grad school applications

My grad school application process was greatly facilitated by having access to amazing resources. As an undergrad at Harvard, I had access to influential professors both at Harvard and MIT, kind and knowledgeable grad student mentors, courses at MIT, funding for travel and research, and so on. I am endlessly grateful to all those people who worked very hard to help me. At the same time, this underscores how much privilege I have and how much an uneven playing field grad school applications are. On this page, I tried to gather some resources that I think can be helpful to people who want to apply to grad school in psychology (or something similar). Hope you find it helpful, and feel free to contact me via email if you want to talk more :)

PRO-TIP

The Harvard psychology department produced several videos with invaluable information. These are interviews with faculty, who describe what they look for in grad school applications. I found this super useful, and it will be useful for applying to many psychology departments, not just Harvard.

PRO-TiP

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGY PPREP & MIT BCS AAP

These are two application assistance programs where you can meet with people from either Harvard Psychology or MIT BCS and get help with your grad school applications (it’s free). Of course you should reach out and do this, because you get (1) advice, (2) someone to read your SOP, (3) insight into the department. You don’t need to apply to Harvard/MIT to use these resources.

Harvard Psychology PPREP

MIT BCS AAP

Statement of Purpose (SOP) ADVICE

Here is some advice I’d like to share about SOPs. Of course, take my advice with a grain of salt, and there is no one correct way to write an SOP. But, in my experience as an ex-applicant and an application advisor (through MIT’s AAP) the following are good ideas to keep in mind:

1. What the Statement of Purpose (SOP) is not:

   1. a college admission essay (“I am very well-rounded and have some quirky hobbies…”)

   2. a biography (“When I was a kid, my {insert relative} had a stroke and now I’m passionate about the brain.”)

       Exception to the not-a-biography advice: if you are part of an underrepresented minority group it might be useful to talk about it in your SOP to give more context to your application.
      

   3. a detailed CV (“In my freshman year of college I did… Then in the summer I did… Then in my sophomore year I did…”).

2. What the SOP is:
   1. a sales pitch for why you will be a good grad student who will complete the program. Taking a student is a big commitment in terms of time and funds, so you want to convince your potential advisor that you are a good bet. This entails the following:
      1. show that you have a good research question that shows thinking, knowledge of the literature, and connection to the potential advisor’s field.
      2. talk about your toolkit (e.g., MRI; stats; experiments; neural nets; EEG; etc.), how you used it in the past, and how you plan to apply it to your research question;
      3. show that you know what the potential advisor does and that you have thought about how you can fit in the lab/department.
3. SOPs usually have three parts:
   1. (a) My question is… (one paragraph)
   2. (b) I have experience that shows that I will have the persistence and the right preparation and tools to study this question (the majority of the SOP)
   3. (c) I want to work with Professor X in institution Y because… (one paragraph)
4. I found reaching out to professors useful (not everyone does), but it should be done with care. Often, an email with a message like “I read your paper now let’s meet to talk” is not seen favorably by professors (in contrast, grad students would often love to receive an email like this). Instead, a more acceptable message is an inquiry about whether the professor is admitting students this year. This is good for you, because (a) then you know where to apply or not, saving time and money, and (b) this will familiarize your potential advisor with your name, so it sticks out more when they go through applications (cf. a student who hadn’t prepared in advance and just applied last-minute to try their luck).

MY APPLICATION MATERIALS

I’m sure there are many ways to improve my application materials. Still, they got me in, so maybe they can help you in some way.

My SOP for MIT

My letters to two professors whom I applied to work with (identifying information redacted).pdf

STATISTICS