Advice on Pre-PhD Masters (Psychology)?

[nabbca]

Hi all, 

I am a student planning on applying to graduate programs this fall and could use some advice. I am planning on (one day) applying to PhD programs in Psychology, unfortunately my undergraduate GPA is not very good so I'm fairly certain that I will not be admitted to any if I applied this upcoming cycle. However, to help, I am planning to apply to Masters programs in order to supplement the poor undergraduate GPA, as well boost my application come time to apply for PhD programs. My question is this: would it be more beneficial to apply to Masters programs related to psychology (e.g. psychology, neuroscience, etc.) or to apply to a program in a field such as Statistics/Data Analysis, that will surely benefit me in conducting research later in my career. I have some coding experience (Matlab) as a result of working in a Neuroscience research lab, and have taken a couple statistics courses at my university and done well in both. 

I'm just looking for a little guidance, as I haven't gotten the chance to talk to my faculty advisor about any of this yet, I wanted to come to her with an idea of what could be good for me. 

Thanks for the help!

 

P.S. I also asked this question in the "Question and Answers" Forum in addition to this one, wasn't sure where was most appropriate. Hope I haven't broken any unspoken rules. 

 

[honeyrue]

15 minutes ago, nabbca said:

Hi all, 

I am a student planning on applying to graduate programs this fall and could use some advice. I am planning on (one day) applying to PhD programs in Psychology, unfortunately my undergraduate GPA is not very good so I'm fairly certain that I will not be admitted to any if I applied this upcoming cycle. However, to help, I am planning to apply to Masters programs in order to supplement the poor undergraduate GPA, as well boost my application come time to apply for PhD programs. My question is this: would it be more beneficial to apply to Masters programs related to psychology (e.g. psychology, neuroscience, etc.) or to apply to a program in a field such as Statistics/Data Analysis, that will surely benefit me in conducting research later in my career. I have some coding experience (Matlab) as a result of working in a Neuroscience research lab, and have taken a couple statistics courses at my university and done well in both. 

I'm just looking for a little guidance, as I haven't gotten the chance to talk to my faculty advisor about any of this yet, I wanted to come to her with an idea of what could be good for me. 

Thanks for the help!

 

P.S. I also asked this question in the "Question and Answers" Forum in addition to this one, wasn't sure where was most appropriate. Hope I haven't broken any unspoken rules. 

  

•  

I'd recommend you apply to a MA program related to psychology. You can choose seek out extra statistics or data analysis opportunities to supplement your core classes.

By doing so, you have the opportunity to boost/compensate for your GPA, create research projects/ products that interest you and will be interesting to you future mentors (e.g., publications, posters, conference presentations), build connections in your specific field and learn about the newest research, as well as gain additional statistic or data analyses knowledge on your own. It's a win-win-win. 

[dancedementia]

Look for masters programs in "Experimental Psychology" (some of them will be called that, and some will just be called a masters in "Psychology", but some digging will reveal whether they are more applied or more experimental). Those programs will train you well in research methods and statistics (many of them require a short thesis, and research is built in to the program).

Edited January 10, 2019 by dancedementia