Why are some graduate students successful and others are not? Pure intellectual abilitie, as measured by the GRE and reflected, to a certain extent, in undergraduate GPA, play a significant role, but there is more to graduate school success than raw brain power. Mental toughness, self-reliance, a desire to excel, and a commitment to scholarship are the essential personal characteristics of a student who can adapt to the rigor, stress, and often impersonal nature of graduate school. The successful graduate student is one who possesses both the intellectual abilities and the necessary personal characteristics. The following sets of characteristics of successful and unsuccessful graduate students in the social sciences were identified by Friedenberg and Roth (1954) from extensive self-report and interview data. Which of these characteristics do you possess? If you see yourself possessing more of the characteristics of unsuccessful than successful graduate students, are you willing or able to change some of your beliefs and feelings to increase your probability of graduate school success?

Characteristics of Successful Graduate Students
    • Prefer scholarly detachment.
    • Favor competitive relationships.
    • Express attraction to pure scholarship.
    • Consider personal relations as secondary.
    • Do not resent faculty's preoccupation with their research.

Characteristics of Unsuccessful Graduate Students
    • Disturbed by competition.
    • Relatively dependent on others.
    • Consider the intellectual gratification of their work as trivial.
    • Consider warm and friendly human interactions one of their urgent needs.
    • Tend to be hurt by what they consider a lack of faculty interest in students.

"In sum, graduate work takes initiative, independence, perseverance, acceptance of responsibility, and a general freedom from emotional conflict and anxiety. The benefits of going to graduate school, especially a top-ranked school, are enormous, but they demand a high price in sweat and anxiety . . . Succeeding in graduate school requires years of single-minded dedication, much energy, individual initiative, and responsible independent study. We wish you well!" (Fretz & Stang, 1988, p. 79-81).

Does the information on this page make you nervous? If it does, you are a normal undergraduate student who is contemplating graduate school. Take this information as friendly advice. not as an ominous warning, from people who were just like you before they went to graduate school.

Descutner and Thelen (1989) asked 79 faculty members from nine APA-approved clinical psychology graduate programs to describe a successful clinical psychology graduate student by rating 25 characteristics and behaviors on a 6-point scale ranging from not important (1) to very important (6). These characteristics and behaviors (and their average ratings) are listed below in decreasing order of rated importance.

Working hard 5.60
Getting along with people 5.17
Writing ability 4.83
Clinical/counseling skills 4.81
Doing research 4.74
Handling stress 4.72
Discipline 4.64
Good grades 4.61
High intelligence 4.53
Empathy 4.48
Establishing a relationship with a mentor 4.39
Getting along with peers 4.00
Broad knowledge of psychology 4.00
Specialized knowledge in psychology 3.88
Reflecting program values 3.78
Being liked by faculty 3.69
Creativity 3.67
Obtaining as master's degree quickly 3.60
Visibility in the department 3.45
Competitiveness 3.29
Relating to professors on a personal level 3.24
Teaching 2.81
Attractive physical appearance 2.53
Serving on student committees 1.95
Serving on department or university committees 1.62

It is no surprise that faculty in clinical psychology programs place a premium value on graduate students who work hard, possess good social skills, and write well. However, a surprise does occur with the fourth and fifth items. Most students preparing for graduate education in clinical psychology assume that clinical and counseling skills will be much more valuable to them in graduate school than their ability to perform research. NOT SO! Descutner and Thelen's data clearly indicate that potential clinicians should work equally as hard to develop their research skills, in courses such as experimental psychology, statistics, computer-assisted research, and directed senior research, as they do to develop their clinical and counseling skills. Another interesting finding from this survey is that the ability to handle stress and display discipline are rated as more important to graduate student success than either good grades or high intelligence. Apparently graduate faculty prefer to work with emotionally stable students who can produce consistently above average work and meet deadlines than with highly intelligent, straight A students who are personally and academically erratic, unorganized, or unpredictable. Undergraduate students who suffer from stress and who have a difficult time managing their academic and personal lives in a disciplined manner can develop the skills to overcome these deficiencies through classes (e.g., Stress Management) or personal counseling.