I'm curious about looking for specific research experience related to the lab - what if they demonstrate the ability to generalize their tangentially related experience to the lab?
there are a few things I look for, in order of importance. what you highlight is #2.
If I may ask… I am applying with five years research experience, over ten posters and two co authored papers currently under review and submitted, but a 3.0 gpa. I try to emphasize the 4.0 I earned during my last two years of college but am wondering if schools that claim there is no gpa cutoff will still do this to my application.
Its hard to say because of the diversity of approaches. I'll give you what I think would be most common and the reason.
You probably don't want to be in the program that would ignore your research productivity and perfect GPA in the last two years. Your job is to apply to a diverse range of high-quality programs across the country to find the kind of program/advisor that would value a student like you.
The GRE tends to be a barrier for obtaining admission into clinical psych programs. Many qualified applicants have been rejected from programs solely on the basis of their GRE scores. It can be heartbreaking for many who pour their heart and soul into pursuing this career path only to fall short because of two consonants and a vowel. On top of that, improving scores on the GRE are very difficult. People have spent so much money on test prep materials, classes, and tutors only to achieve marginal improvements.
pubs and national presentations
Thanks, hopefully someone I applied to work with fits that! Lol
are Initial cutoffs true to the ones stated on program’s site?
Interesting…I think it’s ironic that people with low GRE scores would be automatically rejected even if they had numerous publications and conference presentations.
I do not admit grad students, but where I went to grad school, the minimum gpa and gre were dictated by the graduate school (who provided funding). We got a certain number of waivers per year so that people who fell below the cutoff could still be admitted.
I personally believe that the GRE is a true barrier for many applicants. The exam has definitely barred people with great credentials from gaining admission into PhD clinical psychology programs. I do think that high GPA and good research experience can be obtained with hard work and perseverance. Standardized tests are designed to provide an indicator of an individual’s aptitude independent of academic performance. People with high GPAs can obtain poor GRE scores and Vice versa. Additionally, such tests have very good test-retest reliability. I read somewhere test prep resources typically only result in an improvement of 1-3 points on each section than the previous attempts. In this respect, GRE scores tend to remain stable and resistant to preparation after a certain point. The GRE is very similar to the SAT. I’ve seen many high school students with high GPAs perform poorly on that exam, while those who did not invest much effort in their academics obtained very high scores.
My program is a slight variation on this in that GPA and GRE make prospective students competitive for university-wide graduate fellowships which provide a substantially larger stipend than what the psychology dept. and clinical program provide and therefore the dept. doesn't need to fund students while they are receiving fellowships. This makes students with high GPAs and GRE scores more attractive to the program, but it's not a dealbreaker either way.
Yes, I'm also skeptical that the GRE itself or any of the individual scores, is some kind of lynchpin that gets an otherwise competitive application rejected.
I'm not sure what your point is here other than venting about your own frustrations. You're generalizing about how the GRE is bad, unfair, and invalid based on anecdotes from other people, but then your own example is how preparation can increase one's scores and make them more competitive for grad school?
I don't suspect thats as common as you imply. At the end of the day, pubs/presentations speak loudly.
While I don't doubt that some applicants don't show their true abilities on a test like the GRE, I think that if we are going to talk about the GRE as a barrier, the financial and accessibility component should be the biggest part of the conversation. It's over $200 a pop and even in large cities the testing centers fill up quickly and some people have to travel to take it.. and then there's the nonsense of ETS charging for each score report. I'm fine with admissions moving away from the GRE for a lot of reasons, but "suck it ETS" is definitely one of them.. (did I have a bad customer service experience that made me bitter? maybe.)
Definitely concerned about this too though..
Sure, it sucks that the GRE is a bit pricey, though it's on par with other post-secondary high stakes testing, including the LSAT and MCAT. More importantly, it's probably less than $500 to pay for the GRE and enough score reports for 14-16 programs, which is the typically recommended number of applications top send, but other parts of the application process are more expensive. When I got into grad school 5 years ago, each program had an application fee of $50-60, but that was still a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of travel for interviewing. And that's not even getting into the exorbitant costs of moving to attend grad school.
I think that many faculty members believe that the most competitive applicants will be stellar across the board including GRE scores, GPA, and research experience. What I’m saying is that the GRE can be a roadblock for applicants and some admissions committees will not even review applications with low GRE scores.
And what you're being told by faculty who review applications, practicing psychologists, and current grad students who have taken part in the application review process is that this isn't really how it works. You'd have to have exceptionally low GRE scores for it to derail an otherwise competitive application. Even then, if everything else lined up (e.g., 4.0 GPA in math, stats, and research methods courses; pubs/posters which involved doing real stats) it's not necessarily going to be writing you off entirely.
I think that many faculty members believe that the most competitive applicants will be stellar across the board including GRE scores, GPA, and research experience. What I’m saying is that the GRE can be a roadblock for applicants and some admissions committees will not even review applications with low GRE scores.
I don’t think it is tho
Why do you keep repeating this in spite of so many people who actually have experience in this area telling you that it doesn't work that way.
I went to a clinical science program and was on the application review committee for 4 years. A low GRE would absolutely impact the review. The issue is that there are so many stellar applicants across the board that we’d need to find ways to filter people out. One year, I worked with one faculty member and we couldn’t narrow down her applicants beyond the top 17. She ended up having to do 17 Skype interviews to help her narrow it down to the top 3 invites. GRE definitely factored in. Someone also said that Quant score wasn’t that important. I would disagree. Maybe because my program was scientifically rigorous, it came into play a few times. An applicant with a Q score below 159 I’d say would be looked at with a much more critical eye.
Sure. I guess I was speaking to the larger issue that is being discussed here.
Again, I can’t say with any accuracy as 50% of the faculty I worked with filtered lower GREs out before I can see them. But as I mentioned, the 2 applicants I am thinking of that the other faculty considered had years of research experience, posters, and pubs. Stellar letters. One almost made the invite cut but was overruled by the rest of the faculty. This suggests to me that there are stellar applicants we miss when we filter out lower GREs. And if people are filtering out, which I suspect many programs/faculty do, how are we supposed to really gauge the percentage of folks who were stellar despite having lower GREs?
Of course. I meant how are we supposed to gauge a percentage right now in this discussion after you asked what percentage of that low GRE group are stellar otherwise. I don’t know how to answer that since no study has been conducted.
Exactly, which is why we should investigate more before making a move which could, in fact, serve to disenfranchise individuals more than the alleged current state of affairs.
On one hand, by keeping the GRE, a higher score can lift some disenfranchised applicants who had less exposure to opportunities due to life circumstances (I also doubt how impactful a high GRE is on applicants who have fewer other opportunities). On the other hand, by requiring it, you are excluding a sizable portion of people, likely lower SES and/or minority applicants, from even being considered. Either decision is likely going to disenfranchise some. For me, I feel uncomfortable with flat out excluding people with fewer resources.
Right. But for our program at least, proof of research experience/productivity is a non-negotiable. A perfect GRE for someone with little research experience is not going to make any cuts. And I believe research ability is more directly tied to the kind of work they will be doing in graduate school. We are able to glean more meaningful information from those experiences than someone’s score on the GRE.
