First-year students wanting to major in psychology are facing an unexpected grade threshold requirement.
In late February, it was announced the requirements for students aiming for automatic acceptance into the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) psychology program were altered after students completed over half of PSYC 100: Principles of Psychology course. Now, students require a 2.7 Grade Point Average (GPA) overall and an 85 per cent in the course. Prior to this, students required a cumulative 3.0 GPA and 80 per cent, or A-, final grade in PSYC 100. If students don’t meet the conditions for automatic acceptance, they’re placed on a pending list for case-by-case review, with final decisions made between June 2 and 9.
Queen’s students aiming to major in psychology must take the mandatory first-year PSYC 100 full-year course, where they spend eight months learning about psychological theories, cognition, memory, and their biological bases.
READ MORE: PSYC 100: The course of every first-year’s nightmares
In a statement to The Journal, the Department of Psychology explained “thresholds are formulated based upon the academic requirements and the number of spaces available along with the predicted size and strength of the applicant pool,” also stating the major is regularly filled with students from the pending list.
However, current PSYC 100 students are facing uncertainty with a shared sentiment the timing of the change is unfair.
In a statement to The Journal, Samuel Nunez, ArtSci ’28, explained his thoughts on the recent change as a first year considering majoring in psychology.
“I personally think it’s unfair that they changed the grading requirement mid-year,” Nunez stated.
“I know a lot of people who are stressing because they got an A- in the first-semester exam, thinking they just had to maintain that to major, but now they have to get an even higher grade,” he added.
While Eduard Nasturas, HealthSci ’28, isn’t intending to major in psychology, he spoke on the difficulty of the course to achieve an 85 per cent and what the change poses to students in the class with aiming to major in the program.
“The instructors in [PSYC 100] try their best to cover the breadth of material in the short time provided with only one lecture and one lab a week,” Nasturas wrote in a statement to The Journal. “But the course coordinators seem to want people to do poorly.”
He explained the difficulty in achieving an A in the course with medians falling around 60 to 70 per cent, according to Nasturas, who is a current student in the class.
“Announcing it more than halfway through the year seems unnecessarily harsh,” he commented on the timing of the change. “Had they said it at the beginning I think people could have prepared better.”
With the term soon coming to an end, students intending to major in psychology will now have to work for a higher grade than originally planned.
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