How does an MA degree affect competitiveness for clinical psychology Ph.D programs?

[HopefullyDr]

 

My BS is in Psychology, 3.9 GPA, I have over a year research/intern experience, but was rejected from all Ph.D programs last year. I am currently in my first year of my MA Psychology degree with a 3.5 GPA. I will be retaking the GRE in April and will be graduating with my MA in December this year. I want to apply to clinical ph.d programs again this fall, but I am nervous about whether my MA will help/hurt my application. Currently I am pursuing more research experience while I prepare for Fall 2017 applications. Also, how much does the rank of your current university affect the application for doctoral programs? Should I also rewrite my personal statement?

Also, I understand that the most important piece of the application process is goodness of fit with professors of interest. I am specifically concerned with competitiveness of the application in addition to being a good fit for the program's research prospects.

[dancedementia]

The whole point of a masters is to get more research experience and boost a poor ugrad GPA. You had a great ugrad GPA but your masters GPA is pretty bad in comparison, so that might hurt you. Are you able to publish or present using your masters research? That will help. 

[clinicalapplicant]

44 minutes ago, dancedementia said:

The whole point of a masters is to get more research experience and boost a poor ugrad GPA. You had a great ugrad GPA but your masters GPA is pretty bad in comparison, so that might hurt you. Are you able to publish or present using your masters research? That will help. 

I really doubt that at the doctoral level, grades are even remotely important. The OP has a good GPA in their Master's. It's way more about research experience, and presentations/publications as a result of said research experience.

Obtaining an MA should not hurt your application at all. I don't understand why it would? If anything, it gives you more opportunities to gain more research experience, and that's incredibly important when applying to doctoral programs. 

 

[Timemachines]

11 hours ago, clinicalapplicant said:

I really doubt that at the doctoral level, grades are even remotely important. The OP has a good GPA in their Master's. It's way more about research experience, and presentations/publications as a result of said research experience.

Obtaining an MA should not hurt your application at all. I don't understand why it would? If anything, it gives you more opportunities to gain more research experience, and that's incredibly important when applying to doctoral programs. 

 

True, however, some programs are very skeptical of accepting folks who got their masters for a slew of reasons (grade inflation, different didactic and field related clinical training, etc). I would hope that getting your masters would keep you productive for a few years and bulk up your resume which may ultimately help your chances, but the expectations for productivity in someone who has completed graduate level work is higher than undergraduate level experience, if that makes sense. You end up placing yourself on a different level of evaluation.

[somekindaway]

Is your Master's program connected to a school that has a PhD in clinical psych already? That would improve your chances (as long as the school doesn't have a policy against taking students from their own Master's program). If not, you should hopefully have a lot more publications and research experience if your Master's program has been research intensive, which would help. Have you also practiced your interviewing skills? If you were rejected after the interview phase, that might be why. If you were rejected at the outset, perhaps it was your letters or the quality of research involvement, both of which will hopefully be rectified by your time in your Master's program. Ultimately, I think your Master's program has more of a chance of helping than hindering you. Good luck!

[HopefullyDr]

Thanks for all of the responses.  Last year I did not get any interviews. I also was very ambitious, had only taken the GRE one time, and rushed my application process after leaving the first MA program I was involved in.  I don't think I completely knew how time-consuming the application process was.  I am now focusing on working with a tenured professor on an editing committee and am involving myself in further research this year.  I will be graduating in December of this year and am stacking my CV as much as possible.  Also, I am quitting my restaurant job to make space for extra research jobs. I hope that I can get into a Ph.D program next year, now that I have an idea of what the application process looks like. I will also be re-writing my SOP with a tenured professor mentoring me with it.  Maybe obtaining stronger LOR will help also? 

[Timemachines]

7 minutes ago, elenabuena13 said:

Thanks for all of the responses.  Last year I did not get any interviews. I also was very ambitious, had only taken the GRE one time, and rushed my application process after leaving the first MA program I was involved in.  I don't think I completely knew how time-consuming the application process was.  I am now focusing on working with a tenured professor on an editing committee and am involving myself in further research this year.  I will be graduating in December of this year and am stacking my CV as much as possible.  Also, I am quitting my restaurant job to make space for extra research jobs. I hope that I can get into a Ph.D program next year, now that I have an idea of what the application process looks like. I will also be re-writing my SOP with a tenured professor mentoring me with it.  Maybe obtaining stronger LOR will help also? 

I think the important thing is that you're taking calculated steps to make yourself a stronger applicant! Don't forget to be in touch with faculty you applied to work with last year to let them know of these accomplishments and potentially, how you've taken the time to reflect on the weaker aspects of your application and the steps you've taken to improve those details. 

[HopefullyDr]

7 minutes ago, Timemachines said:

I think the important thing is that you're taking calculated steps to make yourself a stronger applicant! Don't forget to be in touch with faculty you applied to work with last year to let them know of these accomplishments and potentially, how you've taken the time to reflect on the weaker aspects of your application and the steps you've taken to improve those details. 

This poses another question for me.  If I continue to use a LOR from my undergraduate university in my application post-graduate school, is that beneficial for my application? I am definitely trying to strengthen myself in the application process. I very much know what I want to research for my career and can only hope that the work will pay off!

[dancedementia]

On 2/22/2016 at 9:36 PM, clinicalapplicant said:

I really doubt that at the doctoral level, grades are even remotely important. The OP has a good GPA in their Master's. It's way more about research experience, and presentations/publications as a result of said research experience.

Grades are not important at the doctoral level - once you're in. But for me, it's a red flag that OP has a 3.9 ugrad GPA... and then a relatively low masters GPA. Here in the States at least, most masters GPAs are heavily inflated so that most people should be getting around 3.7/3.8 to be "average". A 3.5 is on the low end.

[Amelie]

Rejections from phd programs happen to many people who have high undergrad gpas. If it happened before the interviews, it could very well be because you did not apply to programs based on research match. Even if you said, I want to study "anxiety" but did not demonstrate a firm interest in a specific area, you could have been turned down for someone else who did.  Also, gres are very important to some programs. Universities are more likely to give awards and fund students for grants if they have a certain gre score. This is out of professors hands in a lot of cases. I would not be concerned about a 3.5 masters gpa. Hopefully, you have been able to get research experience and you will be able to use this experience to demonstrate why you are a great match for the programs you are applying to. Everyone has to remember that hundreds of people apply to clinical psychology programs and they take around 6 people. Furthermore, when you are applying to work with one professor your chances are even smaller because that one professor is probably only taking one or two students. Which leads me to another point, make sure to email professors before you apply to make sure they are accepting students. Many of the professors I emailed to work with were retiring or on sabbatical and not accepting students for the upcoming semester. 

Good luck timemachines! Don't give up. 

[HopefullyDr]

My current MA GPA is 3.5. That is just from my first semester. I have two more semesters after this one and have completed my core requirements already. I am predicting the GPA to rise as I continue with the program.  @Amelie I think that may have been my problem! I did not realize it then but I was not nearly as specific as I should have been in last year's applications.  I now am reading the current research from my POI's and am hoping to form stronger matches with them from understanding the work on a deeper level. 

[icantseethespacebar]

On 2/21/2016 at 1:25 PM, elenabuena13 said:

 

My BS is in Psychology, 3.9 GPA, I have over a year research/intern experience, but was rejected from all Ph.D programs last year. I am currently in my first year of my MA Psychology degree with a 3.5 GPA. I will be retaking the GRE in April and will be graduating with my MA in December this year. I want to apply to clinical ph.d programs again this fall, but I am nervous about whether my MA will help/hurt my application. Currently I am pursuing more research experience while I prepare for Fall 2017 applications. Also, how much does the rank of your current university affect the application for doctoral programs? Should I also rewrite my personal statement?

Also, I understand that the most important piece of the application process is goodness of fit with professors of interest. I am specifically concerned with competitiveness of the application in addition to being a good fit for the program's research prospects.

You should definitely re-write your personal statement to include your new experiences. Having an MA shouldn't hurt your application, but if you're concerned you can emphasize the fact that you didn't get as much clinical experience as intended so you look forward to gaining more training in a different setting (or something to that effect). Rank of your current university shouldn't affect your application, especially if you're taking steps to bolster the application (for example, seeking out clinically-relevant research experience). Goodness of fit with the prof is everything for these applications, so make sure that you are articulate in your personal statement in explaining your research interests (what questions do you want to answer? Why is it important/why does it matter? What do you hope to find? How would you design a study? etc).

 

Good luck!