Advising Beginning Psychology Majors for Graduate School

Abstract

The 539 American graduate programs listed in Graduate Study in Psychology 1983–1984 were surveyed in order to provide more information for advising psychology majors, particularly beginning majors. Undergraduate course preferences and ratings of five nonobjective criteria were tabulated in relation to the program's training specialty and type of degree offered. Programs were classified as offering one of four types of training—clinical/counseling, experimental, both clinical/counseling and experimental, or educational. The type of training was significantly related to preferred courses and ratings of nonobjective criteria, whereas type of degree was relatively unimportant. Results indicated a high preference for a course in statistics, a high rating for letters of recommendation, and a low rating for extracurricular activity. The data are discussed for each of the four program types, because each requires different advising.