Fun With Grad School Admissions in Psychology

I just finished writing letters of recommendation for one of the best undergraduate students I’ve worked with, and now we cross our fingers.

My student is not applying to UCLA, but for old time’s sake, I thought I’d take a look at my alma mater’s stats. Between 2004 and 2008, UCLA overall admitted about 29% of their applicants to their academic graduate programs (not professional schools like law and medicine). Nearly half (48%) were women, 15% were underrepresented minorities, and 17% were foreign students.

Psychology is traditionally more impacted than most programs, and the data for Fall 2006 support that at UCLA. Out of 578 applicants, 59 were admitted. Not such great odds. And my student, being female, faces another barrier typical in psychology. Women made up 76% of UCLA’s applicants, but only 64% of the admitted students. Interestingly, UCLA seems to be bucking the trend among many Ph.D. programs by accepting only 2 foreign students out of the 59. Don’t get me wrong–I’m no xenophobe, and I think private universities can admit anyone they choose. But I think the weary taxpayers of California are trying to educate their children and neighbors, not the entire world.

My usual advice to students, above and beyond getting great grades, GREs, and research experience, is as follows:

1.  Apply to as many schools as you can afford. Applications can get very expensive, with GRE reports, transcripts, and application fees, but it’s a roll of the dice.
2. Have some backup masters programs so that you at least move your academic career forward if you don’t get into a Ph.D. program right away.
3. A good match between student and faculty is another important factor. Too often, we find students who want to stay in California, and pick schools on that basis. At the Ph.D. level, that’s just not going to work at all. One of my students ended up in a frog retina lab in an outstanding Ph.D. program, but her interests were not there at all. Another was horrified that the expert in her field was in what she thought was a very undesirable part of the country (we won’t name names to protect the innocent). She was accepted, and moved reluctantly, only to find out she liked the area very much. So some flexibility doesn’t hurt either.
4. As part of 3 above, find the professors who are working in the area most similar to your interests and read their stuff. All of it. If you don’t understand the methods and statistics they’re using, do your homework. If you end up working with that person, you’ll be prepared to get started right away, and busy faculty do not have much time to bring new students up to speed. When you write your statement of purpose, say I want to go to University X to work with Professor Y on project Z. It’s not schmoozing–it’s demonstrating that you have made an informed decision, not just that I like UCLA’s overall reputation.
5. Visit as many campuses as you can, and make appointments to look at facilities and discuss your goals with faculty. Obviously, take care of #4 first so you can discuss their work intelligently. Ask professors how you should prepare to work in their areas in the time you have remaining in your degree program.
6. If you have time between now and when you apply, take every possible statistics course known to humankind. Journals are looking for sophisticated analyses, so you need at least a working knowledge of things like multiple regression and S.E.M.
7. Choose your letter of recommendation writers carefully. Provide them with ALL the materials they need:  A checklist for each school with dates and directions for sending letters to schools directly or back to the applicant, all forms, stamped and addressed envelopes, your statement of purpose and resume, and a brief reminder of when you interacted with us (which class or classes you took and when, what your grades were, why we should remember you favorably, topics of papers written). Recognize that what you’re asking takes a great deal of time, and anything you do to make it faster will be very much appreciated. Even though I encourage applicants to sign the waiver saying they won’t see the letter, I always send a copy to them anyway. I think people should be transparent. If I can’t write a superior letter for a student, I simply tell him/her I don’t know enough to write a letter, and they should ask somebody else. I’m not saying every recommender does that, but if you need 3, and have 3 open letters and a fourth closed, and the 3 are good, I’d just pick those. One of my former students sent her 3 open ones, and the opened the 4th, from a professor she thought she knew well and liked, and it was horrible. The student was understandably shocked and hurt, and very grateful she didn’t send it in.

As difficult as this process can be, the universities do accept psychology Ph.D. students, so that might as well be you! With the right preparation and planning, and maybe a little good old fashioned luck, students can follow their dreams.