Many students have described the admissions process to psychology Ph.D. programs as “mysterious.” With so many qualified applicants, how do admissions committees narrow down and decide who to admit? Or a better question then becomes: How do you ensure that you’re among the top applicants to a graduate program in psychology? Here is a brief description of the steps that admissions committees take to decide who to admit to doctoral programs in psychology:
How Graduate Admissions Committees Evaluate Grad School Applications
Graduate programs receive dozens – and some receive hundreds – of applications and many are from students with stellar qualifications. Can admissions committees and departments really draw distinctions among hundreds of applicants?
Yes and No
A competitive program that receives a large number of applications, such as a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology, may receive up to 500 applications. Admissions committees for competitive graduate programs break the review process into several steps.
First Step: Screening
Does the applicant meet the minimum requirements? Standardized test scores? GPA? Relevant experience? Is the application complete, including admissions essays and recommendation letters? The purpose of this initial review is to ruthlessly weed out applicants.
Second Step: First Pass
Graduate programs vary, but many competitive programs send batches of applications to faculty for an initial review. Each faculty member may review a set of applications and identify those with promise.
Third Step: Batch Review
In the next step batches of applications are sent to 2-3 faculty. Now applications are evaluated with regard to motivation, experience, documentation (essays, letters), and overall promise. Depending on the size of the program and applicant pool the resulting set of applicants is reviewed by a larger set of faculty, or interviewed, or accepted (some programs do not conduct interviews).
Fourth Step: Interview
Interviews may be conducted by phone or in-person. Applicants are evaluated with regard to their academic promise, thinking and problem solving skills, and social competence. Both faculty and graduate students evaluate applicants.
Final Step: Post Interview and Decision
Faculty meet, gather evaluations, and make admissions decisions.
The above process varies depending on the size of the program and number of applicants. What’s the take-away message? Make sure that your application is complete. If you’re missing a recommendation letter, essay, or transcript, your application will not make it through the initial screening.
Article courtesy of About.com Guide to Graduate School in Psychology
There are quite a few take home points here: Notice how the first step in the screening process is regarding objective criteria like GPA and GRE exam scores. (Also note that many applicants don’t make it through the first screening at all because their applications are incomplete.) Many graduate programs will say that they evaluate applications as a whole, which I wholeheartedly agree, so if your GPA or GRE exam scores are low (or lower than you would like), you can “make up” for it with relevant research experience or glowing letters of recommendation. (Some students also elect to apply to masters degree programs in psychology to offset less-than-perfect GPA or GRE scores, which is also a great strategy).
The first pass and batch review are so important. If there is no faculty mentor on staff, if your research interests don’t really fit with a faculty member, chances are that you will not be admitted no matter how great your GPA or GRE scores may be. It is important to start here first when deciding which Ph.D. programs to apply to. There is no need worrying if you will get into grad school with a 2.0 or 2.5 GPA if these other pieces aren’t in place when you apply to doctoral programs in psychology.
