two reasons. The first came from my visit to Illinois. I was taken out to lunch by about 6 graduates students. All but one of them were there for 6 years or longer. It didn't occur to me to ask why it took so long, but I remember them going around the table at lunch, and them all saying this (and their making fun of the one guy who was in his ninth year), that it make me think carefully about how long the program was, and whether it was viable to finish the program in a timely manner.
The second reason, however, was something that I haven't discussed yet. It's probably the least scientific and the most fuzzy of reasons. When I walked through Berkeley's campus the first time, I felt the same way I did when I walked through Swarthmore's campus the first time (where I went to undergraduate): It felt like home. From the moment I walked through Sproul Plaza, I felt like I belonged there. I never felt that was about Illinois. It was nice. I enjoyed my visit. The campus is lovely. It was a beautiful set of days for late March. The building that the Cognitive Science program was in was beautiful. But it didn't feel like home. Berkeley did. So I went there.
What can I say? I was 21 and didn't know any better. That said, I don't ever think I made the wrong decision. Of course, it helped that I didn't wind up studying vision, and stumbled into a developmental laboratory, but that's more of the part of the story that has to do with luck than rational decision-making.