You are more likely to be admitted to a terminal masters program than a PhD program. A 3.0 GPA will get you into many second tier programs, and second tier programs are still quite good. Your job once you are admitted to a program and begin it is to work your butt off. The grading scale for graduate classes is tougher – a 3.0 is essentially a C and below that it failing – but getting an A is really just a matter of staying up on the work. Terrific grades and extracurriculars will get you to wherever you want to go, whether its a job or a PhD program.

Do you want to pursue psychology or go into another field? You can change fields, but you’ll need to meet or exceed a minimum number of hours for the field of study that you want to go into (not that many, if you completed a minor you’ve got enough hours for that field). If you have less than the minimum number of hours you could be admitted provisionally.

A couple of things to remember… with a 3.0 GPA you probably won’t get funding from your department, for your first year at least. In my MA program nobody with less than a 4.0 got funding. However, go ahead and apply for it. Applying for an assistantship will raise your profile in the department and if another type of opportunity opens up you will be considered for it (this happened to me). Get a 4.0 your first year and you’ll have a much better shot for funding for your second year (and beyond). The graduate school at the university I attended had some funding available for students who did not get assistantships and I had federal work study money, so check out all of your funding options.

Oh yeah, and some of my grad school classmates are now in very good PhD programs, such as Duke.