<p>Hi!</p>
<p>I am interested in knowing hopefully from other grad students who have gotten into graduate programs, and what it took for them to get in.
I am an undergrad right now, psych major and emphasis. I have a 3.5 transfer GPA from a community college, and a 4.0 from UT. I am an officer for Norml on campus. And am involved in research assistance for personality/social psych. </p>
<p>I haven't yet taken the GRE, and to be frank I am nervous about it a bit. </p>
<p>I am looking to apply an go to schools in California, I grew up there, both my grandparents went to USC. I however noticed the acceptance rate to a lot of California schools is less than 10%. Pretty grim, I think. </p>
<p>Any tips, tricks, and or advice is appreciated!</p>
<p>I found this website helpful, I think it answers many of your questions: <a href=“http://clinicalpsychphd.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/”>http://clinicalpsychphd.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/</a></p>
<p>It seems like you have a strong background, but it is very competitive to get into Psychology PhD programs. Acceptance is less than 10% at most funded PhD programs. You really can’t afford to be geographically restricted either, so I think it would be best to look outside of California as well.</p>
<p>Your GPA is okay, and you need to do well enough on the GRE, but the key will be building research experience.</p>
<p>I am in psychology myself, although I am in social psychology. Are you interested in clinical or do you want to do social/personality? A couple of things:</p>
<p>-It’s fine to prefer certain locations, but generally speaking for PhD programs you shouldn’t limit yourself to one location unless you have family concerns (like if you were the primary caregiver for your elderly grandparents). The reason is because your best researchfit might actually be at a school that’s not in CA. Also, the more flexibility you give yourself on the front end, the better. It’s better for you to go to a top school for psych that may be in Michigan or North Carolina, for example, and have a shot at living in CA long-term because you get a position at a UC - than it would be for you to go to a low-ranked CA school for grad school and not be able to find a job to stay in CA. Of course, if you could get into one of the better-ranked UCs that would be the best of both worlds!</p>
<p>-Clinical psych is very competitive, and it is VERY common for successful applicants to not only have good grades and 2 years of undergrad research experience, but also 2-3 years of post-college experience as a lab manager or research coordinator. Social psych is also competitive but not as bad as clinical, so it’s more common for people to go straight from undergrad, but you don’t have to. The acceptance rate to most psych PhD programs is going to be around 10-20%, even the mid-ranked ones, so expect that from everywhere.</p>
<p>The most important things in your application, in rough order:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Research fit. The best way to express this is in your statement of purpose. The department wants to make sure that you will enjoy your research there and that there is someone you can work with, so you need to choose wisely the schools to which you apply. In your statements of purpose, you will write an individualized paragraph for each university explaining why you chose to apply there and which professors you’d like to work with. In psych it is very common to contact professors ahead of time (in say, August to September) to ask them if they are planning to take students in the Fall of 2015. In some programs getting in is dependent on a professor being willing to work with you (it’s like that in my program).</p></li>
<li><p>Letters of recommendation. You need three good, solid letters from professors who know you well and can speak to your ability to succeed in graduate school. These professors should already have a PhD (so no TAs) and at least one should have supervised you in research.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>GPA and GRE are less important. Your performance in your psych classes is quite important, but it looks like you have no problems with that. Don’t worry about the GRE so much - if you score around the 70th percentile or higher in each section (around a 310 total, or 155-ish each section) you should be okay.</p>