My GRE scores, which I'd been happy with (did really well in Verbal, pretty well in Quantitative), are now stale (took the test in 2004). Any tips for helpful books/other resources?

no. I'd recommend picking up a book of exams and taking a few, though. It's kind of like riding a bike...

What's the expected financial package at a 1-20 school for Psychology? Something like tuition waived with a $15,000 stipend thrown in? Do they get any better?

(adding health insurance to the above list)

A friend of mine gets tuition + 22k. I imagine that's a bit above standard. 15k would be on the low end of "full" funding for econ and social sciences are likely comparable.

Math is comparable. In '05 I was offered 12k at Wisconsin and 25k at Michigan, but Michigan gave me a particularly good deal because I had 3 years of external funding (@~31k on a fellowship).

Seemed like so much at the time...

Natural sciences as well. Standard at U of Chicago was ~18k back at the turn of the century, upped a bit over the course of a few years. U Washington students I knew were ~15k at the same time. This is going to be very much school dependent though I think (e.g., whether the departments have non-university external funding, such as the Dept of Ed GAANN fellowship, which were above standard but held by the department).

Also, departments have wiggle room. A friend of mine was courted by Wisc, and when they found out he was planning to go elsewhere, they upped his 12k into the 18-20k range and reduced his teaching. You should not nit it up over 1-2k, but if you get an offer that's 2x, it's worth telling the other school about it.

Thanks, all--looks like I can expect to make in a year what I make in a month in my current job. All the more reason to really think this through.

Probs worth noting the friend I'm talking about went to undergrad with me (top 3 pysch afaik). She had stellar grades summer experience as an RA at UM where I met her and was second author on a working paper at the time of her application. She didn't come close to a clean sweep of her top choices. Just some food for thought as top 20 in any field is very tough to crack.

I appreciate it, not really sure what to expect yet. Like I said, I think I look like a pretty strong applicant on paper: 3.9 with honors at good ugrad, JD from elite law school, strong GREs when I took test in 2004 that I think can only improve now that I'm older (720 verbal, 690 quant, perfect writing), two years as lawyer working for big name law firm, etc... Big issues are lack of psychology background and research experience, but if I go through with this plan I'll take two or three classes this fall and try to get some research experience to shore up my resume and show my commitment to this.

Imo that big law experience will not be a positive for you. Law students invest quite a lot in what they do and they may see you as fickle for leaving. Also you have a TON of lucrative outside options. Grad programs don't want to invest into someone who they think may walk away.

You'll have a chance to address that in your essays but in econ no one reads those lol

Not so much. To the extent that's true, most of the options would be unpalatable to me for the same reason my current job is.

Natural sciences typically beat math by quite a bit. Duke's math department offered me something like $11k in 2001, but said they'd match my other offers. UCSF biophysics offered me something like $28k (I think this is right, but I could be off by $1-2k). The guy at Duke almost choked when I told him, but they swore they'd stand by their offer to match. I think they were happy I picked biophysics over string theory .

I'm an undergrad currently studying Materials Science and Engineering. I'm about to hit the meat of the program but have all my pre-req's and maths/sciences etc finished. I don't know what specific type of Materials I'd be interested in as I don't know enough about any of it to make a decision at this point.

I got super lucky and got picked up for this summer (with 80-90% probability of continued work) by a research group working on sheet metal testing, so I have my foot in the door as far as research goes.


I'll get into the rest later, as I'm about to leave for a summer class across town, but I do have a question that someone here may be able to answer..and yes, I've read every post in the entire thread. I had the ambition to get a Masters here at the same school as my undergrad. I have personal reasons why I don't want to be here much longer than it takes to get my Masters (never considered PhD) that I'll get into later, but I just recently became aware that many people transfer to go to grad school. I don't know why I never thought of it before, and I'm doing as much research as I can on the subject to help me make an informed decision.

My question is about being forced to take on classes. I realize that the universities that offer funding to their grad students do so with their own interests in mind. Here at Ohio State, we have GTAs and GRAs. I am extremely interested in doing the research route as opposed to teaching. Do the top 10-type schools (realistically top-25) force all their PhD students to lecture/teach classes? Or are there a fair amount that just do research on their way through? My goals as far as career go do not involve academia in the sense that I would prefer to work in industry as opposed to being a professor that is forced to take on teaching roles just to be able to continue doing research. I realize PhD's in the Engineering fields are not as rigidly tied to academia as in other fields.

Thank you all for your time and I apologize for my hurried mess of a post.

Yes. Even the best funded research schools need TAs. And if you're getting a PhD, the expectation is that you're training for a tenure track faculty job, which always requires teaching.

Don't besmirch the TA requirements though. It's a good way to really learn a subject (or understand what you don't know about something) when some idiot sophomore asks a question you don't know the answer to.

Different programs may be different. I certainly knew Biophysics students at Michigan who taught either 0-1 classes during their Ph.D. I only taught one term, and it was by choice. The trick was to apply for various fellowships to cover your tuition the entire time.

PhD in Psychology - what hour/week commitment could I expect? It probably makes a difference, but I'm still not sure whether I'm more interested in clinical or research - both seem like good fits right now. I ask because I would like to earn enough $ every year to at least cover the accruing interest on my loans, which would mean I would have to earn an additional $8k or so. Thanks again for all of the help

This is an amazing point I overlooked. Thank you for a different perspective Like I said, I'll post more later and maybe get some advice on a few things. I would like to thank everyone that has contributed in this thread thus far. You guys are great!

On this topic, I'm in the same boat. I'm at a R1 school and will only be lecturing one semester via a teaching "internship" class. I'm hoping I don't fall in love with it and decide I'd rather get a position that requires teaching experience instead of publications.

Ph.D. Chemist ITT at private top 20 school and we get 25k base + tuition

anyone?

Go some place where you get funding.

FWIW my funding is tuition + 23k + health insurance, but subject is Statistics.

Your dissertation project should be your employment.

Right, but I think very (very) few places require <1 semester TAing, even with full external funding. Top (#1!) Ecol/Evol school (ok, now it's top 5) required (with full external funding) 1 (or more), or a TAing "course."