The members of the CEMRRAT Student Recruitment and Retention Workgroup (1994-1996) collectively have several decades of experience and leadership roles in the recruitment and training of ethnic minority students in psychology at various levels of training and in different academic settings. The group includes psychologists who are faculty at the community college level and at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as NIH staff involved in funding mental health training programs. The CEMRRAT workgroup revised the original CSCEI guide, which was developed with research-oriented graduate programs in mind, to make it more applicable to the range of graduate and professional programs to which ethnic minority students might apply. As a result, this edition of the guide represents the collective wisdom of graduate students, faculty, and other senior psychologists who are committed to increasing the number of ethnic minority students who are successful in gaining admission to graduate and professional programs in all fields of psychology.

The CEMRRAT workgroup also gratefully acknowledges valuable input in the preparation of this guide from Mr. Don Operario and Ms. Debra Shapiro Gill, APA Science Student Council. CEMRRAT also acknowledges the valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this guide from several boards and committees at APA, including the Board of Professional Affairs (BPA) and the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns (CLGBC).

About the guide

In this guide, the authors have identified many of the factors that contribute to both successful and unsuccessful applications to graduate and professional programs in psychology. Throughout, suggestions are made in the form of "helpful hints" that will give you ideas about how to approach and successfully deal with many of the important issues you may face in the application process. This guide also highlights some of the mistakes that applicants to graduate and professional programs frequently make.