November 18, 2023
Yes, I know, I am putting this out of order. That's going to happen. In truth, I decided to write this entry because gap years was a big part of the discussion when we held our event about graduate school (where students came and asked faculty a set of questions about graduate school and applications; and yes, I did advertise this blog). Moving forward, some of the entries are going to be out of order. Just go with it.
Here's the entry:
I asked google what the median starting age of a Ph.D. student in psychology was. It didn't tell me. But it did tell me the median age people graduate from Ph.D.' program in psychology in the United States. It's 32.3 years old. Think about that for a minute, if a Ph.D. program takes ~5.5 years to finish, that means the median starting age is 26.8. (I had to do a little digging in my notes. When I was a first-year graduate student, I remember taking an "introduction to the department" class, and one of the professors who gave a guest lecture researched college admissions. He mentioned something called that I thought was called the "APA Blue Book." It was a book that listed all of the clinical graduate programs that were accredited by APA (The American Psychological Association). Basically, if you wanted to be licensed to practice in the US, you probably wanted to go to one of the programs in the book. But the book also had some summary information, and one of those pieces of information was the average starting age of students in Ph.D. programs. My recollection was that it was ~25.5 - so the google estimate is probably not far off.
By the way, if you're wondering, I tried typing "APA Blue Book" into google. I can't find it. Either my memory is faulty (likely) or it's called something else now (also likely), because it used to be an actual blue book, and I assume now all of this information is online and not actually published.
But let's assume that this is right. It means that a lot of people are taking more than just one gap year. They are taking gap years. As in plural - many of them.
Personal experience time: I didn't take a gap year. I applied to graduate school as a senior in college (and had no idea what I was doing as you'll read in other entries), but managed to get in and go straight away. Only two people in my incoming class went to graduate school straight from undergraduate (out of a class of 22). Everyone else took at least one and usually several gap years. The year after that (my second year of grad school), no one was admitted from their undergraduate experience. In my third year, there were again two students (I don't remember the class size, but my graduate program had about 120 students total, so 20-25 students were starting the program each year). I honestly don't remember the years afterwards, but I will say that it was the exception and not the norm.
This isn't to discourage you from applying to graduate school straight away as a senior. It really isn't. It's simply to say that the norm is to not do this. You really want to have a good sense of what you want to study and how you match to a program. You have to be ready to commit. Going to graduate school is a long commitment - not only are you committing to live in an area and work with a particular set of people closely, but if everything goes well, you are committing to a lifelong career. That's harder to do when you're 21 than when you're 25. If you know what you want, then go - apply - do! There's a little bit of a goldilocks effect here. Too broad, and you're not ready. Too narrow? Well, what happens if you burn out on that topic? Or the topic isn't deep enough to sustain you - either because of you or the topic? What then? Applying straight away is about the porridge being just right.
So, a gap year(s) can make a lot of sense, particularly if you are uncertain.
Also, I want to mention something. It's not really a gap year. I'd like to suggest that at minimum, its two years. There's not much point otherwise - it takes at least a few months to figure out any new environment and job. And if you're applying to grad school during that time, then what new ideas or experiences have you really gained?
As for what to do during this time. There's research opportunities and fellowships. There's clinical work (particularly post-bac clinical experiences). There are positions as lab managers and research associates. And there's also doing something totally different - to see if you really want to go to graduate school in the first place. These are all possibilities. This is where you have to make choices and decisions.
Talking with an advisor at this point is a really good idea. Remember that as a college student, you have access to professors who hold office hours where they sit around and wait for students to come talk to them. When you graduate, that goes away.