If you were deciding who to accept what would you look for?

[irish80122]

---

Members do not see this ad.

This question comes from a hypothetical question my roommate posed to me, and it is a question I think is interesting. A lot of us (including myself) have complained about the awful process that is graduate admissions, and how certain things like the GRE are so important. However, think about it, if you go into academics it won't be that long before you are making these decisions. You may even be asked to help make the decisions for your graduate school!

Given that, what do you think you will look for in an applicant? What are the things you will value? Given your experiences, how would you make the whole process better?

We will see if this catches on but it is a fun question to think about. I will post my thoughts on this later assuming people are interested in the topic.

 

[RayneeDeigh]

Excellent question.

I think the two most important things are: self-direction (you don't want a grad student who's going to need babysitting when making every decision), and that intangible thirst for knowledge that keeps people in the field and pushes them to try knew things with their research. We don't need copy-cats.

 

[psychanon]

Having helped out with my lab admissions, I can tell you from experience what I look for. First of all, it's very hard. After a while, everyone just blended together-- there are sooo many qualified applicants, and it's not fair to invite more than a few to fly out and interview in person. It really made me understand why it's so hard-- and arbitrary-- to get into clinical psych grad school-- there are just so many qualified people who need to get rejected. Given the quantity of strong applicants, I started looking for reasons to reject. The things that I looked for most are writing skills (because I think they are indicative of intelligence and logic skills), and research match (of course). I looked for people who seemed like they thought about research well. For my program, applicants should also be research-oriented but still enthusiastic about clinical work. I looked for strong experience-- clinical and research, but especially research. I preferred applicants with some post B.A. experience. Finally, I looked for little bits of info that made me think I would get along well with the person-- this part was the hardest. Overall, it was really hard-- and I'm really glad that it was ultimately my adviser making these decisions and not me!

 

[ny1020]

That they look like Matt McConaughey?

Well, since I haven't gone through the process yet, I'll add what I looked for when I interviewed people at my old job. I liked people who were independent thinkers but worked well in a team and who had energy - something to internally keep them going when the work was tough and frustrating. Good fit was really important -I refused to send someone to the bosses for a second interview if I thought they wouldn't mesh well with the team - no matter how smart, talented or experienced. I guess that translates into grad school: independence, insatiable thirst (stolen from Raynee), good fit...

After all, wouldn't you want to work with someone who loved what they were doing as much as you do?