Newbie Question re: I/O and other non-clinical PhD advice

[TriPsych]

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Is this a good place to ask advice about I/O or Sports Psych? I was referred here by someone who had great success in another medical area. Just wondering if I should proceed since my fields aren't clinical. ITt's kind of a general question.

In case it's something you've seen before, I'm an undergrad with almost a 4.0 (darn that A minus!!) whose goal is a PhD in either I/O or Sports Psych. I have an extracurricular background in sports as well as philanthropy and an employment history in corporate training (hence the difficulty chosing between the two).

My primary question is how much having Pysch as a major vs. a minor impacts my chances of acceptance into a PhD program given my background. (Supposing I get a decent GRE score, that is.) If I finish my Bachelor's in Humanities with a double minor in Psych and International Affairs, I'll be done this coming May, have my GRE scores in this winter, and be ready for a program next fall. If I finish as a Psych major with the other two as minors, I won't be done till next winter.

Is it really worth the extra 4-5 classes?

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Real quick....

1. You want to be as competitive as possible, and most likely the majority of people you are competing with will have more classes than you, so you better have a reason or reasons why a program should choose you over someone who has more psych specific classes. GPA is important, but this is a very self-selected bunch....I think your average clinical program will have a 3.6-3.75+ average, so you may have a slight edge there. Research and letters of recommendations are probably more important in the long run (as long as your GPA is in the realm of 3.5. Low GPAs are a reason to be cut, and usually not a reason to be accepted)

2. I/O and Sports Psychology are quite different fields. I guess there can be some cross-over, but the underlying areas are divergent. I/O in its truest sense is primarily applying stats, research, and metrics to solve an organizational problem/challenge. Sports Psychology would be much more likely to deal with individual issues such as: Self-esteem/confidence building, visualization, performance anxiety, stress management, social skills training, etc. Though both may deal with relational issues between participants (teamwork, managing workplace/personal stressors, etc), the actual applied clinical work is quite different.


I have seen a few internship and post-doc training opportunities for Sports Psychology, though I can't think of any off the top of my head. I believe these opportunities were mostly associated with university counseling programs that did work with their university athletic departments. I *think* University of Florida may have a sports psych tie in....I'll have to poke through my stuff, I know a couple places I'm looking at have elective opportunities in this area.

-t

 

[TriPsych]

Thanks. That's about what I thought so far, which is that my best chance is to go with the Psych major and gear the rest of my undergrad electives toward whichever discipline I choose.