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their overall abilities to graduate programs. Overall, graduate programs will likely consider all components of each application, as they want to know that their students are dedicated and going to put in the time and effort it takes to succeed.
Scott: I agree with Julie that modest GPAs will be difficult to
overcome without some very impressive out-of-class experiences. Another thing that will cure a modest GPA is the passage of time. A student who takes several years off and gains meaningful experiences in either a research- or practice-oriented job will help dissipate a humdrum GPA. The truth is, sometimes it’s easy for admissions committees to eliminate folks with low GPA because they need something to shorten the list. I would mildly disagree with Julie that GPA scores are more important than GRE. Although some programs may be eliminating GREs, the competitive programs will still need something to winnow the list to fit the number of spaces available.
Mitch: Admitting faculty are attempting to predict the next
few decades of your career from fairly poor metrics of your undergraduate experience. Your GPA depends on your courses, professors, and other potential biases. Faculty know this and there is no set cutoff used for applicants. Lower grades with a great essay is just as good as a 4.0 and a mediocre personal statement. If the GPA is below 3.3 (i.e., a B+), however, it may be important to ask letter writers to comment on whether your grades reflect your true potential and/or consider taking a few masters-level graduate classes to demonstrate that you can succeed in graduate study.
Should I focus more on acing all coursework that is relevant to my anticipated graduate degree or work on bringing up my overall grade average?
Julie: Graduate programs will likely consider your overall GPA
but also may pull out your psychology-relevant coursework. It is important to do well in all of your classes, but if you got a C in music theory your freshman year of undergrad, it may not hinder your application. You certainly want to do as well as you can in your psychology-related coursework. If there is something negative on your transcript, it is always helpful to explain what happened, without making excuses, in your personal statement/ application. Graduate programs would be interested in hearing how you improved your skills, changed your approach, and utilized support to grow and ultimately succeed.
Scott:: Julie is correct that bad grades have less impact (a) if they come early and (b) if they are not in your focused area of study. Thus, it is critical to get good grades in your psychology course, particularly your junior and senior years.
Mitch: Many faculty will not look at your transcript (i.e., which
courses you took) carefully, your Major GPA, or your Jr/Sr year GPA. There are many exceptional applicants, and more time will be spent reading your essay and perhaps even contacting your letter writers. Your ability to convey that you think like a scientist, your familiarity with theories and methods in your chosen area of study, and your ability to generate hypotheses are far more important than grades. 22
EYE ON PSI CHI WINTER 2021
Julie Radico, PhD, works as a behavioral health specialist and assistant professor in Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s Family and Community Medicine Department. She is Board Certified in Clinical Health Psychology. She earned her doctoral degree in clinical psychology and master’s degrees (clinical psychology & counseling and clinical health psychology) at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Radico completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the department of Family Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Currently, Dr. Radico serves on the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Membership Board (2019–2021). Scott VanderStoep, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Dean for Social Sciences at Hope College (MI). He received his master’s in social psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his PhD from the University of Michigan. His research articles have largely been in the area of reasoning and problem solving, college student thinking, and psychology and religion. He is the coauthor of two editions of Learning to Learn: The Skill and Will of College Success and Research Methods for Everyday Life: Blending Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches and editor of Science and the Soul: Christian Faith and Psychological Research. Mitch Prinstein, PhD, ABPP, is the Chief Science Officer of the American Psychological Association and the John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers and nine books, including The Portable Mentor: Expert Guide to a Career in Psychology.
A Tribute to the Original Three Heads Columnists This issue is the final installment to be coauthored by Dr. Scott VanderStoep. Scott now joins our first two original experts, Drs. Mitch Handelsman and Eric Landrum, in retirement this year from the Three Heads series. In all honesty, all three original contributors have been trying to escape from this writing commitment for several years now, but we stubbornly refused to let them go! Together, they have each answered, often quite humorously, more than eighty questions about graduate school—answers spanning 10 years and 20 individual articles! We cannot thank these three enough for everything they have done to support Psi Chi and students interested in attending graduate school. If someone asked us if we would be willing to work with these three again, we would have to flatly say “no!” [Insert laugh track] . . . because in truth we have never seen our experiences with them as “work” at all. [Insert awws] We hope that you three won’t be strangers! If you have an idea for an article, please send it our way. We promise that we won’t stretch it out again for another entire decade. (Or will we?) We wish you all the very best! Psi Chi Central Office Staff
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