What can I do with a degree in psychology with this GPA?

[biogirl236]

After pursuing biology for 2 years I ended up with a 2.5 GPA. I am beginning a slow uphill climb but at the end of my junior year I will likely only have a 2.6 GPA. By the end of my time at college I project that I will have, at most, a 2.7-2.8 (being awfully optimistic).

Is there anything I can do to mitigate this poor GPA to potentially give me a chance at graduate school? Would taking time off after undergrad or doing some type of post bacc program help me compensate for a poor undergraduate GPA? Especially that I am now starting to notice some improvement in my grades. Anything? If not, what are my other options with this degree in psychology?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DailyJoy]

Is there anything I can do to mitigate this poor GPA to potentially give me a chance at graduate school? Is there any way I can take time off after undegrad or do some type of post bacc program to compensate for a poor undergraduate GPA? Anything? If not, what are my other options with this degree in psychology?

I had a similar experience my first two years in STEMS. I didn't have the money for a masters or postbacc so I ended up staying in undergrad an extra two years, added a second major to bring up my GPA, and ensured that all of my psychology grades were excellent. When I graduated my cumulative GPA was at the cut off for PhD/PsyD programs but my psych GPA was competitive. The next three years I worked full time in research and spent extra hours to gain presentation and publication authorship. This application round I was accepted to several very competitive schools (to my surprise). In my opinion, the things that helped me the most were my GRE scores, my recommendations, the statement of purpose/advisor fit, and how productive (pubs/presentations) I was after undergrad. It wasn't easy and I feel like my work has been pretty consuming these past few years. If you can afford a masters program and complete a thesis then that is a great option, but if not, it is absolutely possible with some intense work and patience. Doesn't hurt that you can save some money before school either.

 

[Justanothergrad]

I'll give you my perception if you were to apply to my lab:

That GPA is a major barrier that will not pass the first run of cuts when folks review applications, particularly if your overall GPA is consistent with your psych GPA. Even if it is not and you did well with psych, that is still a MAJOR red flag. You will have to do some work to get yourself ready/prove you are ready for graduate school. Research experience, VERY strong GRE scores, masters training, etc. Particularly given the low grades you describe, you would need to show that you have the academic rigor to produce competitive grades. I don't want someone that I dedicate several years to that is going to be excessive work and that I am unsure if they can do the work. I would not take a risk taking a student with that performance without some substantial evidence to suggest that is a problem from the past, not representative of capacity/motivation, etc.

 

[biogirl236]

I'll give you my perception if you were to apply to my lab:

That GPA is a major barrier that will not pass the first run of cuts when folks review applications, particularly if your overall GPA is consistent with your psych GPA. Even if it is not and you did well with psych, that is still a MAJOR red flag. You will have to do some work to get yourself ready/prove you are ready for graduate school. Research experience, VERY strong GRE scores, masters training, etc. Particularly given the low grades you describe, you would need to show that you have the academic rigor to produce competitive grades. I don't want someone that I dedicate several years to that is going to be excessive work and that I am unsure if they can do the work. I would not take a risk taking a student with that performance without some substantial evidence to suggest that is a problem from the past, not representative of capacity/motivation, etc.

Going forward in my courses I have finally started getting the grades I have been looking for in my psychology classes. Research experience is definitely something I am planning on doing beginning this summer. I am going to try my best to finish strong my last year and a half and make sure I develop a work ethic that consistently gives me the grades I need. I am not sure why it is taking me so long to develop a strategy that gives me A's or AB's in most of my classes. Previously, it may have been due to lack of interest in the classes of my previous (biology) major courses. I was competing with many premedical students. However, could lack of interest itself explain such poor performance within the biology major? Which other external/internal factors could also contribute? Are some people more compatible with certain subject material, or was my process of studying/integrating information conceptually and applying it through given standardized tests flawed? Or am I simply incompetent and not able to assimilate information in the way needed to apply concepts and find relationships?

I do believe that I am capable of handling the rigor of the curriculum of graduate school for psychology. However, I feel I still need to fine tune my studying skills to make sure I absorbing the material adequately in order to perform well on exams. If I could go back and redo my freshman and sophomore years, I would definitely do so by not studying with intent to memorize everything, but to focus on what is important and relevant, as my strategy used to be to memorize as much as I possibly could. I engaged in a lot of night-before cramming as well. Looking back, I see that lack of interest led to me being pretty disengaged in my classes and thus the initial process of having the information first reach my short term memory was not achieved.

Does anyone else have any insight in regards to where I might have gone wrong early on in my undergraduate career? Has anyone been through a similar situation and experienced success in their later years in college after learning how to study more efficiently and thoroughly?

 

[singasongofjoy]

Going forward in my courses I have finally started getting the grades I have been looking for in my psychology classes. Research experience is definitely something I am planning on doing beginning this summer. I am going to try my best to finish strong my last year and a half and make sure I develop a work ethic that consistently gives me the grades I need. I am not sure why it is taking me so long to develop a strategy that gives me A's or AB's in most of my classes. Previously, it may have been due to lack of interest in the classes of my previous (biology) major courses. I was competing with many premedical students. However, could lack of interest itself explain such poor performance within the biology major? Which other external/internal factors could also contribute? Are some people more compatible with certain subject material, or was my process of studying/integrating information conceptually and applying it through given standardized tests flawed? Or am I simply incompetent and not able to assimilate information in the way needed to apply concepts and find relationships?

I do believe that I am capable of handling the rigor of the curriculum of graduate school for psychology. However, I feel I still need to fine tune my studying skills to make sure I absorbing the material adequately in order to perform well on exams. If I could go back and redo my freshman and sophomore years, I would definitely do so by not studying with intent to memorize everything, but to focus on what is important and relevant, as my strategy used to be to memorize as much as I possibly could. I engaged in a lot of night-before cramming as well. Looking back, I see that lack of interest led to me being pretty disengaged in my classes and thus the initial process of having the information first reach my short term memory was not achieved.

Does anyone else have any insight in regards to where I might have gone wrong early on in my undergraduate career? Has anyone been through a similar situation and experienced success in their later years in college after learning how to study more efficiently and thoroughly?

If your school is large enough they may have an academic help/resource center (called different things at different schools). I think the perception is often that that's just where people go for tutoring but at the schools I've been to / worked at, they offered many more services that were underutilized. They may offer (free) services like seminars on how to study for various subjects, figure out new strategies of studying that work best for you, etc. Find out if your school has anything like this. If they do, go talk to someone and find out what they might offer to help you learn more about how you do (and don't) learn efficiently.

If you decide to pursue grad school at the doctoral level, stopping to get a master's on the way (if you can afford it) might be a good idea to show you can hack the academic rigors of graduate classes. Often the advice on this board is that getting research experience should be the primary focus, and while that is v. important, in your case you might need some extra classes to prove you can do the work. Or like someone above said, you could take some extra classes/ take an extra semester or year to bring up your GPA to competitive standards for various programs you might be interested in (I'm not sure what master's programs are generally looking for for GPAs). Why do you want to go to grad school? Is it because you're not sure what else you can do with your degree, or because you definitely want to do a specific thing/area of work that requires an advanced degree?

If you decide not to do grad school, all of my fellow psych majors from undergrad are doing cool things, some in social work- related things, some in other fields that interest them. I don't think any of them had too hard a time finding a job that was reasonably interesting at first and then turning that into a career. I say this to help allay your anxiety. The majority of people who do not go to grad school end up employed doing things that were not really directly related to their major, but that are hopefully also interesting. Several of them are doing advocacy work of various sorts and their work sounds really interesting and meaningful, and related to psych/mental health field, so it's not impossible to find interesting work w/o an advanced degree depending on what you are interested in.

 

[propsych]

I'll give you my perception if you were to apply to my lab:

That GPA is a major barrier that will not pass the first run of cuts when folks review applications, particularly if your overall GPA is consistent with your psych GPA. Even if it is not and you did well with psych, that is still a MAJOR red flag. You will have to do some work to get yourself ready/prove you are ready for graduate school. Research experience, VERY strong GRE scores, masters training, etc. Particularly given the low grades you describe, you would need to show that you have the academic rigor to produce competitive grades. I don't want someone that I dedicate several years to that is going to be excessive work and that I am unsure if they can do the work. I would not take a risk taking a student with that performance without some substantial evidence to suggest that is a problem from the past, not representative of capacity/motivation, etc.

This is very helpful. It's good to see it from the mentor's perspective. I have a somewhat similar situation in which I did very poorly my first two years of school and have gotten straight A's this year. So my gpa should be a 3.0 once I graduate in a year. If you have a chance maybe you could take a look at my post and give me some feedback. I would really appreciate it!