What are my chances for these Graduate schools [psychology or criminology]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hello,

I will be graduating with a BS degree in Psychology in May of 2027 and am looking to further my education and would like some input on my chances. I’ve been creating a list of schools that match my interests in Offender Decision-Making, Crime Scene Behavior, and Forensic Criminology/Psychology. I do not want to do treatment or therapy but would be open to assessments. However, my goal is to eventually work with law enforcement/FBI in the trends in crimes, anticipation of criminal activity, analysis of the offender and/or crime, etc. For all of the schools listed, I have researched faculty and their research interests to see if they align with my goals, research labs, internships and practicums. I will be taking the GRE this August. I would be appreciative of any insights anyone can offer…I know so much of acceptances are based on available funding, faculty accepting students for that given year, how well an applicant matches with the college/faculty, the interview process….

I am open to suggestions but would like to stay within the middle of the US and east.

  • US Citizen from NY State
  • Current undergraduate GPA: 3.926
  • Presidential Fellow
  • Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society Member
  • Research Assistant in the Memory & Imagination Lab (Spring 2026-Spring 2027)
    • I support research examining collective memory, decision-making, behavior, and the influence of media on how people remember and think about the future.
    • My role includes conducting literature reviews, developing research ideas, preparing survey materials, and attending weekly lab meetings.
    • This position allows me to engage directly with the research process, from conceptual development to data preparation, while collaborating with faculty and fellow researchers on projects that explore how social contexts shape memory and behavior.
  • Research Apprentice (Spring 2025, Spring 2026)- Psychology Department Lab
    • Helping with a study researching the role video games play on anger and aggression in young adult males.
    • In the apprentice capacity I perform essential duties such as running research participants, administer psychological questionnaires, and collect, enter, and analyze data.
    • Last spring semester I was able to collect, analyze data for research on crime and memory, and help co-author a report of the findings. The report for this study, Can a Short TikTok-Style Video Influence Memory of a Crime? A Brief Report, was submitted for publication this past summer.
  • Speaker & Presenter I have been invited to present my research at the Southeastern Psychological Association Spring 2027 Conference for my upcoming senior project
  • Volunteer Counselor at Crisis Text Line
    • I will have 200 volunteer hours completed by the time of application
    • I provide real-time, text-based emotional support to individuals experiencing moments of crisis, distress, or overwhelm.
    • Using evidence‑informed communication strategies, I help texters feel heard, validated, and empowered to identify their own strengths and next steps.
  • Social Media Chair for the Women’s Club Soccer and Women’s Club Softball Teams
  • Mental Health First Aid Certification

Cost Constraints / Budget
Funded would be fantastic lol, but I have no undergraduate loans so I am prepared to take out loans for tuition. My parents will pay for my living expenses.

Intended Degree:

PhD in Clinical Forensic Psychology

PhD in Criminology

Masters in Forensic Psychology or Criminology

Schools
Masters Programs:

Marymount University (Forensic Psychology & Law)

SUNY Albany (Psychology or Forensic Investigation)

PsyD Programs:

Widener University (Dual Degree Clinical Forensic Psychology with Masters In Criminal Justice)

Spalding University (Clinical Psychology with Forensic concentration)

Nova Southeastern (Clinical Forensic Psychology)

PhD Programs:

University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Psychology & Law)

University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa (Psychology & Law)

University of South Carolina (Psychology)

University of South Florida (Clinical or Social Psychology)

University of Tennessee Knoxville (Clinical Psychology)

University of Texas El Paso (Psychology & Law)

Florida State University (Criminology & Criminal Justice)

University of Maryland (Crime & Justice)

Penn State (Criminology)

Northeastern (Criminology & Justice Policy)

University of South Carolina (Criminology & Criminal Justice)

Nova Southeastern (Forensic Psychology)

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Sounds like you have a great background. I’m sure each school has criteria that you can match to.

I think if you want a PhD, that’s a different path than a Masters. You likely should talk to your Professors about the process as you’ll surely need their help - and guidance.

For a Masters, you’re going to pay. You can only borrow $100K total - so keep that in mind - and if you’re going into an unknown field job wise, you might want to keep that low.

It’s great you’ve done such homework.

NO doubt you’ll have acceptances on your list - at least for Masters.

But if PhD is the goal, have those discussions now with your profs - if it’s not already too late.

Best of luck.

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PhD and PsyD programs are very competitive.

An MA/MS will depend on the career path. Some programs, regardless of school, receive hundreds of very strong applicants for 10 spots, for example. Other career paths are not as competitive.

You appear to be a very strong applicant for the masters programs on your list, but I have not researched these programs.

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I think that you are a very competitive applicant. From what I know PhD admissions can be very highly competitive. Thus it is very difficult to predict your chances.

One daughter is currently getting a PhD, but in a very different field. She did several things to help her admissions chances, one of which might be worth mentioning.

For every university that she was considering, she looked at what research was going on at that university in her field. She read the scholarly papers that had been written by every professor in her field, and thought about how the research that each professor was doing fit with what she wanted to do. Because of this she was able to tailor her essays to the research that she hoped to do. Then when she got interviews, she re-read the papers by every professor that she was going to interview with, and went into each interview with at least one question to ask the professor about the professor’s research.

This is a lot of work. However, each school will be looking for PhD students who are a good fit for them, and your doing the homework to find a good fit could help your chances. One consequence of this is that she got an acceptance, but perhaps just as important she got an acceptance to a university that is a very good fit to what she wanted to do.

Given how long your list of schools is, I am wondering if you would want to do this just for the schools that you think are likely to be the best fit, and for the rest just apply with a bit less work up front and hope that you get lucky.

This is very good. From what I have heard, for PhD admissions the difference between a 3.9 and a 4.0 really does not matter. Either way it makes the point that you are a strong student, and then “fit” and research interests come into play.

One thing that I have noticed from my younger daughter who is currently working towards a PhD: This is a bit like university, and a lot like a long term research job that does not pay very well, but where you get to do interesting original research. If your research works out, and other things go well (such as passing the comprehensive exam), then after a few years they hand you a doctorate.

Keep in mind that a PhD could take six or seven years. That could add up to a lot of tuition. However, loans are hopefully (?probably?) not necessary.

My understanding is that STEM PhD’s in the USA are usually fully funded, with a stipend. The stipend is typically enough to live on if you live very frugally.

However a small amount of help from parents can make the multi-year marathon a bit more tolerable. One example is that a small amount of help from parents might allow you to afford to eat out on rare occasions. Perhaps more importantly: A PhD takes multiple years, and a multi-year delay in funding retirement funds (such as an IRA) can make a very significant different 40 or 50 years from now when you hit retirement age. However, apparently the stipend counts as income for the purpose of funding an IRA, it just is not enough income to both pay for food and rent and fund an IRA. A small amount of contribution from parents, such as paying even part of your living expenses, might allow you to fund a Roth IRA. For now this may seem like a silly nit. 40 or 50 years from now you might be very glad that you did this.

Also, a relatively modest contribution from parents can change a PhD from an interesting multi-year research job that pays badly, to an interesting multi-year research job that pays okay. Given that you could be at this for 5 or 6 or 7 years, this might make the whole thing a bit easier to do.

In terms of universities to consider, you are in a field that I do not know very well. I know that UBC has a very good criminology program, but I can see several disadvantages of doing this in a different country so I expect that you would probably be better off staying in the USA.

I am assuming that you plan on doing some GRE prep over the summer before taking the exam.

Perhaps one big issue that comes up is whether you will need to do a master’s degree before doing a PhD. In the US some students go straight from a bachelor’s to a PhD, some get a master’s first, or instead of the PhD. One advantage of the master’s is that it take a lot less time. A downside is that a master’s is usually not funded.

When our daughter was applying for her PhD, one thing that we noticed was how competitive admissions is. Admissions has since probably gotten more competitive since due to funding cuts. At one point it appeared that if she did not get accepted for a PhD, she probably was going to get accepted to a master’s degree instead (with no funding). You might want to think about what you would want to do if this happens. Would you go for the master’s and borrow funds for tuition, or would you work for a year or two and apply to PhD programs again a year later? I can see that this could be a tough decision.

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Thank you so much for this information. I plan on narrowing down my list once this semester ends and I have more time to look at the professors and research.

From what my current professors have shared with me: 10-12 schools is optimal to apply, research the professors and their current projects to find a match who will be accepting students, for a psyd in clinical psychology it is preferred to not have a masters (depends on the school for phd), and the areas that I am interested in there is about a 50/50 split of accepted students who are right out of undergrad and those who maybe worked or did further research jobs before applying.

I will be preparing for the GRE this summer. Not all of the schools require or will even look at them, but I still think it will be beneficial to take them.

I would be fine with attending Marymount for my Masters if a phd or psyd acceptance doesn’t work out this round. Their program is amazing, and with the proximity to Quantico there are many opportunities to intern with the FBI. SUNY Albany would save me some money because I am a NY resident and could live at home.

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I will add my opinion to the others and say that you are definitely very competitive as an applicant. The comments by other people here who also have their own experience in graduates school (both as graduate students and as PhD advisors) are all important and worthwhile reading. I will add a few more comments.

The first is that you may need to go through than a single application cycle. This is not undergraduate studies, so waiting a year is not going to affect your chances negatively.

That is something to remember. The point is not “to get an offer to a PhD program”. You want to find a program and an advisor who are good for you. It is better to end a cycle without starting a PhD than it is to accept an offer from a program which you don’t like or with an advisor who is a bad fit.

Always remember that admissions to PhD program are a process of checking whether there is a match between the applicant and the program. Both sides are participants - applicants are not supplicants. Each step that an applicant takes is mirrored by a very similar step taken by the graduate committee (the people who make decisions for the program).

  • A1. The applicant takes the first steps, by looking through the information about the program and the faculty at the program. The applicant finds a program which, on paper, matches their requirements and which has potential PhD advisors who match their requirements, and, if the requirements are met, the applicant submits an application. The records “on paper” are what the program posts on its website about their interests and philosophies, the research records of the faculty, opinions of various people that the applicants asks, etc.

  • A2. The program and potential advisors look at this application, and decide whether, on paper, the applicant matches the requirements of the program and potential advisors, and if the requirements are met, they invite the applicant to an interview. The records “on paper” are what the applicant has written about their interests and philosophies, their own research and academic records, and the opinions of three people whose LoRs have been submitted

Important comment: both sides are limited by time and possibilities. An applicant can only put together a limited number of good applications, and therefore will cull programs which are potentially really good fits. Similarly, the programs and potential advisors are limited in the number of applicants that they can accept, so they will also cull applicants who are potentially really good fits

  • B1 & B2. In the interview, the candidate and the the graduate committee (which represents the program and the potential PhD advisors) will assess each other for fit, based on criteria that cannot be evaluated from the what was “on paper”.

  • C. While an applicant is the one who takes the first step in the application decision, the program takes the first step in the admission decision. The decide whether to make an offer and the candidate decides whether to accept the offer.

This means that you should be as picky in your decisions as the program’s graduate committee is in theirs.

As for advice. My advice is that you get a job for the next two years.

  1. First reason. When my daughter was looking to apply to PhD programs as she started her senior year, she was told by many faculty and graduate students that the rate of burnout by PhD students was much much higher among graduates students who went directly from undergrad to graduate school. You will have been in classroom, without more than a summer break for the last 16 years. As my kid said “I would like to have one summer in which I am not planning next year’s class list”.
  • My kid took two years to work, and it helped her immensely. She learned how to be an independent adult. She lived in a rental (which she found and paid for), supported herself financially, learned how to budget, shop for food and other everyday necessities, how to maintain a home, pay rent and utilities, pay taxes, etc. Doing this while having a 9-5 job is much easier than doing this while being a full time first year graduate student. She learned how to budget her time, how to create a separation between her personal and professional life, and many other critical life skills. When she started grad school, in a different country, she already knew how to set up her life from scratch.
  1. Second reason: Funding for research has been drastically cut, and many programs in the USA will likely not have the ability to fund graduates students for the next couple of years.

Here are some good places for you to look for information about applications and acceptance to doctoral programs in psychology.

https://www.apa.org/education-career/grad/

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Some (probably many) of the Psychology PhD programs include getting a masters along the way (mine did). Consider exploring this resource to see if it provides additional program information Applying to graduate school. Forensic psychology is a cool field. So is being a psychologist who specializes in jury consultation/selection. There are several AI tools now available to help with this a well. Fun stuff!! Here’s an example 5 Leading AI for Jury Consultants Tools: Select Winning Juries in 2025.

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Sounds like you know a lot of this already, but this is another good resource A Career in Forensic and Public Service Psychology

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How well do you know your professors? According to my son, who is just starting to think about PhD programs, a lot can be done through your professors knowing who has funding and what they are doing.

“Prof X has received Y amount of funding to do Z. Your interests and resume really align with that. Let me give them a call for you.”

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Thats in part how I decided to choose the grad program I did. Back then, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was no internet to look this stuff up on. Only journal articles to read and see who was doing what and where they were located. One of my professors, in the specialty area I preferred, knew someone in the physiological psych grad program so she asked him about the neuropsych program at that school (neuropsych was pretty new back then).There were several things about that neuropsych program that really stood out to me, so I chose that offer over 2 others I had because I was able to get the info on what research was going on (not how much funding they had— couldn’t get that info back then) and what her friend thought about the program. Those resources are priceless.

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Thank you for your response! After meeting with my advisor yesterday, she recommended applying to 10-12 schools on the high end so I will be narrowing my list this summer to select schools that really match my interests.

I’ve debated working for a year or two but am concerned that there is nothing much that I can do with my degree outside of being an Registered Behavior Tech or similar and that is just not something I am interested in. I’ve looked into crime analysis and while it might be a possibility, it is slim without at least a masters or police background. I am going to research more on possible jobs because as you said, this make take several rounds of applications to find the right fit so having a backup plan of employment that gets me some experience would be ideal.

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Thank you for this information!!

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My professors have been fantastic with giving me some contacts as well as reaching out to professors and researchers they know. I’ve been in communication with several who I would like to work with :smiley:

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