<p>Hello! I'm new to the board and looking for some advice...</p>
<p>I'm a 2nd semester Sophomore with a 3.67 GPA. I was retaking a class I had a D in from my very first semester, but had to drop because it was going worse than the first time and now have a W. I also have another W from a different subject, which I got A's in the two alternate classes that equate to it. (And neither of these subjects are for my major or minor). </p>
<p>I was just curious if the appearance of a D and two W's is seriously going to hurt my chances as far as getting into a PhD Psychology program (Most likely School Psychology). </p>
<p>I won't lie - a D followed by a W looks really bad and will hurt at least a little. The real issue, though, is the class that you can't seem to pass. If it's an important course for Psychology, like a statistics course or a Psych course, you'll be in a lot of trouble. If it's something else with less of an impact on psych, like Physics, then it's not that bad. </p>
<p>Regardless, your best bet is to hunker down, retake it, and make sure you get an A. Getting a C and moving on (after a D and a W) indicates that you never mastered the material, you just did enough to get by. Getting a A at least sends the signal that you worked hard, figured it out, and can move on.</p>
<p>Well, any reason you want/need to get a PhD in school psych? I know most of the functions of school psychologists can be accomplished with a masters--and they'd be a lot more forgiving with academics.</p>
<p>My son is also interesting in School Psychology and was at first looking at Masters programs. He was told to keep his options open because if $ is needed, they are more generous with PhD programs. There are trade-offs though in time and effort, but there are plus’s and minus’s to both.
My son also noticed that most PhD programs are accredited but not the masters programs, but most of the grads seem to get work.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in a field as competitive as Psychology, a Ph.D. in any subfield (certainly including School Psych, which is probably the 3rd most competitive – after Clinical and Counseling), more than 1 W/D/F (esp. 2 in the same course) is going to look pretty bad. If it’s in any stats, research, psychology, or science course, it’s going to hurt you (science less so it it’s a more distantly related branch, but since Psychology as a field is sort of pushing to be recognized as a pure science and not a humanity or social science, programs will tend to want to see evidence that you can “think like a scientist”).</p>
<p>On the other hand, your 3.67 isn’t too bad. You’d be right around the lower middle of the pack with that GPA. Have you done any research or school/clinical work yet? If not, I’d suggest you get on top of that and have, at minimum, 3 solid semesters of research and a good semester (or 2) of clinical or school-related experience. The research is really the most important component when applying for a Ph.D. program in Psychology, although if you have little or no school or clinical experience, you may have trouble getting into a program that would prepare you for actual applied (not research) work as a school psych.</p>
<p>My niece was told her major GPA counted more than the overall GPA (although both should be good). Would a 3.70 be better if the Psychology GPA was 3.90 or more?</p>
<p>Gaby, to be honest, it wouldn’t really matter. Once you’re above the 3.7 line (and have a GRE score over 1250 or so), your GPA (and GRE) is unlikely to make any real difference (in terms of admission; fellowships and so forth may be another matter entirely at many programs). From that point on, it becomes primarily about your letters of recommendation, personal statement, and, if you’re invited, your performance at the interview (and during the entire interview weekend/day). This is largely due to the fact that for Ph.D. programs, match is FAR more important than your UG track record. The reason your track record is so critical early on is that there are so many applicants to any one program that programs can’t afford to review everyone’s app thoroughly so they cut people at a certain point and then make cuts higher up the objective criteria (i.e., GRE, Psych GRE, GPA) list while giving some leeway for excellent non-objective criteria (i.e., letters of rec, statement of purpose, and interview).</p>
<p>I am in a similar boat and was GRILLED by admissions committees about those W’s!! i had 2 or 3 W’s and 3 C’s…it was like a really big deal to them.
Just have a really good reason why you’re over withdrawing and getting bad grades…In my case I had a C in a statistics class…and while I actually had several disagreements with the professor and he was kind of a cranky old man…Rather than tell them that, I was able to say that in my job I have <em>now</em> I use statisics all the time…And they really liked to hear that, instead of me just explaining WHY I did bad in the beginning, to say how I improved it on my own through experience and real-world application.</p>