I'm about 36 hours late blogging this, but I think it's something worth declaring, both for the record keeping aspect, and because it's good to make note of these things.
I'm done applying to graduate school. Finished. Complete.
Now the waiting begins. I've been guardedly optimistic.
A number of people who got really, rather amazing, Ph.Ds reported that their application process, didn't compare to mine in scope and brain-hours. They applied to a couple of top tier schools, got in to the one they went, and thought little of it.
I on the other hand have been to the psychology pages (countless times) of most large mid-western research schools, all of the private-urban-research schools, and a smattering of canadian schools, comparing and re-evaluating interests and lists, and potential faculty advisors. Leading, to the creation of a fairly serious list, in August of 2006 of ph.d. programs in personality and social psychology. Which was all well and good, until I realized that given what I was really interested in doing, I needed to find developmental psychology programs.
Ooops.
So I redid it, and made a new list, which I shortened a bit, and then just applied.
Lord knows how it all went, an advisor seemed to think that I would get in, and I think I'm probably one of the few graduates in my major at my fine institution applying to research Ph.D. programs in this cycle. So while I'm not declaring victory, or looking for an apartment in any particular city (that's the guardedly part) I'm not sure about exactly what happens if I don't get it. Nothing bad, just nothing specific.
But here's hoping in any case.