Welcoming Mentees for the 25/26 Cycle

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Are you a student from an underrepresented background who is considering applying to a PhD program in Psychological Sciences, Cognitive Science, Neurosciences (including Cognitive, Animal and Human) or a related area (e.g., Linguistics or Speech and Hearing Sciences)?
Would you like to connect with friendly faculty members or graduate students in your area who can give you one-on-one advice and mentorship on topics like: choosing a grad program, preparing your applications, your resume, etc.?
If so, please fill out this short web form to participate in the MAGIC program (Mentoring Aspiring Graduate students and building an Inclusive Community). You’ll have the opportunity to have one-on-one video chats with faculty, post-docs and grad students who want to mentor underrepresented aspiring doctoral students.

First round of matching: Sign-up by August 31, 2025 to be matched with a mentor by mid-September. 

Missed the first round? Don’t worry—there’s a second round! Sign-up by Sept 30, 2025 to be matched with a mentor by mid-October. 

We welcome members of any underrepresented and/or historically minoritized group—including (but not limited to) people with disabilities, first-generation college students and individuals from low-income backgrounds.
Organized by members of the UConn Neurobiology of Language community and supported by the Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the Office of the Provost and the UConn College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Seeking Mentors for the 25/26 Cycle

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Are you interested in supporting underrepresented and first-gen students (from UConn and elsewhere) as they consider and apply to graduate programs in Psychology and related areas? If so, please sign up here (it only takes ~3 min!) to be a mentor in the MAGIC program — Mentoring Aspiring Graduate students and building an Inclusive Community!  

If you already indicated on the Experience Survey (sent in June) that you’d like to continue as a mentor, there’s NO NEED to sign up again – we have your info and will be in touch soon. 

Past mentee interests indicate that we particularly need more mentors in Clinical, Developmental, Social, Cognitive, Educational, and Behavioral Neuroscience. 

Sign-up deadline for first-round 1-on-1 matching is August 31, 2025 (second-round deadline: 9/30/25).  

First-round matches will be made in mid-September, second-round matches will be made in mid-October. 

What is expected of mentors? Your role as a mentor can range from having a single conversation to a longer-term relationship—it’s up to you! We’ll share tips and mentoring resources to help guide your conversations. Once matched, we ask that you reach out to your mentee and try to schedule at least one meeting. From there, you and your mentee can decide what kind of engagement works for both of you. 

Please share this with any colleagues (e.g., faculty, postdocs, grads) who might be interested in mentoring! They do not need to be affiliated with UConn! 

 

Topics that mentees often want to discuss: 

– Choosing a grad program 

– Preparing grad school applications 

– Financing grad school (fellowships, grants, etc.) 

– Resume or CV 

– Interviewing 

– Personal statement 

– Standardized testing (GRE, TOEFL, etc.) 

– Choosing an advisor 

– Publications 

  

Thank you for your support!    

The MAGIC organizing team 

Our first round of 2024 “Formal” (one-on-one) matches are out!

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Everyone who requested a formal (one-on-one) match by October 4th should now have received a response! And signups remain open! We will continue to create formal matches throughout the fall (at least) on a rolling basis. Since this is application season, we’ll aim to get the next round out within 2 weeks.

AND stay tuned for more information about drop-in (ad-hoc) mentoring via the MAGIC website. With drop-in mentoring, mentees will also be able to reach out directly to other MAGIC mentors for advice – coming soon!

To get a MAGIC mentor by Oct 7, sign-up (~3min) by Wed, Oct 2!

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We are preparing to create our initial round of mentee-mentor matches for 2024-2025 at the end of this week! If you would like to be matched with a mentor in this first round, and you have not yet signed up, please fill out this brief sign-up form (~3 min) by this Wednesday, October 2nd. Matches will be sent out on October 7th. (We anticipate a subsequent round of matching for later signups.)

Discontinuation of HuskyLink

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Effective immediately, HuskyLink is not longer available to our mentors and mentees. UConn has decided to discontinue the use of the platform. Moving forward, we will be deploying formal one-on-one matches via email and mentees interested in drop-in mentoring are encouraged to email our mentors to schedule a meeting. Our mentors page indicates which mentors are available for drop-in mentoring. Please email us ( magic.initiative@uconn.edu)  for the password to access this page. Thank you and apologies for any inconvenience this may cause!

Our first round of 2023 “Formal” (one-on-one) matches are out!

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Everyone who requested a formal (one-on-one) match by October 4th should now have received one! And signups remain open! We will continue to create formal matches throughout the fall (at least) on a rolling basis.
AND stay tuned for more information about drop-in (ad-hoc) mentoring via the HuskyLink online mentoring platform. On HuskyLink, mentees will also be able to reach out directly to other MAGIC mentors for advice – coming soon!