Now that you have made it through the other side of the application process and have received more than one acceptance to a psychology doctoral program, you are the one in power. These schools have indicated that they want you; now it’s your turn to decide which of them you want the most.
Note for Those Awaiting Waitlist Decisions: If you were waitlisted at your top choice school, do not cross that school off your list until you have heard for certain from that school that you will not be offered a spot. Waitlisted students can get offers all the way up until April 15th (the agreed-upon decision deadline), because students the program has accepted may have waited until April 15th to decline.
Evaluate Your Priorities
First, spend a little time evaluating what core values are most important to you to have in your future graduate program.
- Is it research fit or program style? Your research interests will likely change at least a little, but you may be confident that they won’t.
- Is it having close contact with your adviser or more distance? More distance can mean less oversight, but it can also mean less support.
- Would you prefer large program and cohort or a small one? Most psychology PhD cohorts aren’t ever huge, but a cohort of two can feel much different from a cohort of eight.
You have probably have neglected thinking about those nuances in such depth until now, not because you were careless, but because all of these aspects were probably negotiable until it came down to deciding between specific schools. Now it’s time to seriously consider them and how they will affect your future as a grad student.
Consider the Rankings
Rankings for psychology subfields should definitely matter to you, but don’t pay much attention to any numerical rankings you find. There are too many subtle differences between schools to produce any single objective ranking. No ranking from one person in your field would ever match perfectly with another person’s perceived rankings.
However, there would be a lot of overlap if you categorized schools into ranking “clusters”. A good way to conceptualize these groups would be to find out where your programs fall into these categories: the top two to three in your field, the top ten in your field, the top twenty in your field, and the top thirty in your field, followed by anything lower.
If you don’t know where the programs you are considering stand already, ask your mentors for their opinions. If you can get at least a couple of professors in the field to weigh in, you will likely have a pretty balanced perception of how people in your subfield generally rank your potential programs.
Find out Research and Collaboration Opportunities
If you want a career in academia (or at least want to keep that possibility open), rankings matter considerably, but research productivity matters, too. Ask professors you are considering and their current students questions like:
- What are they research opportunities like? Are they applied? Pure research? A mix?
- Do the professors you are considering let their students lead projects as they gain experience?
- Does the professor let his or her students be first author, or do they always insist on being first regardless of the work the student puts in?
Ideally, you want a professor with at least a little variety in types of research he or she can offer you, and who lets older students plan and lead their own projects and publications.
Beyond the depth of experience you’ll get with your potential adviser, you should also consider the breadth of experience you can get with others in each program. Some good things to find out regarding the collaboration opportunities:
- Can you work with multiple professors in the program you are considering? Are there any cross-department collaboration opportunities?
- What are the current funded projects in by your adviser and by the department?
- What grants are currently being submitted or considered?
- How closely do the other professors in your prospective department who aren’t your adviser match up with your interests?
Knowing that you have a solid base of interests outside of the professor you are considering is especially important if you are considering an offer more for the program itself than for a specific adviser. If that professor leaves during your time as a graduate student, you might be able to find a good fit with another professor in the department who will take you on as a student so you can stay at that school.
Ask Others for Their Opinions
Never make a decision based on someone else’s opinion, but definitely be open to their reasoning. They might make a point that tips the scales between two programs you were considering equally. You can consult with anyone important in your life, but the two best sources of information will likely be your current mentors and your prospective advisers.
Your Professors and Recommenders
The ideal person to get advice from would be a professor who knows you, the subfield, and the universities you are considering, all very well. You’re unlikely to have someone in your life who can hit all three categories, but any opinions from established professors in academia should matter to you. When they make suggestions, take note of them, and also ask what led to that opinion.
- Are they considering an aspect of your personality that you are not? (Needing structure versus needing freedom, for example.)
- Do they think the reputation quality between two different programs you are considering is more dramatically different than you had thought?
- Do they think you are under or over emphasizing the importance of research fit versus program quality?
- Do they think the professor you are considering is above average or below average?
Your Professors of Interest
It may seem odd to solicit opinions from programs who have a vested interest in accepting you, but this can be an effective strategy for students who are still having trouble making their final decision.
While it’s of course true that the program and your potential adviser want you, they want you happy and hardworking. If you’re not a good fit for the program, you won’t be either. It’s better for both of you if they help you figure that out and encourage you to accept elsewhere.
Talk to your potential adviser at the places you are considering and tell them what you are thinking, and what aspects you are having trouble deciding between. For the most part, you can be completely honest as long as you aren’t insulting toward any other programs or professors. You may be surprised out how helpful they can be.
Other Considerations
These factors shouldn’t be what you start out basing your admissions decision on, but if you are still undecided after considering some of the previously-mentioned factors, you might want to start thinking about these.
Location
Some people will tell you location shouldn’t factor in to your decision at all. After all, it’s only five (or so) years of your life. On the other hand… it’s five or six years of your life. A lot of your time will be spent at school, but you will also (hopefully) have a personal life. How happy can you see yourself living in that city?
- Are there places you would you be happy to go on a night out or on the weekends?
- Would you feel trapped indoors all winter if you hate the cold or all summer if you hate the heat?
- Is being close to a major airport important to you, or are you fine being several hours from the nearest one?
Any schools in places you would be miserable should be considered very, very carefully before you commit to them.
Stipend
Don’t make admit decisions based on a couple thousand bucks, but you might want to start paying attention when the difference between two schools starts to exceed $3-4k. First, though, you need to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples.
- Find out what the mandatory fees are at each school. They can vary dramatically. The amount may be referenced in your acceptance letter; if not, email the graduate secretary in the department to ask. They are fees charged by the university, not your program, but you will still have to pay them.
- Consider cost of living differences. $15k/year goes a lot further in rural Ohio than it does in a major city on the east coast. You probably have an idea of which locations of the schools you are considering will be more expensive than the others, but you may not know by how much. There are a lot of good comparison sites online; this is one I have used and liked.
- See if summer funding is included in the quoted stipend. Most grad students want to do research and be funded over the summers, and programs are generally able to accommodate this and find funding for them. Sometimes this assumption of summer funding will be included in the stipend listed in your letter (it may be called a “12-month stipend” or something similar), or it may be broken down between the regular, nine-month stipend and an additional summer stipend, or the summer amount might not be listed at all. Make sure to compare twelve-month stipends at each school against each other.
Personality Fit with Program
Did you “click” better with a certain program? Programs definitely have personalities, an aspect of grad school life that shouldn’t be overlooked. Don’t place too much emphasis on any one person or group of people you met, but if you generally liked the professors, the current students, and any other prospective students you met, this is a good sign of an atmosphere you would likely be happy to work and study in.
Making the Decision
If you’re still having trouble deciding, view that as a good thing! It means there are really no bad options here. But if you want quick and dirty, “back of the envelope” advice, here goes:
- If the programs are in the same general ranking category, choose the one you have a better research fit with.
- If the programs are not in the same ranking category, choose the higher ranked program.
Hopefully that’s simple enough! Choosing a psychology program with a great research fit or a great ranking is an excellent option either way.
So take a deep breath, make your final decision, and stand by it. Don’t second guess yourself. You made the best decision you could with the information you had. Now it’s time to notify your chosen graduate program and enjoy your summer before school starts.
