punk123

Hi grad cafe, I am applying for clinical psychology programs and have been to a few interviews, BUT I keep wondering whether I am answering the correct way, particularly when it comes to the "Why this program?" question. I chose my programs based on faculty interests and faculty interests alone. That means I do not care about the length of the program. I do not care if it is a small town. I do not care where the program is geographically. I do not care if faculty or students are "nice". I do not care about anything else other than the POI's research interests aligning well with mine -- it is a very small and growing field and I do not want to compromise. With that said -- I am sure I have drafted some lame excuses as to why I applied to the program because I know there is pressure to come up with good ones. Some reasons I have come up with are: faculty interests, the coursework (even though I know most of is APA required), low cost of living of the town, access to decent practicum size, etc. I have a couple more interviews coming up and want to make sure I ace them. Would you mind suggesting some reasons I might be able to use during my upcoming interviews? I know they may not necessarily apply to the schools I am interviewing at, but it may give me a better idea as to what I am supposed to answer. I appreciate your help on this stressful process and wish you all good luck on your own applications/interviews.

For fidelity checking. One professor of mine told me they pretty much want to make sure they all agree on the fact that you are not "crazy" (i.e., will not disrupt program activities).

I had a similar experience. They ultimately just said (and I quote one of them), "This will be Dr. [POI]'s decision so we can talk about whatever you want." Others told me they did not have any questions for me and expected me to ask questions, and others had such casual conversations with me that even cursed during the interview. That was because I asked, "so what is your research about?" and they went off about it and they suddenly were on a 10-minute speech about why their research is so important and relevant. Remember that academics tend to be high on narcissism (just because they are usually doctors), so use that your advantage.

I also would definitely NOT pirate it. Thanks to you both! I'll give these a try.

Hi all, I am interested in paying for a GRE prep course I can do online (so far I've seen Barron, Kaplan, and Princeton Review). I've tried the Kaplan course (I got it free for 30 days) and it was okay. However, I feel I need to try a different online course to avoid hitting a plateau. Besides, I keep hearing good things about Barron. Has anyone tried it and if so, what was your experience like? Is there any particular course you would recommend? My summary of Kaplan's course is this: Pros: - You can select what sections to target to create your own quiz - It has a large quiz bank (2,000+ questions) - It has 7 different practice tests you can do Cons - Sometimes I felt they had the wrong answer simply because their workbooks admittedly have mistakes they try to correct by posting the correct answers online - Boring website design (this starts to count after you spend hours upon hours practicing) - Poor explanation of answers - Price (I would not have paid $499 for it at all I would appreciate any reviews on any online courses you may have tried. Thanks in advance! -Punk

So as you can see, my quant was decent but I bombed the verbal section. Do you think that my decent AW can make up for it in any way? I took it a second time and I scored 630 Q and 560 V and I am not sure about the AW yet. I think I just neglected the quant the second time because I was so focused on improving my verbal. It is a clinical psychology program in case you are wondering.

My LORs need to be submitted online. Should I still give the physical addresses to the recommenders or is this not needed since it is done electronically? I gave them a list of the schools I'm applying to, the deadline, the program, etc. Should I still give them the physical address? It would seem like it's not needed but I just want to make sure! Thank you!

Then it seems that it is best if I do not mention my age. As far as experience goes, I am already working as a counselor at a psychiatric unit (doing individual and group therapy) since I graduated last fall as well as had paid RA positions in the past. Indeed, however, I've always been socially awkward with people in my age group but is simply because we have much more different goals. I definitely do not look young as I actually always get that I look older than my age... I do not think it'll be brought up because of the way I look. Thanks for your input! It really helped a lot!

I want to casually mention that I started college when I was 15 since people seem to be "impressed" by that in real life. In reality, I am not a genius child—I am just dedicated. However, I have read some "tips" online saying that I should not mention age to avoid discrimination. I think that this would not lead to discrimination. On the contrary, I think it would benefit but I may be wrong. What do YOU think? Should I or should I not?