WAMC With Two W's

[PsychGradApplicant14]

Hi.  I am new here and I was curious about my chances this coming application season.  I plan on applying to Masters programs in Experimental Psych and PhD programs in Experimental Psych.  I have a 3.56 GPA, 316 GRE, good letters and will have 2.5 years of research experience when applying.  I am a bit scared because I have two withdrawals on my transcript.  Both W's are from non psych classes.  The first came when I took a lot of credits and was working and decided it was too much so I dropped a hard science (I was originally pre-health).  I decided to change from pre-health to psychology actually only about 5 months ago.  I graduated back in the Fall with my Bachelors but I had registered for two Natural Science classes at a CC Post-Bacc because I still wasn't 100% set on psychology.  When I became 100% set on psychology, I decided to just stick it out and take the courses anyway.  Do you think it looks weird to have been taking natural science classes as well after deciding on psychology?  In one class, I am going to get an A but I had to drop the class with a W mostly due to scheduling conflict but also because it was taking away time from my RA and TA positions at the university.  Are these going to be looked at poorly to the point where I should expect a lot of rejections for even masters programs?  Should I even attempt PhD programs or are these too many red flags?  Thanks for the help, I am somewhat new to this process since I decided psychology graduate school was for me only about 5 months ago.  

I was interested in if I have a chance or if even I should apply to higher level masters programs like William and Mary, Wake Forest, Appalachian State, Western Carolina, etc.  

Edited April 19, 2016 by PsychGradApplicant14

[GradSchoolTruther]

Don't think too many committees would blink an eye at two Ws on a transcript.

[Guest joshw4288]

58 minutes ago, PsychGradApplicant14 said:

Hi.  I am new here and I was curious about my chances this coming application season.  I plan on applying to Masters programs in Experimental Psych and PhD programs in Experimental Psych.  I have a 3.56 GPA, 316 GRE, good letters and will have 2.5 years of research experience when applying.  I am a bit scared because I have two withdrawals on my transcript.  Both W's are from non psych classes.  The first came when I took a lot of credits and was working and decided it was too much so I dropped a hard science (I was originally pre-health).  I decided to change from pre-health to psychology actually only about 5 months ago.  I graduated back in the Fall with my Bachelors but I had registered for two Natural Science classes at a CC Post-Bacc because I still wasn't 100% set on psychology.  When I became 100% set on psychology, I decided to just stick it out and take the courses anyway.  Do you think it looks weird to have been taking natural science classes as well after deciding on psychology?  In one class, I am going to get an A but I had to drop the class with a W mostly due to scheduling conflict but also because it was taking away time from my RA and TA positions at the university.  Are these going to be looked at poorly to the point where I should expect a lot of rejections for even masters programs?  Should I even attempt PhD programs or are these too many red flags?  Thanks for the help, I am somewhat new to this process since I decided psychology graduate school was for me only about 5 months ago.  

I was interested in if I have a chance or if even I should apply to higher level masters programs like William and Mary, Wake Forest, Appalachian State, Western Carolina, etc.  

Based upon the information you have provided, you will be perfectly competitive for masters programs and (I think) can expect to get into a handful of those you apply to. The disparity between masters and doctoral programs in competitiveness is large and you should expect much more difficulty with PhD applications. What is your GRE breakdown (percentiles)? What kind of experience is your research experience? Will recommenders be able to speak to you being involved in important aspects of the project (not just data collection)? How much involvement was there for you in the projects (i.e., did you just walk people into the lab and set them up on a self-contained computer driven study or was some tact involved on your part in the research design)? Do you have any poster presentations? Do you have any publications? What programs are you applying to?

[Anxiousapplicant01]

Just speaking from personal experience, I had two whole semesters of W's and one W each semester following (totally in over 10 W's) and I was still accepted into multiple PhD programs in psychology. Every program I was accepted to also nominated me for a fellowship, so you can still be very competitive with many W's. No one even asked about them in interviews. Maybe I would have gotten more offers without the W's, but I would still consider my application season to be successful. Also, taking natural science classes might actually help you...having taken many math classes actually helped me since I spinned it as a way to better develop my critical thinking skills and things like that. Potential mentors were very excited about that. And you have more research experience than I do so I think you will still be pretty competitive regardless. I don't see any major red flags, so I would say go for it and see what happens. 

[cpctc1]

If it makes you feel any better, I was asked why I got a B in one class (somewhat jokingly I think), but was not asked about my W, which is literally the first class that appears on my transcript first semester of freshman year. 

[PsychGradApplicant14]

On April 19, 2016 at 10:17 AM, joshw4288 said:

Based upon the information you have provided, you will be perfectly competitive for masters programs and (I think) can expect to get into a handful of those you apply to. The disparity between masters and doctoral programs in competitiveness is large and you should expect much more difficulty with PhD applications. What is your GRE breakdown (percentiles)? What kind of experience is your research experience? Will recommenders be able to speak to you being involved in important aspects of the project (not just data collection)? How much involvement was there for you in the projects (i.e., did you just walk people into the lab and set them up on a self-contained computer driven study or was some tact involved on your part in the research design)? Do you have any poster presentations? Do you have any publications? What programs are you applying to?

I have one conference presentation and will have another by the end of this year.  Will also hopefully be published by the end of this year as well.  Planning on helping to design an experiment this fall.  Yes, I do believe my recommendations will be able to speak about my research experience and how I was more involved than just setting up a computer for participants.  I plan on applying to experimental PhD programs but I am thinking I am going to be more competitive for MA programs so that is what I am thinking about focusing on.  I was just hoping that my two W's and the fact that I did Pre-med classes won't look that unfavorably.

[Guest joshw4288]

2 hours ago, PsychGradApplicant14 said:

I have one conference presentation and will have another by the end of this year.  Will also hopefully be published by the end of this year as well.  Planning on helping to design an experiment this fall.  Yes, I do believe my recommendations will be able to speak about my research experience and how I was more involved than just setting up a computer for participants.  I plan on applying to experimental PhD programs but I am thinking I am going to be more competitive for MA programs so that is what I am thinking about focusing on.  I was just hoping that my two W's and the fact that I did Pre-med classes won't look that unfavorably.

That's good. All these things help. The physical results of research experience (i.e., poster/paper presentation, publication, award for presentation etc.) are much more telling than number of research experiences, years of experience etc. Other academic awards/scholarships can also help even if unrelated to psychology. The recommendations discussing the depth of involvement of research experience is also really important. You will certainly be competitive for masters programs, and as I said, you should expect to get into many from which you apply. Based on this, and assuming you avoid the "kisses of death" http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2006/01/applicati.aspx, you'll be competitive for plenty of doctoral programs. Having been on the receiving end of the admissions process, there is so much variability and randomness in admissions decisions, I always recommend casting a wide net. The APA has some good information: http://www.apa.org/education/grad/applying.aspx, I can remember the link to psychology admissions rates across areas but the most recent one released (2015, I think) had experimental social programs with lowest admission average around 5% and neuroscience programs with the highest (around 13%). Masters programs are well into the 40% range. If someone remembers where this is, please post the link. I think it was in the Observer or the Monitor this year--can't quite remember.