Preparing for Graduate School in Psychology while an Undergraduate

There are some jobs in the human service or mental health fields that you can get with a bachelor's degree.  In general, however, the more education you have, the more opportunities open up.  Many positions in the mental health fields require a master's degree.  In order to become licensed as a psychologist, you need a doctoral degree, such as a Ph.D. or a Psy.D.  (Doctor of Psychology).  If you desire a career in academia (teaching or research), a Ph.D. is usually necessary.

Here are other things to consider

This schedule should serve as a guideline.  There is nothing sacred about the timing of each of these activities, and some may not be possible.  They are only suggestions.

Norine L. Jalbert, Ph.D
Western Connecticut State University
(The following article was originally presented at a Working Lunch Session
at the meeting of the New England Psychological Association.
Saturday, October 30, 1993, and appeared in the Spring 1994 Psi Chi Newsletter)
[This has been edited to update it and save space.]

Introduction

Let me begin my introductory statement with the disclaimer that there is no guaranteed formula for getting into graduate school.  All that can ever be offered is a set of guidelines that can help you channel your energies into the most productive paths.  As with most guidelines and help aids, the focus is on some ideal steps to follow in order to increase your chances of getting accepted into a graduate program of your choice.  It is not necessarily the case that any of your professors followed each and every one of these steps to get into graduate programs; nor do we really expect that you will follow each and every step.  Your own needs, skills, talents, judgment, circumstances, etc. have to be included as an integral part of the process of making wise decisions and choices about how best to proceed.  My second disclaimer in this introductory statement is to clarify that this information and material is not the result of my solitary effort.  I wish especially to acknowledge and recognize Dr. Susan E. Dutch from Westfield State College, who originated the outline of things to consider in the admissions process, and Dr. Lisa Gray-Shellberg, who provided the worksheet for preparing one's personal goal statement.

The Admission Process: Some Things To Consider

1. Applications for Admission

• Choose 6-12 programs (application costs: $500+)
• Photocopy each and keep in separate file folder
• TYPE your applications one month prior to deadline

2. Curriculum Vitae/Resume

• Be honest and brief
• Include telephone number and permanent address
• Ask first before you list references
• Use good quality white or cream bond paper

3. Personal Goal Statement

• Include autobiographical sketch
• Be honest and brief—keep to word limit if one is specified
• Be prepared to write different statements for different schools/programs
• Demonstrate clear focus, interest in discipline, realistic planning
• Carefully edit and proofread
• Refer to next section in this article for help in getting started

4. Letters of Recommendation - See The Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Psychology, by Tracy Mayne, Michael Sayette, and John Norcross, page 48, figure 4-4, (ISBN 1572304952) for sample cover letter to your referees

5. Transcripts

• Request transcripts 1-2 months in advance
• Check unofficial transcripts for errors.
• Fees for official transcripts can range from $2 to $25.

6. Candidate Interview

• Dress appropriately
• Be prepared for telephone interviews in addition to in-person interviews.  Role play if necessary.
• Be prepared to discuss your goals/research and those of the faculty

Personal Goal Statement: Preparatory Draft

Jot down the first things that come to your mind in each of the four areas below.  Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, or spelling at this time; just write whatever occurs to you.

1. I have the following skills and abilities to offer your school/graduate programs
2. My educational experience has been
3. Other experiences that have shaped me include
4. I'm interested in your school/graduate program because.

Preparing For Graduate School Applications: Program Information And The GRE

1. Where to Start

• Talk with your advisor in the psychology department or with your department chair.
• Send for the following pamphlets or books published by APA (1-800-374-2721):
  • Psychology and You (single copy requests free)
  • Careers in Psychology (single copy requests free)
  • Psychology As A Health Care Profession (single copy requests free)
  • Is Psychology the Major for You? 1987. (ISBN: 0912704780)
  • Preparing for Graduate Study in Psychology.  1980.
  • Getting In: A Step-by-Step Plan for Gaining Admission to Graduate School.  1996.  (ISBN: 1557982198)
• Buy or borrow (check department or library) one or both of the following books:
  • The Complete Guide to Graduate School Admission: Psychology, Counseling, and Related Programs (2nd ed.).  2000. By Patricia Keith-Spiegel and Michael W. Wiederman. ISBN: 0-8058-3120-7.  
  • Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology.  By John C. Norcross, Michael A. Sayette, and Tracy J. Mayne. 

2. Getting Information About Specific Programs

• Use your university resources:
  • Libraries (and the web) frequently have graduate catalogs
  • Career development offices usually have career and graduate program information
  • Department bulletin boards are generally filled with posters, pamphlets, and information from a variety of graduate schools
• Buy or borrow Graduate Study in Psychology, either through the APA or a bookseller.  It contains information on over 500 graduate programs in the U.S. and Canada, and includes admission requirements, application information, financial aid, tuition, APA accreditation, housing, number of applicants and number of acceptances, etc.
• Get specific information and applications from each institution of interest.

3. The Graduate Record Examination

• The GRE is a standardized test most commonly required by graduate school admissions committees.  There is a general test, taken by computer, and a subject test in psychology.  Graduate programs will tell you whether one or both of these tests is required.
• The general test consists of verbal, quantitative, and analytic measures.
• The subject test in psychology consists of 200+ questions from three major areas of psychology: experimental/natural science, social science, and history.

4. The Miller Analogies Test

• The MAT is another standardized test used by many graduate school admissions committees.  It is a 50-minute test in which you must complete 100 analogy problems.
• Get information about test dates and costs on-line, or 1-800-662-3231.

Linda J. Hayes and Steven C. Hayes
Reprinted from the APS Observer, September 1989.
[This version is edited to reduce redundancies.]

Admission into graduate programs in psychology can be quite competitive.  High quality programs are, of course, more competitive than lower quality programs; in general, doctoral programs are more difficult to get in than master's programs.  Usually, applied programs are more difficult to get in than basic programs.

The primary determinant of success in applying for graduate school is the quality of your background in abilities.  But these qualities are not assessed magically.  They are evaluated on the basis of a limited number of kinds of information.  The purpose of this article is to review those kinds of information for the purpose of understanding the process.

Assembling a Competitive Application

Graduate Record Exams and Other Admission Tests
Most graduate admissions committees require the GRE, and a few still require the MAT.  These scores will often be interpreted as a measure of the student's general intellectual ability ad likelihood of success in graduate school.  Thus, it is wise to obtain the best scores you possibly can.

Some believe that it is impossible to study for these exams, but it is not true.  For example, if you haven't taken a mathematics course in some time, review materials can be quite helpful.  If you are unsure how to take tests of this type, examination of one of the books on the market about the GREs may help.  Students have been known to pull up their scores greatly through careful preparation.

Be sure that your scores are available by the admission deadline.  Incomplete applications are not usually considered, and when they are, the fact that they are incomplete refelcts poorly on the candidate.  If the candidate couldn't manage to get their admission materials together on time, will they be late with class assignments as well?  Are they generally disorganized?  Are they disorganized, careless?

Grades
Your grades reflect your standing among your peers.  Obviously, grades are important and no good student needs to be reminded of that.  As it applies to admission into graduate school, what students do need to be told is that it is wrong to assume that good grades are enough.  There are too many students with good grades out there interested in graduate training.  You will need other qualifications to distinguish yourself.

Letter of Intent/Statement of Interest/Autobiographical Statement
Most applications ask for a statement of interest.  This is sometimes called an "autobiographical statement."  The request for an autobiographical statement is often misunderstood by student applicants.  Students who take the request literally harm their applications by appearing to be unsophisticated and naive.  It is sadly not uncommon to see such statements begin with "I was born in a small town in the mid-west."  What is being requested is: (1) a statement of your interests in psychology and how you came to have those interests, and (2) what your goals and ambitions in the filed of psychology are, and (3) how the program to which you are applying can help to achieve those goals.

With respect to your interests and how you came to have those interests, some words of advice: while it may seem to you that the reason you are interested in psychology is that you want to help people, this reason has become a terrible cliche and should be avoided.  The problem is that it adds little information.  Can you imagine anyone saying that they want to get into a field in order to hurt people?  Particularly in applied fields, of course, helping people is an obvious motivation, but it would be better to be specific.  Perhaps there is some particular kind of human problem that evokes your desire to be helpful—maybe you are particularly interested in helping emotionally disturbed children or the aged.  In addition, this will allow you to couple your emotional motivation with the serious intellectual interest you may have. 

Secondly, in describing your interests in psychology and how you came to have them, try to focus on particular educational and occupational experiences you have had that could account for your interests, rather then personal experiences.  For example, it is probably unwise to say that you are interested in the neural basis of depression because you want to find out why your father became depressed and had to be admitted to a mental hospital.  Such personal experiences are difficult to put into a short written statement without either trivializing them or needlessly confining your intellectual interests to emotional motivation.  It helps to think of your audience.   Who will read this statement?  It will be read by academic psychologists who dedicated their careers to scholarly endeavors.  Scholars rightly distrust too much personal motivation entering into science because it can lead to a distortion of the scientific process.  They are looking for the kind of motivation they themselves either have or wish they had—and intrinsic and serious interest in the substance of the issues dealt with.  Try to share experiences that reflect on that part of your reasons for seeking graduate level training.  If you cannot find such reasons, perhaps now is a time to think out whether a career in science is for you.

As for your goals and ambitions, you should try to be as specific as possible.  When candidates are asked "why do you want to go to graduate school?", or "what are you interested in doing in this program?", a common reply is, "I just want to learn.  I'm open minded.  I want to study a bit of everything and then I'll decide on my career."  This can be taken to mean that you don't know why you want to go to graduate school, and that you have no idea what you are interested in studying.  You should try to be more specific, while at the same time showing an openness to learn new things.  Too much specification suggests that you do not plan to benefit from what you may learn in graduate school about the discipline and various career choices.  Position yourself between these poles.  You can, for example, state your current interests in the field.  You will not be held to these interests.  It is assumed that your interest will be shaped in graduate school.  On the other hand, keep in mind that ill-defined goals suggest you haven't thought much about the future.  It can suggest you don't care much about the future, or that you aren't very ambitious.

It is wise to apply to schools that have faculty with interests that fit your own.  Do your homework.  Go to the library and look up the publications of the faculty.  Decide whether this kind of work is what you want to do.  Many schools admit students into specific labs.  That is, each faculty member will admit ? number of students.  In this case, the goodness of fit between your interests and your mentor-to-be is crucial.  You should know that person's research program.  If it fits what you want, say so, but do so after you have carefully researched the matter or you will inevitably appear unsophisticated or even manipulative.

Other things that may go in your statement of interests are research, applied and professional experiences, and relevant skills such as computing skills.

Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation are extremely important.  They can help or hurt you.  The most helpful letters come from teachers who have had considerable contact with you, especially in non-classroom settings, such as research labs.  A letter from a teacher who says he or she can't remember who you are exactly but you got an "A" so you must be quite bright, is not helpful.  After all, information about course work is available on your transcript—the letter adds nothing and may, in fact, subtract something; it suggests you haven't had sufficient contact with your teachers to have secured a more informative recommendation.  What does this mean to committees?  Maybe it means that you are an extremely timid person, the kind who disappears into the background, does well on tests but says nothing in class, for example.

The best kind of letter is from someone who has been involved with you professionally, someone who has supervised research on your part, who has co-authored a paper with you, who has served as an adviser to you in your role as an officer in Psi Chi, and so on.  However, if you want to have a really fine letter of recommendation, you have to have done some really fine things, such as conducting quality research or making presentations to professional meetings.  You have to have been involved in the discipline of psychology if you expect to get a really good letter of recommendation.

A letter from an employer can be useful if the job was in the field of psychology, and the letter comments on your accomplishments of specific duties, your aptitude for this type of work, and so on.  Otherwise, such letters are usually not helpful.  Also, don't include letters from public officials or professionals with whom your contacts have not been of a professional sort.  What the mayor has to say about you is of no interest to admissions committees.  It may even do you a disservice.  It suggests that you believe that you ought to be looked upon more favorably because you have some contact with important public officials.  This will probably be offensive to most academics.  Likewise, you don't get your priest or rabbi or minister, your family doctor or other individuals of that kind to write a letter in your behalf.  Last but not least, don't ask your personal therapist to send a letter.

Include a Vita
It is a good idea to include a carefully assembled vita even if some of the material is redundant with the application itself.  A vita is something you should begin right now, if you haven't already done so.  If you do not know how to construct one, you can write the authors of this article for a copy of an article on the topic.

Presenting Your Materials Appropriately
All of your communications should be typed.  Don't send anything hand written.  You should be certain that your letters are grammatically correct, and that they contain no misspelled words and no colloquialisms.  Have someone else read your letters, if necessary.

If you visit the program (see below), look presentable.  Parties sometimes happen on interviews.  Don't drink too much.  Don't flirt.  Don't talk much about unrelated leisure time activities.  Don't gossip.  Don't follow-up on remarks made from one office to the next (e.g., "That can't be right.  Dr. So-and-so said you never did research").  Don't assume you are not being evaluated just because the setting is informal.  For example, do not assume that your interactions with students at the program are "off the record."  They probably are not.

Finding the Right Program 

Putting together a competitive application through careful preparation is one thing.  Applying to the right program is something else.  In the "one down" situation, most undergraduate students feel they are in, it is easy to get into an "anybody take me, I will go" type of attitude.  Such an attitude, if taken to the extreme, is dangerous.  You have to be happy with your education.  It has to fit with your values, abilities, and interests.  It is wise to make sure you are applying to the right program.

Try to be clear with yourself about what you're looking for.  What sort of career do you want to have?  In what area of psychology?  What graduate programs offer training in this area?  What theoretical orientation do you have?  Are you a behaviorist?  Are you a cognitivist?  What programs have such an orientation?  Whose work have you found most agreeable?  Where does this person work?

Once you are clear, examine programs that fit in terms of sub-disciplinary area.  The APA book on graduate training in psychology is a good place to start.  Write for the catalogs of as many programs as seem in the ballpark.  Ask your professors about possible programs.  If you have come across researchers in your area of interest, get the materials from their programs.  Don't write to faculty members for catalog and admissions materials.  Write to the department.

As you narrow down the list you may find particular people who stand out.  Should you contact them directly?  If you have a specific interest in their work, it is fine to do so, but only after you have done your homework.  It is reasonable to request reprints of articles.  It is reasonable to comment on how much you have enjoyed or gained from reading something this person has written, although don't overdo it.  It is also reasonable to ask an intelligent question arising from something this person has said or written.  This is especially good if you know what you are talking about.  It is not wise to make a point of telling someone exactly what you think is wrong with their theory, their method, etc., on the grounds that they will be convinced of your superior intelligence.  Most academics are pleased to have others interested in their work.  Be respectful.

If you want to explore the possibility of working with them, say so.  You might ask if they are accepting students into their lab (sometimes the answer is "no", due to upcoming leaves or other reasons).  If you know you re very serious and your qualifications are reasonable, you might ask if it is possible to visit.  Not all academics will grant such visits because they can be time-consuming, but it will not offend to inquire.  Some programs (especially applied programs) have a policy of inviting applicants for interviews as part of their admissions procedures.  If they wish to interview you, you will be invited.  In this case, if you are not invited, you will not be welcome to visit.

If you begin to center on some programs, do not forget that other students can be a valuable source of information.  Sometimes it is easier to talk informally to a student in the program you are interested in and get a clearer view of what it is like.

When you have your list, put together your applications carefully.  How many programs should you apply to?  It is not uncommon for applied students interested in Ph.D. training to apply to 10-12, including one or two "fall backs" (e.g., M.A. programs).  Basic students usually would apply to smaller numbers.

What do you do after all this if no one admits you?  If you are committed to further training, it makes sense to try again.  Examine the reasons why you were not competitive.  Was it a bad letter?  Poor GREs?  Lack of experience?  Did you apply to too few programs?  Try to correct these problems.  If you are graduating, try to see if you can get a psychology-related job.  You may be able to take a few graduate courses at your local University on a non-degree basis, just to keep your hand in and to show your commitment and ability.  It is not unusual to find well-known psychologists who did not get in their first time around.

Good luck.

Most graduate schools require a personal statement as part of your application.  This statement is often centered around your interest in psychology, your personal background, the reasons you are applying to that particular graduate program, and your career and personal objectives.  Although a well-written personal statement will not overcome poor grades or low GRE scores, a poor one will surely hurt your chances of acceptance.  Fretz and Stang (1988) cite the following example:

"Take the case of the student with a competitive grade point average and good references who was not accepted to any of the 11 programs he applied for.  One cannot be sure, but the biographical statement included with his applications is suspected as the reason.  First, it was poorly typed, with many smears and crossed-out words.  The spelling and grammar were both appalling.  Finally, the content left much to be desired.  It was far too long—about 15 pages—and went into detail about this person's philosophy of life (which was far from the established viewpoint).  It also stressed emotional agonies and turning points in his life.  Hoping to cure the world of all its evils, this person tried to indicate how a Ph.D. in psychology was necessary to fulfill that end.  In short, it was an overstated, ill-conceived essay that may have been received so badly that it overshadowed his other attributes and data" (p.45)

Plan and produce your personal statement as carefully as you would a crucial term paper.  The following tips, quoted from Fretz & Stag, will help you produce an impressive and effective personal.

• Word-process your personal statement.  It will require a series of drafts, and the inconvenience of rewriting each draft, by hand or with a conventional typewriter, can make you willing to settle for a less-than-perfect final product.
• Before you begin your statement for each school, read as much about their program as possible so you can tailor your statement to the program and convince the admissions committee that you will fit their program like a glove.  Each  year many applicants will write, for example, that they want to attend the counseling psychology program at University X because they want to learn how to counsel emotionally handicapped children—even though the program specifics in its brochure that it does not provide training for work with young children.  The selection committee immediately rejects those candidates.
• Prepare an outline of the topics you want to cover (e.g., professional objectives and personal background), and list supporting material under each main topic.  Write a rough draft in which you transform your outline into prose.  Set it aside and read it a week later.  If it still sounds good, go to the next stage.  If not, rewrite it until it sounds right.
• Check your spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization carefully.  Nothing detracts from the contents of a statement more than these types of errors.  Avoid slang words that make you sound uneducated, and overly elaborate words or stilted language that will make you appear pompous or pretentious.
• Ask two of your teachers to read your first rough draft and make suggestions.  Incorporate these suggestions into your second rough draft.  Ask for another reading and set of suggestions, and then prepare your final statement.
• Your final statement should be as brief as possible—two double-spaced pages are sufficient.  Stick to the points requested by each program, and avoid lengthy personal or philosophical discussions.  If your statement sounds egocentric or boring, those who read it will assume you are egocentric or boring.
• Do not feel bad if you do not have a great deal of experience in psychology to write about.  Explain your relevant experiences (e.g., co-op jobs or research projects), but do not try to turn them into events of cosmic proportion.  Be honest, sincere, and objective—that is the only way to impress the evaluators that you are a person who is already taking a mature approach to life.