Application Process

Numerous authors offer advice to undergraduate psychology majors about what they should do to gain admission to graduate programs. However, few authors advise students about what they should not do when applying to graduate school and, when they do, few support their advice with data. We surveyed the chairs of graduate school admissions committees in psychology about the contents of graduate school applications that decreased chances for acceptance (i.e., kisses of death or KODs). A qualitative analysis of these surveys yielded the following six categories of KODs. Although the KODs identified in this study reflect unwise choices on the part of applicants, we believe many of them resulted more from a lack of appropriate advising and mentoring than from a lack of applicants ' intelligence. Unless undergraduate psychology programs provide appropriate advising and mentoring concernin