Getting the "Accepted" Call: How to Maximize Your Admissions Chances at Top Psychology PhD Programs

By BC Bradford

Psychology PhD programs are intensely competitive to get into, with some fields of psychology boasting lower admissions rates than top medical schools.

Yet within psychology, where you get your doctoral degree matters. A lot.

Graduates from top psychology PhD programs get their pick of internships, of research positions, of professorships, and of grants.

That's why your admissions plan to psychology PhD programs is so critical.
If you plan your strategy out carefully, if you prepare yourself to be the best candidate, if you craft your admissions package to each program strategically, you can maximize your chances of receiving acceptance letters to the best psychology programs in your field.

And if you spend the time and effort now making sure you are the best psychology applicant possible, you will be grateful you did for the rest of your career.

This guide was written by a former psychology PhD program applicant, just like you will be. When I was applying I cobbled together the best advice I could get from professors, graduate students, admissions representatives, and scattered information in published application and essays books.

But there were so many inaccuracies, rumors stated as facts, and out-of-date techniques mixed in with the nuggets of wisdom.

So I put it all together in one place so that I could easily reference it. And it worked!

I was accepted to 10 out of the 12 programs I applied for (all top 20 schools in my field), including the program that is ranked #1 in my field.

So now I'm sharing my action plan with you, from beginning to end.

I can't guarantee that you will be accepted – no one can.

But by applying the techniques in this step-by-step manual, I truly believe you will have the greatest success applying to top programs than you would have had using any other technique.

I will teach you to be practical in your applications, and I will also tell you to reach for the stars.

Where you are accepted may surprise you (in a wonderful way). I know it did me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BC Bradford
• Release date: Apr 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370945719

BC Bradford

I am a former grad school applicant to Psychology PhD programs. I enjoy writing about psychology, education, and graduate school.

Book preview

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© 2015-2018 B. C. Bradford

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

―Abigail Adams

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

― Nelson Mandela

Table of Contents

WHO IS THIS BOOK DESIGNED FOR?

A NECESSARY NOTE ON PSYCHOLOGY AS A CAREER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HOW ADMISSIONS COMMITTEES THINK

GPA AND COURSEWORK

THE GRE

THE GENERAL GRE

THE PSYCHOLOGY GRE

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

OTHER WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR APPLICATION

FOR COUNSELING AND CLINICAL APPLICANTS

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

HOW TO SELECT YOUR PROGRAMS

THE APPLICATION PROCESS

PLAYING THE WAITING GAME

INTERVIEWING

QUESTIONS TO ASK ALONG THE WAY

YOUR OFFER AND FUNDING

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DECISION

IT’S DONE!

THE END (MOSTLY)

WHAT TO DO IF YOU STRIKE OUT

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

ANOTHER ENDING

WHO IS THIS BOOK DESIGNED FOR?

T

his book was written to teach students how to improve their chances of admission into a competitive PhD program in psychology.

It is not intended for master’s-level programs or for non-psychology doctoral fields, though many of the basic principles will be the same. Everything here will apply to both research and counseling/clinical psychology applicants, with the exception being that clinical and counseling applicants have one more aspect of their grad school preparation process, which is addressed in the Clinical and Counseling chapter.

Let’s get started!

A NECESSARY NOTE ON PSYCHOLOGY AS A CAREER

I

’m not going to patronize you. I’m assuming you already know that a PhD in psychology is not a path to fame and fortune (99% of the time – I’m looking at you, Dr. Phil).

This isn’t medical school. The top ten percent of clinical and counseling psychologists make $114,000 or higher. The median salary is $69,000, which is also the median for psychology professors, though the upper ten percent of professors make $126,000 or higher. These are good salaries, but you’re not buying yachts on that kind of money.

In other words, if your goal is to maximize your future income, I’ll go ahead and warn you that psychology is not an efficient path to achieve this (possible, yes; probable, no).

However, if you enjoy research and would like to apply psychology in either research or in practice, this may be an excellent field for you. You can make a very real difference in people’s lives, either one-on-one or by influencing the best practices in your fields on a broader level.

If you’re confident a psychology PhD is what you want, let’s move on to the fun stuff!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Y

ou probably want to know who is trying to give you advice on grad school applications in the first place. I am a previous psychology graduate student applicant who was accepted into several of the nation’s top PhD programs in my field during my first application season.

I received ten acceptances out of the 12 programs I applied for (the other two were one waitlist that never resulted in an offer and one rejection). Perhaps most importantly, I was accepted into the #1 program in my field.

I’m not an admissions counselor, nor am I affiliated with any admissions committee. I can’t guarantee you’ll get in anywhere. There are countless stories of extremely well-qualified applicants who have been rejected by dozens of schools.

I have, however, worked hard to ensure that reading and implementing the suggestions in this book will dramatically increase your chance of admission into a top program. Over the past several years, I have learned everything possible from the best sources of information available on psychology graduate admissions, from school admissions representatives to professors who have been on review committees to students who have succeeded in being admitted to prestigious psychology doctorate-level programs.

I have also added my own experience in what worked best for me in preparing for graduate school and planning out my own applications.

I can make no guarantees, but I genuinely believe that this book will help you get into the best psychology graduate program possible based on the strengths of your application.

Let’s get started on this goal by first discussing how you can become the exact type of applicant a program’s admissions committee wants to see.

CHAPTER ONE

HOW ADMISSIONS COMMITTEES THINK

A

dmissions committees (also known as adcoms) are made up of intelligent and rational people.

The department’s professors will typically be making the admissions decisions, and if the program admits students to work with specific professors instead of the department, one professor alone might have the power to decide which of the prospects to whom he or she offers admission.

Regardless of who exactly is making the final decision, the reality is that departments have limited spaces and funding to offer applicants.

Their obvious goal is to:

Admit the best applicants to the program

However, this objective is balanced with their desire to:

Admit applicants who will choose to attend the program

Admit applicants who are a good fit, academically and personality-wise, for the program

Admit applicants who will complete the program

Admit applicants who will reflect well on the university in their future endeavors

These needs necessitate a gamble on the department’s part in some instances. For example, if they admit their #1 choice who is somewhat unlikely to attend their program and declines the offer at the last minute, the school may miss out on its #2 choice, who would love to attend but had accepted an offer elsewhere by the time the program was able to offer him or her a spot.

Should the department extend their first offer to #1 or #2? Different departments will make different decisions.

In this complicated context, just know that your job is to present yourself in the best possible light as a hard-working and motivated student with a strong research and academic background deeply and personally interested in the institution.

Where to Focus Your Efforts

Applying to grad school is different from applying to undergrad, and different still from applying for a job.

To have your best chances at admission, you need to make sure that you spend most of your time demonstrating your strengths in the areas that are most important to adcoms.

Fortunately, their priorities are fairly straightforward. In addition to you being a likeable person, psychology doctoral programs want to know that you will be, first and foremost, a good researcher, then also a good student, and finally (and only at some universities) a good instructor.

Very little else matters.

Things That Don’t Matter for a PhD in Psychology

The following factors may have mattered when you were applying to college or to a job. They do not matter (or matter so little it would be a waste of precious space in your personal statement or time during your interview) when applying to grad school.

Leadership experience

Non-research related volunteer experience

Non-research related work experience

Study abroad experience

There are exceptions to every rule, but unless you can make an exceptional argument for why any item above relates significantly to the image you are crafting in your application, leave it out.

You’re not applying to an MBA program and you’re not applying for a degree in social work. You’re applying for a program that will train you to be a researcher.

Things That Matter, But Only a Little

Let me be clear: I don’t want to downplay the importance of the following factors. You never know what will make the difference among receiving first-choice offers, being waitlisted, and being rejected outright. However, some factors undeniably matter more than others, and while these two are great things to have, they probably won’t play a role in whether you get an offer:

Grades in non-psychology, cognitive or neuroscience, and math or statistics classes, with the caveat that your overall GPA should ideally be a 3.5 or higher (and a 3.0 at minimum), depending on the competitiveness of the programs to which you are applying

Teaching and tutoring experience (though this may matter more for universities that emphasize teaching positions and teaching assistantships)

The Five Big Factors

These five factors are by far the most important facets of your psychology PhD application and will be the basis of committees’ decisions 99% of the time. They are:

GPA and coursework

GRE scores

Research experience

Letters of recommendation

Statement of Purpose

The ideal candidate will have strong credentials in all areas, but don’t get disheartened if you don’t have a flawless record – strengths in one area can offset weaknesses in other areas. The majority of this book will focus on these five factors.

First up: GPAs!

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

GPA AND COURSEWORK

I

t probably goes without saying, but you need to have a good to great GPA in your psychology and statistics classes.

After all, you’re trying to convince an admissions committee that you’re up for at least four years of intensive research in this area. If you can’t even get A’s in undergraduate classes, how can they have any faith that you’ll be up to the challenge of graduate-level coursework?

Here’s