What do I do if I can't get into a PhD program in psychology? Help!

juillet
Sun, 11 Feb 2018 05:52:58 +0000

With a 3.95 GPA and an undergrad major of psychology, you are unlikely to need a master’s degree in psychology to be competitive for a psychology PhD program. What will actually prepare you or make you look better is doing more research after undergrad, such as being a lab manager or research coordinator. The traditional place to do this is in psychology labs at universities, but you can also do it in labs in other departments (like neuroscience, psychiatry, nursing, public health, etc.) or even at non-university locations (like think tanks, nonprofits, health agencies, NGOs, government agencies or even for-profit companies depending.) There are also two-year post-baccalaureate programs you can do to get research experience - the NIH IRTA is an example of one.

All this to say - as a top student with solid research experience, it would be rather easy for you to decide to get paid for gaining more experience instead of paying for it. (Because truly, the thing of value from the master’s program would be the research experience and connections with professors, not the degree itself.) Many successful applicants to counseling and clinical psychology PhD programs have worked as lab managers or research coordinators for 2-3 years between college and graduate school.

If you are applying in the fall of 2018 to begin in the fall of 2019, you are not late on your GREs - in fact, you are very early. You would be fine waiting until the spring or early summer of 2018. That’ll give you plenty of time to retake them in the fall of 2018 if you need to.