Applying to Psychology PhD programs

Graduate School
1

<p>I'm a rising senior looking to applying to doctoral programs in either social psychology or organizational behavior this fall. I have a 3.66 cumulative GPA (3.7 in my major) due to a horrible sophomore year (severe family problems). My GPA does have an upward trend (my average this year was a 3.93). I have yet to take the GRE - I'll probably be doing so in August or September.</p>

<p>Related info:
- In departmental honors program
- Research assistant for two different studies this past academic year (both social)
- Psi Chi president
- Teaching fellow for intro psych labs (teach three intro psych labs/week, last year & this coming year)
- Received departmental award for honors research proposal (will be carrying this study out this coming year)
- Selected to attend APA workshop on statistics this summer
- Working for CTY this summer
- also a business minor (hence the OB)</p>

<p>Currently, the programs I'm interested in are: Duke (they recalculate GPA!), UNC Chapel Hill, UVA, maybe UNC Greensboro for social psych; UNC Chapel Hill, USC Moore School of Business, UMD for organizational behavior. I would really prefer to stay in the Virginia-North Carolina-South Carolina area, but I'd be open to other suggestions.</p>

<p>A few questions: does my GPA prevent me from being a competitive candidate? Would it be worth it to "explain" my sophomore year? What other programs are worth looking into/ what is a good number of schools to apply to? How predictive of GRE scores are SAT scores? Any another specific advice for me?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>I think your GPA is in the range of acceptable that you'll be okay although higher is always more helpful. Getting a high GRE score would help make up for it so be sure to study a lot for it. Take a practice test for it and remember you'll be competing against better students so the SAT comparison may be different. Your research experience looks good but keep trying to do as much as you can with it, like do your own study and/or try to be published in some manner. The statistics is good, any math, computer or biology experience always helps. Apply to as many schools as you can as although social psychology isn't as competitive as clinical, its still hard. </p>

<p>You probably already know it, but check <a href="http://www.socialpsychology.org/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.socialpsychology.org/&lt;/a> for more info and rankings of social psychology programs and <a href="http://www.siop.org/GTP/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.siop.org/GTP/&lt;/a> for more on IO programs. I would suggest looking less at programs and more at advisors. Research which ones have interests that match you own, then read their articles and communicate with them asking about the program and if they have spots available for next year. Try to visit if you can and develop connections to try to find faculty that could potentially be your advisor. That could really help you in the admissions process as many times its about fit.</p>

<p>Anyways, good luck! Those are two of my big psychology interests, always very fascinating to study.</p>