Pre-Application Advice?

[2013student]

So I currently have a dilemma and was just looking for some advice. I want to apply for a Ph.D in social psychology, but I'm planning on taking at least a year off first.  I apologize that this is a rather long write-up.

Some background:


I am a Psychology major and Anthropology minor at a top 15 school. I am currently a senior. I am increasingly sure that I want to apply for a PhD program in social psychology. 

I currently have a 3.46 GPA, which I am a bit worried about, since it is on the low side. I had a bad freshman year, although I have had good grades since then. I believe I should be able to raise that to over a 3.5 after this last semester, although I am worried about it still being a bit low.  I'm worried because it seems a lot of applicants have 3.7 GPAs when they apply.

I took the GRE in January, and I got a 170 Verbal, 161 Quantitative, and 5.5 Analytical score.  I'm happy with my score, but from what I've read, it seems a good GRE score doesn't help as much as most people think?

What worries me most is my research experience. I'll have 3 semesters of working as a research assistant after this year, and I helped out a bit last summer in a lab as well. I know research is the most important thing for an application. I don't have any publications or conferences, which worries me.  

 

So here's the complication:

I have an offer from Teach for America and I would very much like to do that for the next two years, but I am worried about it not being directly applicable to PhD applications later and hurting my applications. It is something I would like to be engaged in, but I'm wondering if I should just do research instead.  If I decide not to do TFA, then I have to start applying for research assistant jobs.

Some caveats: TFA can involve a lot of data analysis, so that would be a good way for me to potentially practice some skills important to psychology. In addition, the summer is open during TFA, so I would be able to do a research assistant job during that time.

 

I would ideally like to do TFA, but I was wondering whether it would actually be that much more helpful to get a research assistant job instead.  I know TFA looks good to many graduate schools, but I am worried about it actually hurting me for a social science Ph.D.

Sorry for the long post, but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or advice.  Thanks in advance.