What if research experience ISN'T the weakness in an application?

[futureapppsy2]

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On SDN, the common re-application/application/WAMC advice is to get more research experience (publish, work as an RA, etc), but what about when research experience ISN'T the problem?

I have a friend applying this cycle who has what many would consider great or very good research experience--7 peer-reviewed publications (one first author, many in 2+ IF journals), with more under review and in prep; numerous posters/presentations at national conferences; a book chapter under review; grant writing experience; experience as reviewer for journals, etc. She has decent teaching and clinical experience as well, good to *very* strong LORs (per her--her writers have shown them to her), seemingly good research fits (in line with her publications), strong SOPs, strong GPA, a GRE score (1250 old) that should meet cut-offs, etc., too, and yet 2 out of 4 schools she's applied to (balanced PhDs) have either sent out invites and she didn't get one or have formally rejected her. Hopefully, one or both of the other two will work out, but if doesn't, what can one tell her to improve? 😕 It doesn't seem like the usual advice of "go be an RA and try to publish or present" would necessarily apply, at least not to the usual degree.

 

[syzergy]

Sheer numbers? Did she only apply to 4 schools?

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Sheer numbers? Did she only apply to 4 schools?

This, basically. My advice would essentially be to apply to more schools next go 'round if it doesn't work out this time. Funny things happen during the graduate admissions process, and sometimes POIs either already have particular students in mind, or decide not to take anyone new that year. By only applying to four places, you significantly increase the chances that a large proportion of your acceptance chances will be hindered by the above scenarios.

The only other things I can think of based on the limited information provided:

1) Schools didn't like her statement of purpose for whatever reason?
2) A 1250 somehow didn't "make the cut," perhaps combined with a lower GPA? (doubtful, but you never know)
3) Perhaps the schools to which she's applying think she's TOO research-focused? (sounds dumb, I know, but if the POIs to which she's applying produce primarily clinicians--even if the school as a whole is balanced--that could possibly work against her)

 

[Ollie123]

I wouldn't be surprised if there was an element of "overqualified". This certainly happens with internships...our students tend to get interviewed at the very high quality, competitive sites, and not getting interviewed at the "backup" places they don't want to go anyways because well...no one wants to be last choice. It may also raise questions about "fit" since their CV may come across as someone geared towards a clinical science program.

Assuming GPA is strong, GRE is definitely one thing to work on. I had a 1250 and it definitely hurt me (faculty told me this outright). Then again, I was applying almost exclusively to top research programs which it doesn't sound like is the case here. This person definitely didn't apply to enough schools....I don't care what your CV is like, applying to four schools is a big, big gamble. There is always some chaos in the system...maybe those faculty members decided not to take anyone this year due to funding or other issues that have nothing to do with their qualifications. Personal statements can almost always be better. Clinical experience isn't a focus, but some wouldn't hurt and could perhaps help balance any concerns that she is "too" research-y and not applying to appropriate programs.

The other possibility that seems to be an issue is an actual bias AGAINST the research productivity. Some faculty (including one of my advisors - though I imagine he would still interview the person) abhors the quantity over quality direction the field is going. I don't know this person's situation (i.e. straight out of undergrad versus has been a coordinator for the past decade and wants to go back to school), so that is obviously a critical variable. Someone fresh out of undergrad with 7 publications would likely be viewed with suspicion under the assumption that these were someone piecemealing out extremely simple "survey research" (not to pick on that since I've done some too - but its easy to collect huge datasets to crank out publishable but ultimately meaningless work using surveys!), a lab that did a ton of handholding (I've met applicants with first author papers who clearly had someone else analyze their data for them as they seemed to know nothing about it), or a lab that simply tacked everyone who did anything on as an author. These all might be completely and totally false in this situation, but that attitude is certainly out there so its worth acknowledging as a possibility. There are plenty of journals with IFs of 2+ or even 3+ that are quite easy to get into, so some folks seem to be growing more hesitant about using this as a marker of quality. I'm not sure what could be done about the latter other than casting a wider net with applications and/or making sure a few of the publications are VERY strong (i.e. Psych Science, Abnormal, JCCP) if they have mostly published in less prominent places...that seems very nuanced at this level, but I'm trying to come up with ways to make such an application "better".

 

[rlw23]

Sheer numbers? Did she only apply to 4 schools?

It might also be the case that they applied to work with POIs who were not accepting students this year?

 

[postitnote]

On SDN, the common re-application/application/WAMC advice is to get more research experience (publish, work as an RA, etc), but what about when research experience ISN'T the problem?

I have a friend applying this cycle who has what many would consider great or very good research experience--7 peer-reviewed publications (one first author, many in 2+ IF journals), with more under review and in prep; numerous posters/presentations at national conferences; a book chapter under review; grant writing experience; experience as reviewer for journals, etc. She has decent teaching and clinical experience as well, good to *very* strong LORs (per her--her writers have shown them to her), seemingly good research fits (in line with her publications), strong SOPs, strong GPA, a GRE score (1250 old) that should meet cut-offs, etc., too, and yet 2 out of 4 schools she's applied to (balanced PhDs) have either sent out invites and she didn't get one or have formally rejected her. Hopefully, one or both of the other two will work out, but if doesn't, what can one tell her to improve? 😕 It doesn't seem like the usual advice of "go be an RA and try to publish or present" would necessarily apply, at least not to the usual degree.

Given what you said on the other thread (the names of the two schools she applied to), I really don't think it's bias against her productivity. My guess would be in line with what some others said--that it is very likely a problem with her SOP (did she note who the specific POIs were in her statement; was she specific to only 1-2 faculty members in tying it to her research) as well as a lack of quantity of schools applied to.

 

[InNae]

Chiming in with the quantity versus quality issue here. The OP didn't state how long the applicant has been working in labs (nor how many labs), but 7 pubs with only 1 first author has the ring of 6 pubs for which the applicant is somewhere in the middle of a long author list. Although those middle "authors" contributed to some step of the work, they usually have not made a significant scholarly contribution to the conceptualization or interpretation of the study and results.

Some other potential red flags are that book chapters rarely are peer-reviewed, so that could look like CV padding (it itself not serious, but can color the overall view of a CV), a lengthy list of manuscripts in preparation is suspect, and "good to *very* strong LORs" seems odd. Given the apparent amount of research experience, ALL of the letters should be very strong and should speak in considerable detail to the specific abilities, skills, and progress of the applicant.

I'm not saying this particular applicant has this problem, but many applicants race to check off as many "boxes" as they can (get threshold score on GRE, get an RA position, get a poster, get listed as author on a manuscript) and neglect to make sure that they also pick up the lengthy list of intangible skills and ways of thinking that POIs prefer (and look for in SOPs and LORs).

 

[cara susanna]

I think fit may be an issue. This person sounds very research-focused and even if the SOP mentions clinical career goals, the faculty are probably focusing more on the CV.

 

[wigflip]

someone piecemealing out extremely simple "survey research" (not to pick on that since I've done some too - but its easy to collect huge datasets to crank out publishable but ultimately meaningless work using surveys!)

Ollie, I think you've raised this critique before--would you kindly please elaborate? Not defensive here (I too have worked on surveys) but curious--why "meaningless" work?

 

[Ollie123]

Oh, I was just getting at the idea that it isn't difficult to get lots of publications if one's primary goal is just to lengthen the CV rather than advancing the field. Many mid-tier journals (IF in the ~2-4 range) do not necessarily have exceedingly high rejection rates.

I was picking on survey research in particular just because the amount of time/effort needed to do mediocre survey research is sooooooo much lower than other types of research, which makes it very easy to give the illusion of productivity by publishing a lot, without doing anything particularly compelling. One can easily put 20 measures online, get a couple hundred undergrads to fill them out, and produce one (or often several) publications out of that. Compare this to weeks of developing and writing computer software, running subjects through several hour protocols one at a time, hundreds of hours coding second-by-second video,etc.. I've spent nearly as much time simply processing and cleaning heart rate, skin conductance and EMG data for one study once collected than I spent from start to finish on some surveys.

This isn't intended as sour grapes since (as I've said) I've done some of this work too - I'm just a proponent of using multiple approaches and think its important for people to get experience with them in grad school. I've just come across a few folks recently who have "lots" of publications, but upon closer examination its all correlational survey work (sometimes that's just the nature of the work, but many times I think its done because its "easier"), and a lot of is very incremental, purely correlational, and often seems to just be people throwing a bunch of loosely associated measures into an SEM model and playing with it until they get their fit index high enough.

Just to clarify (lest I offend someone) good survey research can certainly take as much or more time than many other types of work...especially when you get into things like longitudinal work, nationally representative samples with n's in the thousands, etc. Similarly, experimental/laboratory can certainly be just as awful/meaningless - it just takes far more time and effort to conduct so you aren't going to be able to rip papers out the way you can with survey research.

 

[wigflip]

Oh, I was just getting at the idea that it isn't difficult to get lots of publications if one's primary goal is just to lengthen the CV rather than advancing the field. Many mid-tier journals (IF in the ~2-4 range) do not necessarily have exceedingly high rejection rates.

I was picking on survey research in particular just because the amount of time/effort needed to do mediocre survey research is sooooooo much lower than other types of research, which makes it very easy to give the illusion of productivity by publishing a lot, without doing anything particularly compelling. One can easily put 20 measures online, get a couple hundred undergrads to fill them out, and produce one (or often several) publications out of that. Compare this to weeks of developing and writing computer software, running subjects through several hour protocols one at a time, hundreds of hours coding second-by-second video,etc.. I've spent nearly as much time simply processing and cleaning heart rate, skin conductance and EMG data for one study once collected than I spent from start to finish on some surveys.

This isn't intended as sour grapes since (as I've said) I've done some of this work too - I'm just a proponent of using multiple approaches and think its important for people to get experience with them in grad school. I've just come across a few folks recently who have "lots" of publications, but upon closer examination its all correlational survey work (sometimes that's just the nature of the work, but many times I think its done because its "easier"), and a lot of is very incremental, purely correlational, and often seems to just be people throwing a bunch of loosely associated measures into an SEM model and playing with it until they get their fit index high enough.

Just to clarify (lest I offend someone) good survey research can certainly take as much or more time than many other types of work...especially when you get into things like longitudinal work, nationally representative samples with n's in the thousands, etc. Similarly, experimental/laboratory can certainly be just as awful/meaningless - it just takes far more time and effort to conduct so you aren't going to be able to rip papers out the way you can with survey research.

Thanks for the clarification, Ollie. Happy holidays!

 

[JockNerd]

Oh, I was just getting at the idea that it isn't difficult to get lots of publications if one's primary goal is just to lengthen the CV rather than advancing the field. Many mid-tier journals (IF in the ~2-4 range) do not necessarily have exceedingly high rejection rates.

I was picking on survey research in particular just because the amount of time/effort needed to do mediocre survey research is sooooooo much lower than other types of research, which makes it very easy to give the illusion of productivity by publishing a lot, without doing anything particularly compelling. One can easily put 20 measures online, get a couple hundred undergrads to fill them out, and produce one (or often several) publications out of that. Compare this to weeks of developing and writing computer software, running subjects through several hour protocols one at a time, hundreds of hours coding second-by-second video,etc.. I've spent nearly as much time simply processing and cleaning heart rate, skin conductance and EMG data for one study once collected than I spent from start to finish on some surveys.

This isn't intended as sour grapes since (as I've said) I've done some of this work too - I'm just a proponent of using multiple approaches and think its important for people to get experience with them in grad school. I've just come across a few folks recently who have "lots" of publications, but upon closer examination its all correlational survey work (sometimes that's just the nature of the work, but many times I think its done because its "easier"), and a lot of is very incremental, purely correlational, and often seems to just be people throwing a bunch of loosely associated measures into an SEM model and playing with it until they get their fit index high enough.

Just to clarify (lest I offend someone) good survey research can certainly take as much or more time than many other types of work...especially when you get into things like longitudinal work, nationally representative samples with n's in the thousands, etc. Similarly, experimental/laboratory can certainly be just as awful/meaningless - it just takes far more time and effort to conduct so you aren't going to be able to rip papers out the way you can with survey research.

I do a lot of survey-based work, and you're right that folks often throw a bunch of junk together, get some undergrads to do it, then look at the correlation matrix and make up some hypotheses (I've reviewed several papers where they clearly generated the hypotheses after looking at the data, as they come up with hypotheses that are not based in anything; thankfully I've read less of this in print, though yeah that kinda stuff can make it through review in weaker journals). My own lab does it, in my opinion, way better (e.g., doing experimental studies of the associations we find in cross-sectional work).

I don't really see the non-first authors as being a problem. We're finally moving toward multi-site collaborative work in psych, so working on a team is good. And, to be author, you HAVE to contribute to the work (by APA ethics), so I don't see that as a problem.

Maybe fit at the sites wasn't as good as the OP's friend perceived it to be (e.g., she studied depression psychophysically, the POI lab studies it in epidemiological work, etc.).

 

[deadmau5]

too few schools, potentially. I mean some schools only take 4-5 people max.

Better communication needed with the potential supervisors - if there is a chance that the supervisor will not be able to get their picks in, then shouldn't bother applying. Sometimes some profs have priority to take students, especially if they are new profs... others with 3-4-5 students might not have enough priority.

 

[PsychPhDone]

Too few schools. Triple the N and raise GRE to 1300 would be my main advice.

 

[Pragma]

Fit, fit, fit. That is what it comes down to. Professors vary widely in how they value various parts of the application. That 1250 GRE might not be enough. Some want to see a high quant score...some want to see a high verbal score...that breakdown may influence some ratings. Some profs don't care and it is all about the CV and personal statement. I am assuming that the personal statement might have something to do with it.

Also, 7 pubs as an undergraduate sounds ridiculous. If this is a young student with that many pubs, I would imagine the faculty would be suspicious of "padding" or that the student got their hand held. If they were an RA or coordinator for awhile, it might be viewed more favorably.