Should I Focus on Research Now?

Graduate School
1

Hi all,
I recently took some GRE practice exams in a hurry, and my highest set of scores was 150V 153Q. I know these are bad scores, but I was looking at the list of APA-accredited programs, and my scores seemed to be somewhat acceptable for some programs. I was also thinking that I may pursue a sociology PhD, and from what I’ve heard, sociology programs are not as competitive as psychology programs (obviously I could be wrong). However, with a GPA ~3.6 and no research experience, I was wondering if I should just focus on those things for now. I’m not looking to go to a tip school; I’m more concerned with getting fully funded.

2

So it sounds like your main goal is psychology programs - perhaps in one of the APA-accredited subfields like clinical, counseling, or school psychology. However, you are also considering sociology programs.

A couple of things:

  1. Yes, your main focus should be gaining research experience. You will need that for either a psychology or a sociology program. You’ll need to soft-decide which one you’d rather pursue, as the kind of experience you’ll need will differ a bit depending on what kind of program you want to pursue, but many kinds of research can suffice for both sociology and psychology programs (especially survey-based research work). I’d say you’ll need 2-3 years to be really competitive, especially for clinical psychology.

  2. If you choose to go for a sociology PhD, assuming you were a psychology major in undergrad, you will probably need at least 3-5 courses in foundational sociology. There are some theorists most PhD programs in sociology would expect you to be familiar with before starting coursework.

  3. Your GPA is fine.

  4. Even if you focus on your research first, you should still try to pull your GRE scores up a couple points. Getting them to 155 would go a long way towards making it easier to get into competitive programs.

Finally, what are your career goals? The job markets in psychology and sociology are a little bit different, and they are a lot different if you were intent on pursuing clinical, counseling, or school psychology before thinking about sociology.

3

@juillet hi, yes- my number one goal would be to get into a PhD program in clinical psychology. I believe you have said that going into academia should only be done if you have a serious interest in one area, but I feel that doing research and being a professor is something I’d want to do regardless of what area. As far as sociology goes, I am going to double major in sociology as well as psychology. I have found research opportunities recently. Lastly, like you said, I am trying to pull up my GRE, though I am not too concerned that I will raise it by a few points by the time I take the test.