Graduate School Resources

As you make progress towards the completion of your undergraduate degree, your future plans – such as entering graduate school and/or a securing a permanent job – come increasingly into focus.  To help support those goals, we’ve collected helpful information, advice, guides, and other resources relating to graduate school and professional careers.  Here you’ll find information on the process of choosing, preparing, and applying to programs in psychology and other fields.  Additionally, we’ve collected resources on CV and resume writing.  All of these resources are aimed at helping our students succeed beyond their time at UCSD.

To learn more, please visit the links below.

• How to Apply to Graduate School – How do I find graduate programs that interest me and are suitable for me? When should I start preparing my applications? How do I prepare my applications?  What should I do to increase my chances of success?  How do I navigate graduate admissions interviews?  How do I apply to clinical psychology or medical/healthcare professional training programs? Find answers to these questions, and more.

► Applying to Graduate Programs

• Academic CVs and Professional Resumes – Need to create an academic CV or professional resume? What are the differences between CVs and resumes?  What are the key components typically found in each?  Here we provide resources to help you with that process. 

► Academic CV and Professional Resume Writing

• Career Preparation: Psychology and Related Careers – interested in forensic psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, medical fields, or neuroscience? For suggested preparatory tracks, please visit the following section. 

► Career Preparation: Psychology and Related Careers

• UCSD Psychology Success Stories – learn from undergraduate alumni that successfully applied and got accepted to competitive graduate programs in psychology, medicine, business, public policy, human resources, and more.  These members of the department, who completed undergraduate degrees in Psychology at UCSD, generously provided written and/or video interview accounts of how they prepared for and completed their applications. 

► Interviews with Successful Graduate Applicants

• UCSD Alumni Network – This department's undergraduates have informally contacted alumni for advice and information. To get in touch with prior UCSD Psychology and other UCSD alumni, we suggest trying the Career Center's Alumni network (linked below). We also suggest tapping into social media networks, checking with your peers, speaking with professors, TAs, and/or the Student Affairs Office.

How These Resources Are Organized

The section on applying to graduate school includes: detailed text with summaries of important information and (in most cases) how-to guides and/or helpful hints; a downloadable PDF guide; and relevant and helpful links to other websites. That section and other resources are also complemented by an ongoing series of undergraduate workshops (for dates and times, please check the undergraduate workshops calendar).

Please note that these resources do not represent university, department, or course policy.  They are meant as additional resources to help students guide their studies, career planning, and other related activities.  Their inclusion here does not imply any endorsement.  Students may wish to rely on their own judgment, or consult instructors and other trusted individuals, for further guidance.