<p>I'm currently a junior psych major and I'm starting to consider grad school. I know research is really important and I'll be doing some for a class next year so at the moment I'm just looking for good programs that I might have a chance of getting into. I currently have a 3.55/4.0 and am in two honor societies so I think I should be okay in terms of GPA (hopefully). </p>
<p>What do graduate admissions look into when looking at applicants? Will I have to take the psychology GRE test?</p>
<p>I’m a fifth-year psych PhD student. In rough order of importance:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Research experience. The most successful students usually have 2-3 years of it. It doesn’t have to be 100% related to your future program (any research experience is better than none), but it should be progressively more responsible. You need to do some more than just the stuff you do for class; you should be volunteering or working as a research assistant for a professor. You may also be interested in finding a summer research program. The National Science Foundation sponsors some called Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs); you can also find other ones by Googling something like “summer research experience undergrads psychology”. There are lots. Application deadlines are typically in February to March so start looking now!</p></li>
<li><p>Fit. Departments have priorities and professors have lines of research in which they stay; your future research and methodological orientation should fit the department’s. They want you to be happy and flourish, and they want you to be able to learn the tools you want. For example, if you are interested in cognitive development in adults age 60 and older, a department would likely not accept you if there’s no one there doing cognitive development work and/or no one working with older adults. If you want to do field-based work or case studies and everyone in the department has an experimental orientation, then you are not a good fit there, either. Find departments that fit your interests and career goals, and don’t apply to departments that aren’t good fits. That doesn’t mean that you have to want to do exactly what another professor is doing, but your research should bear strong relation to the stuff they’re interested in.</p></li>
<li><p>Letters of recommendation. You should have three; they should all be from professors and at least 2 should be from psychology professors. Ideally, one is from someone who has supervised you in some sort of research activity. They don’t have to be famous, but they should know you well. Typically it’s not appropriate to get recs from TAs, but graduate student instructors who have sole-taught your class are okay if you can’t get three professors for some reason. So as a junior, you need to be cultivating these kinds of relationships with professors so that when the time comes, you have 3-4 that can write you strong recommendations.</p></li>
<li><p>Grades. You should have good grades, particularly in your psychology courses. Professors will especially like to see good grades in intro psych, research methods, statistics, and developmental psych classes. You should also have taken challenging classes, including some upper-level seminars related to your field. A 3.55 is fine - that’s higher than my cumulative GPA from ugrad was. Just keep it up.</p></li>
<li><p>Statement of purpose. Your statement should 1) let the admissions committee know that you have experience that’s related to what you’ll be doing in graduate school, and how you came to be interested in developmental psych and your field of interest; 2) your current and future interests in the field and on what you’d like to do research at their program 3) why they should let you into their program; 4) how your career development will benefit from their program; and 5) what your future career plans are. So as a junior, you should be thinking about how you can answer these questions. What ARE your research interests? What would you want to write your dissertation on at this stage in your career? What kind of resources does their program offer of which you’d like to take advantage? What do you plan to do with the PhD when you finish? (Word of caution: if you want to do anything other than be an academic researcher at a university or similar institution, you may want to think a bit before you stipulate that. Sad as it is, a lot of professors don’t want to advise students who don’t want to be academics.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>^This is where that almighty fit is determined from.</p>
<ol>
<li>GRE scores. This is truly the least important part of your application. Basically, it’s a threshold sort of thing. Most PhD programs in psychology want about a 1200 on the old exam or higher. That’s about the 85th percentile, so you want your scores on the new test to be in about the 85th percentile, which is about 160 on both sections of the exam. GRE scores can keep you out if they are too low, but they can’t get you in. They also won’t offset a low GPA, but that’s not something you have to worry about.</li>
</ol>
<p>Some programs require the psychology GRE and others don’t. Mine didn’t, so I don’t know much about it.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! I’ve asked about this in a few other places but this is by far the most helpful :)</p>
<p>Also, do you recommend maybe taking a year off between undergraduate and graduate to get my research experience since I won’t have many opportunities otherwise (I’m working at a camp this summer)?</p>
<p>Yep, although I think if you take time off it should be 2 years. If you only take a year off, then you’ll only be about 3-6 months into your new research position and your supervisor can’t give you as good a recommendation as he or she would be able to if they had supervised you for 1+ years. However, it’s different if you are working for someone you already know - like if you become a researcher at your alma mater.</p>