Hey ya’ll, I am approaching my Senior year and plan on graduating at the end of Fall 2017. What should be my course toward graduate school at this point? I have research lined up for the Fall (Psychology) and just trying to figure out what needs to be done and at what time. Thank you.
Are you planning to go for a PhD in psychology, or something else? What is your goal?
Is this the first semester you will have worked as a research assistant? If so, and if a PhD in psychology is your goal, then that’s really not enough research to be competitive for doctoral programs. Most successful/competitive applicants have at least 2 years (4 semesters) of research experience, plus usually one summer experience. Particularly if clinical or even social psychology are your goals, it’s common for students to take 1-3 years after college to work as a research assistant or lab manager and gain more research experience to be competitive for PhD programs.
The overall process is usually that your application deadlines will be between the beginning of December and the middle of January. Here’s a rough recommended timeline based on experience:
-If you haven’t already, you want to start drafting your personal statement now. You want time to develop it and show it to some trusted professors so you can get feedback for improving it.
-Ask for recommendation letters at least 6-8 weeks before they’re done. So if the deadline for a program is December 15, you want to ask your recommenders between mid-October and early November at the latest. (You can give them the heads up before that.)
-Take the GRE. It’s often nice to have time to retake it, so I’d recommend taking it pretty soon (September at the latest) so you can get feedback and potentially retake it if you need/want to. Mid-November is probably the latest you can take it and still make mid-December deadlines. If you’ve got some early December deadlines, you’ll need to take it at the beginning of November.
My goal is to get a PhD in Social Psychology. I did some research In Spring 2016, but yes, Fall 2016 through the end of Fall 2017 will be full of research experience. That would be 3 more semesters and a summer semester. So it is typical to postpone graduate school after undergrad graduation to do extra research?
It’s pretty common to do so, yes. Especially in social psychology, which is one of the more competitive areas (that’s what my PhD is in, btw).