I am sorry I did not understand what you meant by ‘range of competitiveness’
So is your goal an academic position with teaching and research? The people I know who did an MSW here in the US seemed to spend a lot of time on psychology, but not necessarily research. And they end up with jobs doing therapy, working in hospitals or hospice and so on.
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A typical MSW degree may only have one research methods course, which might be fairly introductory. I guess it depends on where the OP is applying but other students with other types of masters degrees may have had more exposure to quantitative or qualitative methods - which matters for a research focused PhD program.
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One way to do it could be to 1° find a 1-year Master’s degree in the UK or similar (or in a country where you speak the language or where Psychology is taught in English) 2° apply to the US from there, with more “recognizable” experience for US grad schools. Applying to the US PHD (that includes a Master’s degree) with a European Master’s degree is far from uncommon. (I say European but it could be from another recognized system: Australia, Canada… for instance).
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Would need to be able to pay for that (as well as R&B costs), though, which may be an issue.
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@CheddarcheeseMN yes my MSW degree just has one course of research but my bachelor’s in psychology emphasized a lot on research hence I had 2 semesters of research methodology, 2 semesters of statistics in research, and one course in psychometric testing. Apart from this we also have to do one or two term papers every semester and a dissertation in the final semester.
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That seems like a good idea, do you think east Asian countries like Singapore would be a good option?
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Singapore would work, yes, especially if the university is well-known.
Are there affordable possibilities for you?
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Sorry, by ‘range of competitiveness’ I meant some schools that are easier to get into, some schools that are maybe a target range for you, and some that are stretches. It’s the same concept as undergrad, but the range is more constrained - instead of having 1 or 2 schools that are you guaranteed to get into, instead you may have 2-3 that you think you are pretty competitive for and you have better chances of getting admitted to (but aren’t guaranteed admission for); maybe 5-7 where the average student looks a lot like you, and maybe 2-3 that would be harder for you to get into.
This is a little harder to do from PhD admissions. But you can still do it by looking at the expectations on the programs’ websites, looking up results at places like thegradcafe (although take those with a grain of salt - they’re somewhat useful data, but they’re not good data), and talking to your professors to get an honest assessment of your competitiveness from their perspective.
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