<p>I will most likely graduate with around a 3.0, and Marist is a very competitive school, thus they only accepted 37% this past year. I was thinking of NYU, Boston College, Syracuse, Rutgers, Seton Hall, etc. but I don't know if this is all wishful thinking, or within my reach. If you don't think any I listed are within reach, I would appreciate it if you included a list of good grad schools I could get into on the East coast. Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey,</p>
<p>Having been a fellow psych major and currently applying to graduate programs, I find it curious that you consider 37% to be “very competitive”* (unless you’re simply referring to your UG institution’s competitiveness). I am not quite sure what kind of programs you are planning on applying to (clinical, experimental, counseling, etc.), but some of the schools you’ve listed have well-known clinical programs. However, your list is kind of all over the place. Some of those schools (e.g., Syracuse) are very research oriented while others (e.g., Rutgers) actually have entirely clinical/professional psych depts attached. With that in mind, your list of schools seems a bit random and/or haphazardly chosen to me.</p>
<p>Furthermore, unfortunately, with a 3.0 you are unlikely to be admitted anywhere considering the competitiveness of programs in psychology. (And limiting yourself geographically will only hurt you even more.)</p>
<p>Do you have any idea what you want to study or do? Without a clear vision for your career, even with the best of credentials you wouldn’t stand a chance at most schools.</p>
<p>To get a feel for what your competition looks at, you might want to take a look at places like [url=<a href=“http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/forumdisplay.php?f=57]Clinical”>Psychology [Psy.D. / Ph.D.] | Student Doctor Network]Clinical</a> Psychology [Psy.D. / Ph.D.] - Student Doctor Network Forums<a href=“as%20well%20as%20the%20advice%20there”>/url</a>. If not, to give you at least some idea of what you’re competing against, a (strong) sample applicant to Rutgers might look like: 3.7+ GPA (3.9+ Psych); 1300+ GRE, 750+ Psychology GRE, bilingual (or other skills relevant to research/clinical interests); a couple years of research experience (including the possibility of some presentations, publications, and research grants awarded); a senior thesis or project directly related to the applicant’s proposed area of interest; a couple years directly-related clinical experience and several more of loosely related but applicable work; a few semesters as a TA; strong LORs from professors that know the applicant from a combination of several classes, research advising, and supervision (TA, clinical, etc.); and well-defined research and clinical interests that directly relate to and overlap with those of several faculty members at the target institution.
Of course, a strength in one place makes up for weaknesses in others, but as I understand it, many schools sort of take applications in rounds. So from what I understand from the grad psych admissions books I’ve read and what profs have told me, etc., this is basically how it works:
If you pass round 1, you go to round 2, but if you fail in round 1, you simply get rejected without another look at your application (this is a bit of an oversimplification, but in most cases, it sounds like it’s true; the exception would be a student with a low GRE or GPA score but amazing credentials otherwise, such as multiple publications in highly-regarded journals and letters of rec from well-known professors explaining away the poor GPA/GRE). While it may not seem fair, I would guess that the rounds at many schools look something like this:</p>
<p>1) GRE & GPA check 1 – do they stand up to the minimum (cutoff threshold) standards of the graduate school? (e.g., 3.0 GPA & 1000 GRE are probably the most common I’ve seen)
2) GRE & GPA check 2 – (aka, the first time the dept actually sees your application) – are GRE & GPA scores in line with other applicants (if not, are there are other reasons for considering this applicant? if not, toss application)
3) A. SOP – are the mentioned professors accepting students? (if not, are there other faculty members who might consider taking the student?) Are this person’s interests actually in-line with the program’s goals, vision, etc. as well as the actual (current) research interests of the faculty members cited? B. Letters of Recommendation C. Other written materials evaluated (e.g., CV, etc.)
4) Interview (by invitation only) – Looking for fit, personality, potential, etc.</p>
<p>There are actually some really great books to pick up on this process. The best I’ve seen is Keith-Spiegel, P. The complete guide to graduate school admission: Psychology and related fields.</p>
<p>*For reference, the average [Ph.D.] doctoral program in Clinical Psychology (sort of the gold standard when it comes to psychology) accepts 9.5% with a SD of 4%…meaning 98% of such programs accept between 1.5% and 17.5% of applicants. Almost all applicants to such programs are highly qualified and rarely does it come down to things like GREs and GPAs (those applicants are tossed out within a few weeks of receipt of their applications or are even discouraged from applying); usually, the real issues are such things as how you present yourself at the interviews, your SOP, your letters of rec, and your research match (the most important criteria of all).</p>
<p>I am actually a sophmore at Marist College, which is very competitive to get into as an UNDERGRAD I don’t know about Graduate. I’m a Psychology major, and I still have time to raise my GPA and all that, but I was just wondering to get a ballpark idea. I want to get my Masters and do something with research or in a school-setting most likely. Can you suggest some good graduate schools not too too far from NY?</p>
<p>Ok. Cool. I would suggest beginning to get a feel for what you want to do exactly.
If you want to do research, you would be best-served by going for a Ph.D., in which case the GPA needs to come up drastically and you should be involving yourself in research as an UG a.s.a.p. In psych, you generally skip the masters level and go for a doctorate although school psychologists can work with only a masters and there is masters-level licensure for therapists in many states.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to pick up a copy of the book I suggested above now and take a look at its suggestions for grad school admissions. It’s targeted at clinical psychology at the doctoral level b/c that is the most competitive (and largest) subfield of psychology, but everything it says is also applicable to MA-level school psychologists as well as experimental psych programs and so forth.</p>
<p>Once you’ve done some research and some applied (clinical) work and decided whether you like research or applied/clinical work more, you should get a copy of the insider’s guide to graduate programs in psychology. It is geared toward doctoral programs but what it says about a program will still tell you a lot about the program’s orientation (clinical or research) and what its faculty are studying (your school library almost certainly has a copy). Then you need to start looking at faculty profiles for the school online and look up publications to get a feel what schools have faculty w similar interests to yours.
On the other side of things, you should also be searching for schools in the opposite direction – look on PsychInfo or PsychArticles (or another database) for research topics you’re interested in and start collecting a list of schools that have faculty who are currently publishing in areas where you have an interest. Then look those schools up in the Insider’s guide AND online and get a feel for their orientation (research/clinical) as well as clinical orientation (CBT, Behaviorism, Psychodynamic, etc.) and see if it fits you (varied views are usually best; e.g., I would consider myself fairly CBT w/ some family systems views, but going to a school w/ 100% CBT-oriented faculty with a few who also agree with family systems would be a poor choice b/c the other views contribute to your training and w/o them you’re not going to have a strong education). It’s a long process and you can’t really get good results by asking others to “recommend schools.” If you’re a weak fit b/c of your interests, theoretical orientation, or career goals, you could be an ideal student otherwise and never get in anywhere.</p>