Ok, I'm going to stumble through this, so bare with me.
I've recently graduated with a B.S. in Psych from Wayne State University. I have a poor-ish GPA (3.5), and a less than perfect in-subject GPA (3.7). I do have three years of undergraduate research experience, and four years as a volunteer for a children's support group program. I also received decent GRE scores (V- 760, Q- 710, W-5.5), and I do believe I will be receiving a couple of very strong LORs and one somewhat strong LOR. I have, according to the PIs of my current labs, a great sense of my research interests and good personal statement.
My concern is that I have been completely ignorant about posters or publications. To be honest, I didn't even know undergraduates did these until I stumbled upon this forum. No one in any of my classes, my labs, or in my chapter of Psi Chi has mentioned any of this; not even the professors I've spent a couple years working with have. So am I royally screwed? And is there any way as a post-baccalaureate student, that I might be able to take a directed study course and work on a research topic for publication? I feel like I missed the boat big time on this, and I'm panicking... (yes, I do know that I should not.) I feel like maybe if I had been an honors psychology student, I might have known about this poster/publication ordeal, but I switched to psychology late in my career, as it wasn't until then that I became impassioned for research. But I guess that explanation would be best saved for my applications.
So what-da-ya think? Do I stand a chance? Can I get published in a year and a half as a post-bacc? Am I fretting over nothing? Is the academic culture at my school fricken wacky and out of touch? LOL Gah!
PS - I am currently enrolled as a post-bacc student, as I am just filling my time (between three volunteer research assistant positions) with extra fun psych classes. Also, if you're curious why I didn't apply when I graduated from undergrad (in 2010), that is because I finished my bachelors degree during the beginning of chemotherapy, and was subsequently out of commission for 10 months thereafter. (More on this in a later thread, as I have some seriously dubious thoughts on battling cancer and my personal statement.)