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Estimating graduate admission standards in psychology

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Abstract

Because publicized minimum criteria for graduate school admission are rarely sufficient to gain entrance to the school of one's choice, a study was undertaken to estimate the actual or “effective” admission standards to graduate school. Booklets composed of 27 hypothetical graduate school applicants conforming to a 3 (GPA) × 3 (GRE) × 3 (trait adjectives) factorial design were evaluated by graduate program chairpersons from the marginal, low, middle, and high categories of the Roose and Andersen (1970), Cox and Catt (1977), and Endler et al. (1978) ranking systems of schools in psychology. Results showed that a linear model of judgment would account for the ratings of potential for success in graduate school and the decision to accept or reject the hypothetical applicants. GRE scores accounted for about twice as much variance (30%) as GPA (16%), which accounted for about twice as much variance (7%) as trait adjectives. The Roose and Andersen listing was shown to be the most acceptable ranking system when estimating “effective” graduate admission standards.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 68182, Omaha, NE

    C. Raymond Millimet & Mary E. Flume

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  1. C. Raymond Millimet
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  2. Mary E. Flume
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Millimet, C.R., Flume, M.E. Estimating graduate admission standards in psychology. Res High Educ 17, 125–137 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00973714

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00973714

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