No research experience, been out of school- What do I do?

[thestilltale]

I need advice about how I should proceed in my grad school search. My target program was the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Florida. I graduated with my BA of Psych in 2015 with a 3.56 GPA. My GRE scores aren't great: 163 in Verbal, 143 Quant, and 4.5 Writing. My real problem though is that while I accrued a lot of practical experience, my undergrad program included very little emphasis in doing research and publishing. I couldn't even conceive of anything to put on a CV that would recommend me as a competent researcher (other than the mandatory research methods class). I certainly have never published anything. On top of that, I've been out of school for 3 years- I have plenty of supervisors in the mental health field who know me and my work ethic, but there's no earthly way my professors can give me a quality letter of recommendation. I'd be shocked if they remembered me at all. I've thought about going back to school as a non-degree seeking student to get that research experience and those letters, but I'm poor. That would be an immense investment for a course of action I am uncertain will really get the job done. 

I've called various offices at UF to get some advice, but nobody wants to talk to me. They all direct me to some other office and the process starts over. (Admissions doesn't handle graduate students, the departments do- call the program's advising office. The advising office doesn't know how to help me with that, but I should try career services. Career services only deals with currently enrolled students, directs me back to the department. ad infinitum.) I've thought about reaching out to individual professors, but I don't want to make a bad first impression by being the clueless girl that didn't do anything in undergrad to prepare herself for graduate school. Are all universities like this when it comes to helping prospective grad students? This cagey, unhelpful attitude is really making me re-think applying to UF at all. 

TL;DR: I'm a good-to average student who's got tons of practical experience, but without research experience or strong recommendation letters and I've been out of school for 3 years. What do I do to make myself a more appealing applicant?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[l3ob]

It depends on the type of program you are trying to get into. If you are going for a Masters, then study for the GRE and bring up that quant score! Your application should be fine. However, if you want to do a PhD, then I would recommend taking a year to get research experience. You can email professors and universities around you to see if they are accepting applications. You could even join two labs. I was working for multiple labs in undergrad. That way you would be able to get two letters of recommendations from professors, and the last one can be from a work place. I am pretty sure they will want a helping hand. You can use that time to study for the GRE as well. 

[juilletmercredi]

Agreed with the above advice from l3ob, although I'd go so far as to say if you have no research experience now, you may want to take 2-3 years to get it to be competitive for a PhD program. Remember if you only take a year, you'd be applying in December when you only have like 4-6 months of experience; if you take 2-3 years, you'd have more to show for it and a strong recommendation letter from that experience.

This is also one of the few times I recommend an MA in psychology. Going as a non-degree student or for a post-baccalaureate certificate is also not a bad idea.

I think the run-around you're getting at UF is actually quite normal. Professors and others involved in the graduate program admissions are not going to want to give you a pre-admissions evaluation or give you any advice about getting into the program if they don't already know you - they have no incentive to do so, and they don't want to give you the impression that you will be admitted if you do X and Y things. You'd be better off talking to your own former professors in your undergraduate psychology department. Start with a professor in whose class you received an A. (The reference to career services was bizarre, since not only do they only deal with current students but they're not really set up to do graduate school advising.) That doesn't mean that the department won't be helpful when you are a graduate student there; it's just that (putting it frankly) they really have no reason to help you individually get admitted to their program.