Many Students complete B.A. Degrees.....

     Few Students Conduct Indivdualized Research.....

                Even Fewer Share Research Findings Through Presentation or Publication

Want to Stand Out, Share your Research!!

Why do research?  Many consider research to be interesting, fun, and/or an excellent complement to traditional courses.  
Those considering graduate school in Psychology, especially a doctoral program, should consider doing research because
it will give them a "preview" to part of what they can expect in graduate school.  Moreover, many graduate programs consider
research experience to be a very important factor in their admissions criteria.

Landrum and Clark (2005) examined profiles of doctoral programs in Psychology and found that 69% of such programs rated
"Research Experience" as High Importance when making admissions decisions, which was roughly the same % as those rating
Grade Point Average (GPA) as High Importance.  Only letters of recommendation and written statement of goals and objecives
were factors rating highly by more programs (and the best letters of recommendation are often obtained from professors who have
supervised your research).  Looking at Master's Programs, the percentage drops to about 31% rating Research Experience as
High Importance, but even here Research Experience remains more important than Clinically-Related Service and Work Expereince (both 20%).

So, if you want to stand out from the crowd research experience is important.  And the best was to document this experience, and
provide some evidence that you had a quality experience, is to have your research accepted for presentation at a conference or
for publication in a journal.

Present your research at a Conference (Oral Presentation or Poster Presentation)

Conferences vary in scope and topic area.  Scope can be defined as local, regional, or national; and some conferenes focus on a particular
research area while othes may be gegeral, or include all topic areas.  Here are some examples of conferences at which students have
presented in the past....

* Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference (Local, rotates among Minnesota Colleges;  all research areas)
* Minnesota Psychological Association Conference (Local, usually in Twin Cities; health or mental health focus)
* Midwestern Psychological Association (Regional, usually in Chicago; all research areas; Psi Chi Sections)
* APA and APS Conferences (National, rotating locations; all research areas; Psi Chi Sections)
*** Conference Lists maintained by  Psi Chi, International Honor Society in Psychology and  American Psychological Association 

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