<p>Hello, I am a current 1st year (heading into 2nd year) at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). I know that Grad School is in my long term plan and is a life goal that I want to achieve. Further, after doing more research I have found that Grad school admission is completely different than that of undergrad. Therefore I wanted to know what the GPA requirements would be (for a Psych major) to get into a Top Grad School program in the west coast, I.e. Cal Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Stanford, UW, I currently have a 3.25 overall GPA and a 3.0 major GPA (I took intro to psych at a community college during high school and got a B, it's the only major related class I have taken so far) I know that my current gpa might be relatively low to get into those programs but I plan to take more classes to boost my gpa. Also, I know that there are other significant factors to get into a grad program. However, I just want to get an overall glimpse of where I am at. GPA wise, if I were to graduate with my current grade point average (both major and overall) what programs would I most likely get into? and what GPA would I need to get into one of those schools (or any other prestigious west coast school) that I mentioned earlier ? Thanks for the help! Please get back to me. I know Grad school is still far away but the sooner I get prepared, the better correct?</p>
<p>P.S. I might switch over to Sociology in the long-run, not sure if that would affect what GPA I would need to have to get into a decent Grad school for Sociology. But I just want peoples feed back.</p>
<p>First of all, why is it your “life’s goal” to get a graduate degree in psychology or sociology? Is there a job that you want that requires a graduate degree in one of those fields? Graduate degrees are more or less a means to an end, in the sense that you only get one if you need it to do something (or if you want deeper study in a particular field and don’t mind forking over $100K+ for the privilege rather than just reading extensively).</p>
<p>There aren’t any hard-and-fast GPA requirements for graduate programs. Most people, I think, would recommend a 3.0-3.2+ for MA programs and a 3.5+ for PhD programs (in both fields). But I had a 3.4 and I’m in a top 20 PhD program in psychology. There are people with higher GPAs that don’t get in. The exact number isn’t as important as research experience in undergrad, which you must get.</p>
<p>It’s too early to calculate your GPA. You can’t calculate it based upon one class. Take some more psychology classes, and do as well as you can in them. Also, since you know this is something you may be interested in, find a professor who is doing some research that interests you at UCSC and ask them if you can be a research assistant for them. You need at least 2 years of research experience to be competitive for top PhD programs.</p>
<p>Also, realize that psychology has many different subfields. Getting an MA in psychology is more or less useless, unless you want to be a mental health counselor (an MA in mental health counseling or counseling psychology can get you licensed to do that). At the doctoral level, a PhD in clinical psychology is very different from one in experimental or quantitative or developmental psychology, which are all very different from each other.</p>
<p>Juillet, getting a grad degree in Psychology is one of my life goals for many reasons. First and most obvious (to me) is that I want to become either a high school counselor or a child psychologist. The reason I want to become a hs counselor is because I come from a city where (even to this day) close to 0 students in the entire district end up at 4 year universities. Further, many of those students that do have the potential for a 4 year undergrad school either get side-tracked by drugs or gangs. The reason why I want to be a child psychologist is because I have had friends who were physically abused by parents and family members (I’ve seen a friend of mine have his head slammed against a linoleum floor by his mom, and I never said anythingg). I want to go back t youth in my hometown (either children or high school students) and lead them hopefully to a better life.</p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, I understand that the GPA Is not everything but I do recognize that it must be at a certain area to even be considered. Further, since I haven’t taken any psychology classes yet I haven’t really had the opportunity to speak to a professor and make connection to be able to get research experience. Since that is the case and you recommend having atleast 2 years of experience would it be encouragable to go talk to a professor who I’m not enrolled in a class in to try and get those 2 years of experience?</p>
<p>Lastly, I feel as though I am leaning towards counseling psychology (at the moment) and perhaps that would affect which schools/programs I would get into. Overall, I just want a glimpse at which schools I would be looking at with my current GPA (although it might be too soon to tell).</p>
<p>P.S. sorry for the typos, I had to write this from my smartphone.</p>