[I was rejected this year, what do I do now?]

I think what helped me most this year was having full-time research experience - working as a research coordinator/data manager/research assistant can be very valuable. I struggled to find a full-time position at first so I took a temporary part-time one, which I think helped me get the full-time position. Email POIs you're interested in working with and ask if they have research positions available. Sometimes labs don't post their full-time positions online, so it's good to email the professors directly.

Other than that, your GPA/GRE scores are fine. Definitely apply to more schools. I don't know how the schools in Canada work, but if you are to apply to US schools, make sure they are funded programs. Most schools will tell you on the website. Also, look at the other forum topic about funding packages - you can see what those schools offer and go from there. 

I met people at interviews that had applied to upwards of 19 schools - that's incredibly high and very expensive, but they had multiple offers and were able to choose what was best for them. 

 

That's a good idea, sort of get my foot in the door to try and get a full time position.  I am meeting with professors at my university to see if they have openings this week.  You pretty much get funding guarenteed in Canada, that's why I find looking at US schools daunting, it is just such a different system.  Plus we only have about 20 schools here!

[I was rejected this year, what do I do now?]

To be honest, from what I've been hearing from a bunch of my mentors, the process for getting into clinical programs in Canada is random and department politics play a huge role in who they can accept for a cycle (see: the discussion on Ryerson in the Canadian applicants thread). The only thing I would focus on is getting more publications and possibly finding better reference letters (although just because they're hard on you doesn't mean that they didn't write good letters). Applying to more schools, including those in the US, should help as well, especially if your research interests are more broad. Your GPA and GRE scores are competitive so I wouldn't worry about those. 

 

Okay thanks for the advice!!! I will take a look at that discussion as I was considering Ryerson for my next application cycle.

[I was rejected this year, what do I do now?]

I can't help with funding or US schools questions, but my thoughts would be: 

• Working on your GRE scores from those baseline scores would be high effort with low payoff, so I would skip that option.
• Three schools is not that many to apply to, especially in clinical. I would apply to more next year.
• Having a publication on your CV will help next year, as will your summer grant. So those will make you more competitive without you having to do anything different than what you've already planned.
• Is your psychology GPA good?
• Is your SOP targeted enough to each school? Does it talk about your research and clinical experience in terms of your responsibilities and how they make you an excellent candidate for this school in particular?

Overall, I think the single biggest thing I would do is try to get at least one change in who is writing your recommendations, starting with the person you think is writing you the weakest letter.

Thank you for the advice.

I would have applied to more but there are only about 20 schools and 5 of them I can't attend as I don't speak french well enough.  Then when I looked through the profs, I found about 8 I was interested in and I wrote to them asking if they were taking students and only 3 were so there simply wasn't much choice.

I am glad to hear that my scores are okay.  I think my GPA psych is basically the same.  I have gotten two B+'s and the rest are A's which basically is the same as the rest of my GPA.

I tried to target my SOP, I talked about why I thought the POI would be a good fit for my project idea and I picked something about each program to talk about that I thought was interesting.  But here we only get one page so there isn't much space and honestly all the school websites say the same stuff so I can't really figure out how I would tailor to the program any more. I don't really think I would be the excellent candidate for one school over another, does that make sense?

 

I definitely agree about the recommendations, I am going to try and get someone else.

[I was rejected this year, what do I do now?]

I was rejected from 3 Clinical programs in Canada I don't know what to do now.

 

I have two honours undergraduate degrees, one in Arts and one in Psychology and my cumulative gpa is 3.94. For GRE I got 165 on Verbal, 160 on Quant and 5 on Writing and 86 on the Psych subject exam, scores which I thought were mildly competitive. I have one paper that I am presenting in April and will be published soon and 2 years of research experience and many years of experience with the population I wish to study. I had a good interview with one school and I visited the PI before applying at another and she seemed really positive but then I just get a bunch of rejection letters. I think my SOP was really good, I had 10+ people read it. My big fear is my references might not have been stellar as my research supervisors have always been really hard on me.

 

I have a summer NSERC grant and I am trying to get a research job for the year but if that doesn't work, what should I do? If it does work, what else can I do to increase my chances? I will do anything and everything, should I retake the exams, do more courses to boost my gpa etc??

 

Also, should I apply to schools in the US? I am totally confused because there are so many and I have no idea how funding works. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Clinical Psychology Ph.D. applicant thread Fall 2015]

I'm only applying to three clinical programs this time around: Simon Fraser, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick (a whole bunch of profs in my research area aren't accepting students for next year). This is my second time applying to clinical, after applying to clinical programs for the first time two years ago (I'm currently in an experimental MA program, doing clinical research though). I contacted POI's a while ago, and two of my applications are due December 1. I've pretty much done them, I'm just waiting for references to be submitted at this point. 

I'm having the same problem. I wrote to Sfu, Windsor, and York and none of the people in my field are taking students. I am applying to UNB though!

[CGS-M 2015-2016]

Do any of you have any advice/templates for writing this? I know what my idea is but I can't figure out how I'm supposed to fit it all on one page.

[Canadian Clinical Psychology App 2015]

Hey, I'm in psych undergrad at Dal, and from what I have gleaned from the grad students here, Dal is really research based.  The addmissions team for clinical is actually made up of experimental profs. It apparently gets about 300 applicants, 200 of which they consider 'serious' and they accept about 8 or 9 a year apparently.  But in general, it is hard to say how competitive it is because so much of it has to do with who you want to work with, if they want a grad student, if they have funding and what their priority is compared to other profs.