How do I review PhD program applications? 

 

When I think about creating a short list of applicants to interview each year I first check that the applicant has a strong undergraduate academic record (usually a cumulative GPA of 3.6 or higher) and relevant coursework in psychology, neuroscience, professional writing, data science, and other topics that fit with our common research interests. I then review the applicant's CV to look at the whole picture of the applicant— who have they trained with on research, did they apply for a NSF predoctoral fellowship or other funding opportunities, do they have special awards and honors, do they have scientific publications at this early stage of their training? I then read their personal statement carefully to see how they think, what their research skills are, how they synthesize research and show generativity in their research ideas, and how well their interests are well aligned to what we do in my laboratory. If it’s going well after reviewing these materials, I then carefully read the letters of recommendation. I’m looking for letters from research leaders in psychology and allied disciplines that speak to the applicant being one of the best research assistants they have worked with, who has lots of research skills, is a friendly and collaborative person who is a delight to be around, etc. Often it is the case that I get applicants who have a strong undergraduate GPA and relevant coursework but they haven’t worked for a period of time in a top psychology research lab, these applicants are not competitive and my recommendation is to seek out volunteer or paid research training experiences in top labs who do related research— this is the most important differentiator for applicants.

 

In a typical interview cycle I will have 2-3 short list candidates (usually out of about 60 PhD applicants to our lab that year), and I take a graduate student about once every five years. This is not a great base rate of success for an applicant, I realize that! We have a small PhD program and we provide really nice funding packages for the graduate students we do admit, and the benefit of getting into our PhD program is that our students can get more time and attention from mentors (since there are fewer graduate students).