Learning Tips
Graduate School
Which Programs?
Recommendation Letters
Why NOT Grad School
Improve How Effectively You Study Using This Video Series by Dr. Stephen Chew [Samford University]
Overview of the Application Process
My best advice to you regarding graduate school applications is to plan early and plan often. Don’t have a plan yet? That’s OK. There’s no better time to start than now ... right after you read everything here.
The first item on your agenda should be to create a timeline: GRE study time [about 3 months of focused, regular studying], GRE test date[s], personal statement draft deadlines for yourself, recommendation letter deadlines, application deadlines, and supporting material deadlines. Build plenty of cushion into your timeline.
The resources below are categorized by the things you should consider as you get ready to apply for graduate school. I am continuously updating and adding to it. If you come across a good resource that’s not on this list, please email it to me.
Finally, you probably are inundated with advice about graduate school from a variety of sources. Remember to carefully assess the source of advice as you are considering it: there are people who are interested only in helping you understand the process, there are people who are interested only in selling you something, and everywhere in between. Remember to think critically!
What Can I Do with a Graduate Degree in Psychology?
- Here are examples of the wide variety of careers you can have with a doctoral-level psychology degree, written by the people in these careers.
- This is a more general look at career options in psychology.
- O*Net Online is a gold mine of information about careers, maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor. Search for specific careers, or browse occupations grouped by similar knowledge, skills, and abilities. For each occupation, there is a detailed description of what the job is like, training required, job outlook, salaries, etc.
General Advice about Graduate Study in Psychology
- Helpful articles [pp. 12-17] from Psi Chi about the process of applying to graduate school.
- A guidebook for students of color, with helpful hints about putting together a successful application.
- The APA has some good tips. Read these so you know how to plan and what to expect during the application process.
- The APA also has a FAQs section about graduate study in psychology in general. This is very useful if you are not quite sure what area of psychology you like most, or even if you would like to go to graduate school in psychology.
- For those considering doctoral programs, I recommend reading findings from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is conducted by the National Opinion Research Center on behalf of the National Science Foundation and 5 other federal agencies. The latest reports are available here. These reports are about doctoral recipients in general [no data shown specifically for psychology doctorates], but they can give you a sense of what to expect in terms of employment opportunities, salary, etc.
- For those considering a career in academia, I recommend The Compleat Academic, which is an edited volume [by Darley, Zanna, and Roediger] about the unwritten rules of academia. It begins with a chapter on doing well in graduate school and ends with advice about keeping one’s career dynamic and fulfilling, with advice about everything from post-docs to publishing and balancing work/life responsibilities in between.
- The APA publishes a helpful online career guide especially for women and ethnic minorities in academia.
- If you are more interested in applied areas of psychology, this career guide edited by Walfish and Hess is more appropriate for you.
Graduate Record Examinations [GRE]
- The single best source of information about this crazy little test comes from the crazy little people who own it – Educational Testing Services or ETS. Scour their website for information. Request their practice tests on CD, and use their downloadable practice tests. Did you catch that? They have downloadable practice tests!
- A general overview of the GREs from ETS.
- Some test prep resources offered by ETS, including study tips and practice tests. Download the GRE POWERPREP software from this page as well.
- GRE subject test overview and psychology subject test information.
- Your introductory psychology textbook also is a very good study tool for the psychology subject test. Here is a free-fifty-free introduction to psychology textbook from Noba Project.
Résumé
- Tips for putting together an academic résumé [or CV] for graduate school.
- Tips for putting together a résumé for industry jobs.
- Nicely designed résumé templates.
- Keep an academic diary, or what my high school English teacher called a brag-sheet, will help you put together that CV or résumé when you need it.
Personal Statement
- Tips with sample personal statement.
- Borrow [or buy used] the Zinsser and Strunk & White texts to hone your formal writing skills.
Letters of Recommendation
- Advice on getting good letters of recommendation here [p. 4].
- Tips on asking for letters of recommendation.
- Sample request for letters of recommendation.
- General advice on how to communicate with professors via email.
Schools and Programs
The APA publishes a guide to graduate study in psychology every year, and it contains information about 500+ graduate study programs the U.S. and Canada, listed by area of specialty [e.g., clinical, social]. Do not buy this book. Find it in the reference section of the library.
Maybe you are reading this because you are thinking about getting an advanced degree. Or maybe you have already received your acceptance letters and need to make a decision. In any case, there are many factors to consider as you think about your choices. These factors can be summarized under 2 categories: quality of the university and academic program, and quality of the faculty mentor[s].
Where you do your graduate work can make a real difference in the value of your advanced degree. No matter the kind of program you are considering, be sure to consider those that have earned a reputation for excellence in your particular area of interest, have faculty available to mentor you, and facilities and resources to accommodate your needs and interests.
Quality of University and Academic Program
Some questions to ask about the university or program you are considering:
- Are the libraries, laboratories, computers, and other research facilities adequate for your educational needs?
- Are there study spaces/office carrels/offices available for graduate students?
- Is financial support available? How much should you expect to pay out of pocket, if any?
- Are support services adequate to make campus life conducive to the needs of minority students?
- Does the department of interest offer sufficiently large and varied curriculum to allow you a broad offering of courses and options?
- What are the degree requirements? Number of hours required [e.g., internship hours for a clinical doctoral program]? Will you have to do a thesis or dissertation? How long will it take for you to complete the program?
- What are the program’s alumni doing now? What kind of jobs did they get after completing the program?
- Do faculty members exhibit special strengths and research qualities through their graduate advisees, published works, and funded research?
- How senior are the faculty in your area of interest? What are their interests? What will their availability be? Are there ongoing research activities in your area of interest?
- How are advisors assigned or selected? Will you be able to choose your major advisor?
The Chronicle of Higher Education periodically writes about rankings of graduate programs. These ratings have been done using a wide variety of criteria, so remember to evaluate them critically. A recent example is the National Research Council’s report on doctorate programs in the US, which is generally a good report but is not without flaws.
Faculty Mentor[s]
A mentor is an experienced faculty member whose role is to guide, advise, and support inexperienced protégés for the purpose of furthering the protégés’ careers. Effective mentoring not only requires the transfer of academic skills, attitudes, and behaviors but also a level of interaction, trust, and communication which empowers the protégé with the knowledge and confidence to grow academically and socially regardless of his/her environment.
Some questions to ask about the mentor you are considering:
- Is the mentor available? Can he/she make a commitment to you, the student? Does he/she plan to be at the university during the entire period of your planned program?
- Is he/she interested in and supportive of his/her current students? Of you?
- Does he/she have good interpersonal communication skills? For example, is he/she approachable and receptive? Does he/she communicate clearly? Is he/she a good listener?
- Does he/she have good conflict management skills?
- Does he/she have the ability and willingness to empower you, the student?
- Does he/she seem to honor your need for autonomy?
- Does he/she have the ability and willingness to tap into organizational networks and know what opportunities are available to you?
- Have his/her former graduate students had good experiences and completed their degrees in a timely fashion? What are they doing now?
- Does he/she have sufficient research funding and ongoing projects available for you to find a suitable thesis or dissertation research topic?
Mentoring is an interactive process. Successful mentoring is based on characteristics of the mentor and protégé. What makes a good protégé?
- Realistic [more or less] expectations
- High motivation
- Strong interest in developing new skills
- Good communication skills
- Goal-oriented
- Willing to assume responsibility for own growth and development
- Open to challenging assignments
- Receptive to feedback and coaching
Before You Ask Me for a Letter of Recommendation
The purpose of a letter of recommendation is to convey to admissions committee members a sense of who you are as a student, a psychologist in training, and a person. Your behavior and performance in my classroom are certainly important [see this blog post], yet a positive impression formed only within the classroom setting is insufficient material for a good letter. We also need to have had extensive interactions outside of class for me to write you a descriptive and informative letter, which would increase the competitiveness of your application. Below are some examples of such interactions:
- You have worked in my research group and/or on a research project with me.
- You have written a research paper and/or delivered a research presentation under my supervision.
- We have interacted extensively in settings outside of the classroom, in ways that allowed me to assess your intellectual abilities, written and verbal communication skills, creativity, drive, maturity, and/or overall promise as a psychologist.
I realize that this list of requirements will exclude many students. However, it prevents me from being put in a position where I am asked to recommend a student I do not really know, or for whom I would not be able to give a positive recommendation.
Some General Tips
- General advice on how to communicate with professors via email.
- Ask all your potential letter writers, including advisors/mentors, professors, teaching or instructional assistants, bosses, supervisors [depending on whether you need non-academic letters] if they are willing to write you a positive letter of recommendation. However, be aware that some folks will not be comfortable writing you a letter unless they know you well and have worked with you in various settings. I am one of those people [see above].
- Give letter writers at least 1 month to write the letter.
- Have your materials ready before contacting your potential letter writers. To prepare the materials, make sure you have everything for which I ask on this page, and then go to the other page to get concrete ideas about how to put those things together. Some letter writers may ask for more information than what is listed here. Be sure to ask if you have given them everything they need when you meet with them.
- It is crucial that you give letter writers exactly what they need in a clean, clear, easy-to-read format. Make sure you cross your t’s and dot your i’s. Spell-check and ensure that formatting is consistent and pleasing to the eyes for every document you give them. Do not underestimate the importance of how these materials look.
- Meet in person or have a phone discussion with each recommender about your interests and goals.
- Remember that your materials and brief meeting with the recommender may very well be used by the letter writer to judge your maturity, conscientiousness, organizational skills, verbal ability, etc. Keep this in mind and manage the impression he/she gets of you!
- Send all your letter writers gentle reminders 1-2 weeks before the first deadline.
- Send thank you cards or emails at the end of the grueling process. Also thank those who could not meet with you or write you a letter, as these people may write you letters in the future.
- Finally, send us update emails when you hear back from schools.
Provide Letter Writers with These Items 1 Month Before Your Earliest Application Deadline
- A cover letter explaining any work you have done for me in the past [in class, on research, etc.]. Summarize your motivations for applying to graduate school, interests, and goals. Summarize deadlines and requirements.
-
An Excel file with 2 sheets:
-
“Programs” sheet with the following columns:
- Name of schools
- Name of degree programs to which you are applying [e.g., PhD in Social Psychology]
- Web link to program where I can find information about it if needed
- Name[s] of faculty with whom you would like to work at each institution
- Why you want to work with those faculty [e.g., research ideas, what interests you about their research program] and/or why that program [e.g., research specialties of faculty, special resources or training]
- Deadline for each school
- Address of the department or school
- Name of person or committee to whom I should address the letter
- Where to mail the letter OR where to submit it online
-
“Programs” sheet with the following columns:
- “Classes” sheet with a list the psychology classes [and courses in related areas] that you have taken, when you took them, who taught each class, and the grade you earned
- A résumé or CV of your volunteer and work experience relating to your interest in the field to which you are applying. This résumé also should include your research [RA] experiences and education information [GPA, honors, etc.].
- A personal statement: you can give me a generic one or any of the ones you are submitting to a specific school. Try to go through at least 3-5 drafts before showing the statement to your letter writers.
- Any recommendation forms needed: please fill out my name, title, address, contact information, etc. Letters of recommendation are very time-consuming for the writers, so be considerate of their time by filling out everything on these forms [whether paper or online] so that they only need to rate you and sign the form.
- Address labels and stamps for each letter not submitted online.
Please Note
- When you email me your materials [preferred over paper copy], please make sure file names are clearly labeled with your first initial + last name, file content, and date/time in military format.
- For example, Bob Loblaw’s personal statement dated January 10, 2020 at 1:20pm would be named “BLoblaw_ps_200110-1320.docx”.
Frankly, graduate school is not for everyone.
I do not mean this in a “not everyone is smart enough for graduate school” kind of way, or that it is “difficult” so you should stay away. Rather, I think that you should only seriously consider and attend graduate school if it really is the best way to get to your career goals. Sometimes, it is the only way to get the job you want [e.g., to be a licensed practicing therapist, you need an MFT or a similar degree]. Thus, my advice and warnings are geared toward those considering a doctoral degree in psychology, or a general master’s degree as a way to get to a doctoral program in psychology.
Note: If you do not have clear career goals, graduate school is a very, very costly way to delay engaging in concrete, serious career exploration, such as getting internships, entry level jobs, etc.
Graduate school requires a lot of time and effort, it costs a lot of money [in terms of what you pay to get the degree as well as the abject poverty in which you will live while you could be earning money at a job], and there is a very small chance that when you are done, you would actually get a job in an academic setting doing what you see your current professors doing.
You should know what you are getting into before you decide to pursue graduate studies. The 2 resources below serve this purpose.
- 100 Reasons Not to Go to Graduate School is a very honest look at graduate education in the humanities and social sciences. This is why the blog exists. Do not read this blog if you want to be ignorant and blissful before entering graduate school. If after you read the blog, you still want to take the plunge, read this page for some sound advice.
- PhD Comics is a remarkably realistic and humorous depiction of life in academia. Jorge Cham, the author, draws from his own experiences as a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at Stanford and research associate at Caltech, as well as experiences shared with him by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. Reading this comic strip, you get the sense that graduate students and postdocs everywhere have very similar experiences. Hint hint.
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330-8255
U S A
© Que-Lam Huynh
California State University, Northridge
Department of Psychology
Email: qhuynh@csun.edu
Phone: 818-677-3560
Fax: 818-677-2829