dancedementia

Hey everyone! I was super active here a few years ago when I went through PhD/PsyD recruiting my first time around. I had a few acceptances but decided to decline all and work in the field as a masters level therapist to gain some experience and see if I really wanted to do psychology long term. I ended up being premed for 2 years hahaha. And then decided that med school was not for me. I'm applying again exclusively for cheap PsyD schools in-state. My school list: University of Houston Clear Lake - PsyD Clinical/School Psychology Our Lady of the Lake University - PsyD Counseling Psychology Nice and easy Will keep y'all updated! I am definitely sending in my GRE scores. I have a 168 Verbal and a 162 Quant (and a 5.5 AW but who looks at that) soooooo xD

That's because the latest available prep book published (Princeton Review's) is before they changed the format. There hasn't been anything published recently that matches the current scoring system AND covers the same material. All of the subject test GRE books still use DSM-IV. Just something to be aware of - the current offerings are very outdated

Not at all. Masters programs are REALLY easy to get into (because they're unfunded!) Take it from someone who had a 2.9 GPA and no research experience

Out of curiosity, what is your 1 year of counseling experience from? Your post implies you don't have a license yet. How are your finances? Do you need a fully funded grad program or are you okay shelling out some money for a program with your specific focus?

You will not be paid more for being dual-licensed, and frankly no one cares in practice. The one area that is IS beneficial is if you want to be a dually-licensed supervisor. There aren't a lot of those, so you can charge more and/or hold double the amount of supervisees.

I'm curious where you're getting your "ranking" from. Are you talking about Carnegie designations? USNWR? Certain schools who may not be ranked highly on either might be top schools in your subfield, based on what you're researching. I would not put too much stock into arbitrary rankings unless you have been explicitly told by professors in the subfield that it is not a respected school.

I did NOT study for the exam and scored 80% percentile purely based on test taking strategies. I second the poster who said that the Psych GRE is a very different beast to other standardized exams. It was the first one I've taken that was purely knowledge recall (as opposed to tests like math and physics, or the general GRE, which incorporate problem-solving strategies). I did buy the PR book but only made it through the first chapter because the information was so. freaking. dense. and I felt super overwhelmed. In hindsight, I should have skimmed it and read a little closer on areas I was not familiar with (my biological and cognitive scores were abysmal). That said, most PhD programs don't even ask for the psych GRE! I only took it because ONE of my schools required it (damn you Rutgers).

Depends on the program. Some of them specifically require Abnormal/Psychopathology as a prerequisite. You can take it at a community college for cheap if your program doesn't offer it. TA-ing is not a requirement to get into a PhD program. I would focus more attention on research over TA-ing, although if you have time for both it certainly won't hurt.

IPNB is a very niche theory and won't be heavily focused on in grad school. Most masters programs will be generalist. If you're interested, I would do PCC's certificate course (online): http://climb.pcc.edu/ipnb

Makes sense! I take it you're planning on applying to PhD programs in Counselor Ed?

That's a robust list haha. If I had the $$ I would totally apply to a ton of schools. But damn, this process is expensive

Thanks for the feedback, @Sherrinford. If you scroll up a bit you'll see that I got a nice research coordinator position I'll be working in for 2 years and then reapplying to PhD programs.

Yep, mainly from those two sites that @higaisha referenced earlier up on this thread. I also go directly to the sites of AMCs and scour their career sections. I applied to 8 positions from McLean just from looking up open positions. Gosh, I never even thought about this! I might reevaluate some of my school choices to include more counseling programs. Thanks for the info!

I'm curious about this. Was this explicitly stated by mentors/POIs? How were you able to overcome this bias? (I too have a masters in counseling, and not even counseling psych, but a CACREP counseling masters).

I'm curious about your transition from psych to counseling! (I'm making the opposite move). What about counseling was a better match for you?

Roosevelt and Loyola are definitely a "tier" above Wright. In general, I also dissuade folks from going to California schools unless they want to work in California - they don't have much of a "brand" outside of that state.

Magoosh was really helpful for me on math. I'm the type that needs LOTS of practice and immediate, detailed feedback. Magoosh's program has a customizable "practice" mode where you get immediate feedback after each question, with both written and video explanations (helpful for those of us who prefer one way of learning to the other). I didn't study verbal so can't give much guidance there.

Hey folks I technically didn't get rejected from all - got into three "safety" PsyD schools that would have cost about $200k to attend sooooo I said no thanks. For my funded programs, I got interviews for 3 and was ultimately rejected from all post-interview. I'm taking the next two years to work full-time in research. I have a master's in counseling (no research, just clinical practice), which was great for getting into the PsyD programs but horrible for getting into PhD programs. I should have beefed up my research experience more, but there's only so many hours in the day when you also have to be at practicum sites. I did the masters because I initially only wanted to do clinical practice (and my GPA was shit), but along the way found out (a little too late) I really love research. I'm in the same boat. I have ~3 years of research experience and 5 posters on my CV, but they were in areas that were unrelated to my POI's work and I made the mistake of not contacting POIs and networking before I applied. Going to interviews, it seemed like a lot of candidates had either collaborated with the POI's lab or they had met at previous conferences, etc. Of course, if two candidates are equal, they're probably going to choose the one they know and have interacted with. I'm going to definitely do more of this before I reapply.

What state do you want to live in? If you plan to stay in NY, do not do NYU. You want an LCSW in NY State to get the best job prospects and salary. In the Boston area, BC is extremely well respected. NEU is not far behind but their program seems to encourage folks to go on to doctoral program. I'm not familiar enough with UMich to comment.

Just be aware that some of these programs you've listed require a masters degree for admissions (NEU and UMass Boston are the two that jump out at me). I'm not sure where you are in your academic journey, but just something to be aware of. One of my friends applied for several of these programs and was upset that she didn't notice this requirement beforehand.

You'll probably want to take advance calc, linear algebra, differential equations, combinatorics, and loooooots of probability/random variables/stats courses. Topics to get familiar with might include distribution functions (binomial, geometric, poisson, exponential, gamma, beta), conditional probability, Bayes, Chebyshev, LLN, CLT, nonparametric stats, ANOVAs, regressions, decision theory, large sample theory, asymptotic efficiency, sequential analysis. Some knowledge of programming languages (e.g. C++, Python) might also help.

If you're interested solely in providing psychotherapy as a treatment, then you can do all of that with only a masters I'm not sure what you mean by "assess" - masters level clinicians can diagnose, but some specific assessments (e.g. Rorschach, neuropsych batteries) can only be performed by doctoral-level psychologists with proper training. Also worth noting that many masters in "psychology" (unless they are specifically clinical psychology) are not license-eligible unless you take extra courses. Many of them are geared towards folks who need research experience and GPA boosters for doctoral applications. They will require a research project / thesis and may not include enough hours of internship to meet state licensing requirements as an LPC/LMHC.

Sooooo. Who's ready to get a head start on next year? (Yes I know April 15th isn't quite here yet, but I've been going through GC withdrawal so I'm making this thread WAY in advance.) I was originally going to wait for 2 years before applying (to boost my research productivity), but I was just alerted that my grant-funded research coordinator position (which starts in June!) expires after 1 year and there is no guarantee there will be funding for a second year. Thankfully, it is a hyperproductive lab so I should be able to get some pubs before I need to leave (I'm already on a poster and I haven't even started work yet? lol...) I already have a ton of posters/presentations so I really just wanted more research experience in my area of interest. Anyways! Here's the list for fall 2020, a total of 10 schools Boston College (Counseling PhD) -- POI: OMK Boston University (Clinical PhD) -- POI: LB, TP Drexel University (Clinical PhD, reapplicant) -- POI: AJ, EF, MB (you're supposed to choose 3 on the application) Fordham University (Clinical PhD) -- POI: NB Fordham University (Counseling PhD) -- POI: MK Northeastern University (Counseling PhD, reapplicant) -- POI: RR, JEG Suffolk University (Clinical PhD, reapplicant) -- POI: SR (maybe... she rejected me this round so idk if I'll try again), SS UMass Boston (Clinical PhD) -- POI: LR Virginia Commonwealth (Counseling PhD) -- POI: SM William James (Clinical PsyD) -- safety school (got in last round but deferred offer, so would not need to reapply) Yeshiva University (Clinical Health PhD) -- POI: CS This is, of course, assuming all the POIs are taking students next year. I'm geographically constrained a little bit b/c my fiance will be in med school next year (at least someone will be earning the big bucks in this family), and I'm not interested in doing a long-distance marriage that spans more than 3 state lines =P

I apologize for hijacking this thread, but this is seriously impressive. What did you do between cycles that helped your application? (And how many years in between cycles?)

As other posters stated, the biggest factor of admissions is research match and "fit". GRE scores are a useful first pass, but I would not name that as a marker of competitiveness at all.