Please note that this information pertains only to CEGEP students who enter McGill Psychology programs. Full details for students entering McGill Psychology programs from other high schools or universities are available at the McGill admissions website or the Psychology undergraduate program website.
With which specific areas of psychology should students be familiar when beginning their undergraduate studies?
Students are recommended and expected to have had introductory psychology prior to beginning their psychology undergraduate studies at McGill. No other psychology courses are required prior to students beginning their studies for the Bachelor of Science (BSci), Bachelor of Arts (BA), or Bachelor of Arts and Science (BA&Sc) programs offered at McGill in Psychology.
What specific skills should someone starting an undergraduate degree in psychology at university possess at the start of their studies? For example, how important is it for students to be able to write term-papers and research reports according to the APA style? Should they be familiar with the PsychInfo database?
Writing skills are important; organization of ideas, grammar, logical thought. Familiarity with APA style and PsychInfo are a plus but not required; our library staff typically offer tutorials to incoming students on these methods. Students may wish to be aware that the first-year courses for Quebec students are large and the majority of these courses use multiple-choice exams. McGill’s Campus Life & Engagement offers free workshops that help students prepare for multiple choice exams, essays & term papers, etc. Please visit McGill website for more information here and here.
How important is it for prospective undergraduate students to have had experience with conducting experiments and preparing lab reports based on them?
We do not expect that first-year students have had experience conducting experiments and preparing lab reports, but laboratory experience is desirable. Usually individual faculty labs offer that opportunity in the 2nd and 3rd year research courses, and a few of our Psych courses have a lab component. Lab experience is also a useful skill for evaluating scientific journal articles and for pursuing an honours degree in Psychology at McGill.
If students were to gain some volunteer or field work experience in college, what type of work would be most appropriate and useful for them to have before entering university?
Psychology is too broad a field to recommend a particular volunteer or field work experience. Different core areas in psychology work with animal models; disordered populations; infants; aging populations; etc. Any scientific laboratory or field experience can be useful for a particular psychology research area, but specifics are hard to predict and rarely expected.
For students to be adequately prepared to take statistics courses at university, what specific mathematical skills should they possess? If students have taken a statistics course in college specially designed for Social Science students, are they automatically exempt from the first statistics course at university?
All math courses and experimental design courses are useful but not required. The BA, BSc, and BA &Sc, programs at McGill Psychology have different statistics requirements of CEGEP students; they are described here. There are specific exemption rules for our first statistics course Psych 204 (students should check with their advisor to confirm they meet the application of the rules): a) BSci students who have completed in CEGEP either [MATH: Probability and Statistics] or [MATH: Statistics] or equivalent AND who obtained a minimum grade of 75%, are exempt from the PSYC 204 prerequisite. b) Arts students who have taken Quantitative Methods AND One of [either Advanced Quantitative Methods or Statistics for Social Science] AND who obtained a minimum grade of 75% in both, are exempt from the U1 required course Psych 204. BA students must replace the PSYC 204 requirement with 3 credits at the 300 level or above in Psychology, Anthropology, Linguistics, or Sociology. c) BArts&Sci students who completed one of the two scenarios above will be exempt from the U1 required course PSYC 204. BA&Sc students must replace the PSYC 204 requirement with 3 credits at the 300-level or above in Psychology.
How important is it for prospective students to have had a course in human biology?
All students (BArts, BSci, BA&Sci) are expected to complete a Biology course prior to admission. They can take it (as an elective at McGill) in their first year if they have not yet taken it; it is a prerequisite for Psych 211, which we recommend all Psych majors take in year 1 (U1).
Are there any additional, non-psychology courses that college students could take to help them prepare for an undergraduate degree in psychology?
Research methods are important; also, any course that teaches students how to read a scientific report would be useful. We encourage students to plan ahead if they are interested in the honours program; one must complete the 200-level requirements prior to enrolling in 300-level and higher-level courses. The research-specific courses available to honours students include: PSYC 380D, PSYC 496, PSYC 497, and PSYC 498D. The honours seminar (topic) courses include 482. Students can apply to the Psychology honours program at the end of year 1 (U1) or year 2 (U2). There are more openings in the honours program typically to admit students at the end of year 1.