APA Early Graduate Student Researcher Award

[clinicalpsyapp]

I apologize if this was discussed somewhere else, but nothing came up in my search...

I am applying for the APA Early Graduate Student Researcher Award, and in true graduate student form am still working on my personal statement (the deadline is on Monday). Anyway, I was wondering if anyone on here has applied or is applying to this award and has any advice/warnings, or just wants to commiserate . The criteria that they are looking for in the personal statement is: independence of research, novelty of ideas, and implications of research. Clearly I feel that I have these qualities, or else I wouldn't be applying, but it's a little unclear to me how to demonstrate this in the personal statement.

Most importantly, how does one demonstrate independence at this level of training? I have three first-authored publications and 11 first-authored conference presentations, so is independence self-evident? Also, in terms of novelty and impact, the prompt for the personal statement says that you may use references/citations, but that just seems so awkward in the context of a personal statement.

Anyway, clearly just procrastinating further by posting this, but just wondering if any of y'all had some ideas!

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[cara susanna]

I applied and didn't get it, but I didn't have any publications at the time either.

 

[Member1928]

My guess is that this will be a crapshoot. Perhaps I'm jaded b.c. I've applied to things from APA (with minor success) and I've never gotten any feedback on anything from grants, scholarships, and other awards. I would ask an advisor or two about additional ways to play up the independence of research. That said, if you have projects that are or have been your 'babies' and don't necessarily involve adding a couple measures to an existing protocol I'd be emphasizing those projects. I would also be highlighting how you've taken advantage of opportunities for collaboration, and then talk about how such opportunities have helped you develop, expand, and refine your own independent line of research that will answer [insert big questions in your area of research here]. If such research has been or likely will be grant funded soon, talk it up.