dancedementia

As an update for the folks who helped me (and for future applicants who may be in my situation): I got a full-time job as a research coordinator in an extremely productive lab at an amazing institution (which I frankly didn't think I had a shot at getting into). I'm honestly more excited about this "acceptance" than the three non-funded PsyD acceptances I had earlier this year, which really solidifies 1) the fact that I'm passionate about research, and 2) that I've made the right choice by declining offers and planning to reapply to PhD programs in a few years. Yaaaay

My biggest lesson this cycle: don't be afraid to turn down offers and try again next year (or the next, or the next). It's not a race to the finish line. There is nothing wrong with working another couple of years and reapplying if that means you will have better opportunities and less debt. This cycle, I was so caught up in the anxiety of "I need to get my career started NOW" that I applied to mainly unfunded schools and some schools that were, erm... indiscriminate about the folks they admitted. For some folks, those schools might be good fits. For me, I was trying to hard to get my career launched ASAP that I overlooked a ton of schools that would have fit my needs and research interests better. I had several offers from great schools that I just couldn't afford or weren't a good match for my career interests, and had to turn down. And that's okay! I was talking to a friend the other day and she said this: I have a licensable master's. I could literally just keep applying every 2 years if I wanted the PhD that badly, until I got in. In the meantime, I can continue to get clinical and research experience. I don't need to take a giant step in the direction of my career - I can do it in baby steps if I need.

BU's program is notorious for placing graduates in good PhD programs. You can take the program part time and stretch it out to 2 years if you want.

You're not wrong. There is some connection between high prestige and a good quality program, but I don't necessarily think that the opposite is true (e.g. just because a program is not considered "prestigious" doesn't mean you'll get a poor quality experience). That said, I'd like to remind everyone of the lovely Pareto principle (where are my I/O folks when I need them) - 80% of results comes from 20% of the effort. Put simply in the context of a doctoral program (with the intent to practice) - all you need is "enough". You need your 2-3 years of practicum, your 1 year of APA internship, your 1 year of postdoc (or whatever postgrad hours are needed to get licensed in your state). The difference between a person who publishes 5 papers vs. the person who publishes 1 is practically negligible when it comes to hiring for practice. It doesn't matter if your lab was ranked 1st or ranked 30th - you got the research experience and the dissertation nonetheless. (If we're talking about a career in academia, all of this goes out the window, of course.) Keep in mind that everyone who finishes a program and passes the EPPP (not sure if school psych has another exam, I don't know the name) gets licensed. EVERYONE. Doesn't matter if you graduated from Harvard or from Oklahoma State. And as the years go on, if your intent is to stay in clinical practice, your education slowly becomes less and less important as you advance. It's inaccurate to say that prestige doesn't matter at all - because let's face it, we're human beings and there is an inherent to signal and to seek out signalling in others. However, I think that as you go deeper and deeper into clinical practice you'll learn that there are diminishing returns. You'll be in this program for 4 years. That's actually a pretty long time. Pick the one that you feel comfortable in I think you underestimate the capability of hiring folks, haha. If anything, I think their lack of expertise actually works in your favour in the context of clinical practice. As I mentioned before, I don't have the time or the care to look at university names, lab names, PI names. I skim the resume and look for a job that looks similar to the one I'm hiring for. I'm hiring for a "school psychologist"? Well, better make sure this person mentions schools and psychology somewhere in their resume. You'll also find that a lot of the "first cut" goes through automatic keyword screeners first, and those automated programs definitely don't care what school you went to - they just want to know whether your degree matches and whether you have the license haha. As for administrators, bureaucrats, and the public, you have a point. Although that could work either for or against you. For example, in my field (eating disorders), here are some of the top schools: Drexel, Temple, Miami, FSU, SUNY Albany, Michigan State. Here are some of the NOT top schools: Harvard, Yale, Columbia. So if you went to Drexel - great for hiring, sucks for public perception. If you went to Yale - sucks for hiring, great for public perception. At that point it's kind of a "pick your battle" - do you want to be well known in the inner circle of eating disorders, or do you want to signal to the public that you went to a prestigious school? Someone hiring at an ED treatment facility may be "in the know", but someone hiring at a community mental health agency may have no idea. As a P. S. -- I don't intend to give any "do this or die" advice in my replies, I'm just sharing some n=1 anecdotes in hopes that it sparks some conversation. Thanks

I can't decide if this is being facetious or not. I have never once asked my therapists, doctors, pharmacists, or physical therapists where they graduated from. All I need to know is 1) do they have a license to practice, and 2) are they providing me good service. And that's for private practice folks. For people working in an agency, I don't even have a choice - I get assigned to them if I choose to use the agency's services! For HR purposes, most of the time they're just screening to see that you graduated from a legitimate school. As long as the school doesn't raise any eyebrows (e.g. Argosy), any difference in prestige is going to be negligible (e.g. sure, Brown is more prestigious than Iowa State, but if Iowa State has better experiences, I'd hire them over Brown). The obvious caveat is if you're comparing something like Yale vs. University of the Incarnate Word [tried to pick a university y'all haven't heard of], then sure, maybe you have a marginal benefit in hiring, but any person doing hiring is going to look at more important things like your clinical skills, practicum experiences, and community involvement. (Source: did hiring for a group practice and a community agency) Also, it all depends on where you want to practice and what you want to do with your degree. I'm going to assume by your choice of a PsyD instead of a PhD that you are primarily interested in clinical practice and not trying to climb the ladder in academia. If that's the case, prestige doesn't really matter. Just make sure it's not a diploma mill. Choose the program that you feel most comfortable in and will get you the best opportunities for clinical practica/internship. So check the match rates, and ask the training directors what kind of placements students tend to get. For example, if you want to work with disadvantaged populations as a career but School X tends to only place students in high SES private schools for training, then does that really align with your values and the kind of experience you want? To be completely honest, outside of academia (including academic teaching hospitals and research careers) no one really knows what the "prestige of a program" is. I worked in a large urban city at a large community agency that regularly hired psychologists and masters level clinicians. Our specialty was dual dx. When someone submits their application, I don't say, "Oh wow, they graduated from Colorado State University, I know there's a great lab there that does work on substance use disorders. That's much more relevant to the job that these two who graduated from Columbia and UChicago, I'd better hire the ColoState person!" Frankly, I don't even know what universities have strong research labs / training in substance use, nor do I really care. I look at the applicant's resume and skim for ANY experience working with substance use. If UChicago happens to have worked in 3 addictions treatment facilities and ColoState only worked in school-based settings, guess who I'm hiring, regardless of the "prestige" of their program or school?

Regarding #3 - the point of getting a masters before doctoral is to 1) boost your GPA, or 2) get research experiences. Since you don't have a lot of research experience, you should choose the program that offers you the most opportunities to get that. It might mean doing a masters thesis, or having formal research mentorship with a professor, or cross-collaboration opportunities with other labs or departments.

I started out working in a clinical setting pertaining to my research interests (adolescent eating disorders and personality disorders). Found myself constantly asking "why?" and "how can I do this better?" while going through the day-to-day and finally decided - screw it, I'm going to go research the answers myself!

Tried using the search function but my query was way too broad. What are people's thoughts about applying to two programs at the same school, e.g. Clinical Psychology AND Counseling Psychology programs? There are research mentors in both departments that match my interests and I'd be happy to be accepted to either, but don't want to shoot myself in the foot with both programs by crossing some unspoken boundary.

Yaaay, congrats on making your decision!

I've heard similar things from other application cycles. They're pretty old-school and the more "directive"/challenging/stress interviews skews towards their psychoanalytic origins. I'm not surprised, but it definitely isn't for everyone. I feel like folks who seek out Adelphi are probably the ones who want a psychoanalytic/psychodynamically oriented program.

How am I dealing? Not well. Lots of ice cream and hot baths.

Ahhhh amazing program! Congrats

As another data point, same. 9 interviews 3 offers, and at higher yield programs only.

Still haven't heard back from my last school, but my hopes aren't high since it seems most acceptances went out last week. I've emailed my POI twice, the program assistant once, and the DCT once without response. I feel horrible continuing to pester them. I'm going to just assume I'm being ghosted so I can have some closure.

I'm assuming if you're going PsyD that you're interested in primarily clinical work. In that case, the minuscule difference in "prestige" between two programs won't be a big deal. You'll have access to the same prac sites, and both programs are highly respected in the area. You can't go wrong with either! I remember we talked about Post being your top choice - if you liked the program, go for it! Don't let ideas of "prestige" get into your head

I've gotten by with using the computer labs for data analysis. I do own a 2018 Macbook Air, and prior to that a Lenovo Thinkpad. I've found that for most of the data analysis I want to do, I prefer to be on a large monitor, with a real mouse and keyboard, so I just go into the labs to do that. The laptop is primarily for writing, haha.

Hey folks. Has anyone volunteered or worked for a POI's lab for a period of time BEFORE applying to their PhD program? Do you think this experience has significantly helped you in any way? Of course it helps because the POI knows you and your work ethic, but is that enough to overcome another candidate that may be stronger? I've heard some horror stories of folks applying to their own labs and getting rejected because their POI wants them to "explore other programs"...

YES, so much this. My parents have been giving me the "I told you so" for the past year and have been horrified to see how much I've been spending to fly to interviews (they thought that the schools would pay for transportation hahaha what a funny joke). Everyone has been anxiously asking me if I've gotten good news and I'm just like, "Ehhhhh we'll see?" .____. Also realized we have very similar research interests (eating disorders, adolescent anxiety). Wishing you good luck in your career, let's definitely keep in contact - maybe we'll collaborate years down the line haha.

Places I like to check are: http://post-bacc-ra-opportunities.1115000.n5.nabble.com/ https://undergrad.psychology.fas.harvard.edu/post-graduate-research-jobs

Just applied to 25 research coordinator positions, with more to come. Let's dooooo thissss.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I will most likely go for the research coordinator track, as I think that was the most lacking part of my application, and reapply in 2 years. It's honestly a huge blow for me, especially since I had excitedly told so many people that I was looking forward to beginning doctoral studies in the fall. Almost like a walk of shame to have to give the, "Well actually...." speech. My consolidation is that I'll finally be earning steady money (even if it isn't a lot) for 2 years. I haven't had that experience in a long time (since I was in a masters program the most recent 2 years and was doing prereqs prior to that).

I meant 70 research/30 clinical hah. Sorry, I misinterpreted your original comment in the opposite direction of what you meant!

Another Suffolk poster on the results page! Pretty please friends, can we include POI initials so the rest of us don't die from stress? ^^;

Not necessarily. See: Harvard, Temple, Yale. Basically, all the original APCS programs haha. You are definitely much more engaged in research, with clinicals almost as an afterthought. Granted, these programs have connections to great clinical placements so the caliber of training is not deficient in any way. You just won't be engaged in clinical training until later, and your research commitments come first. I'd say more like 70/30 split.

Soooo. I got rejected from my top choice (NEU) and am pretty sure I'm not getting into my second choice (Suffolk). I've either been rejected, declined interviews, or waitlisted all other funded programs on my application list. I am holding two offers from Antioch University and William James, both PsyD programs with a large price tag. I'm an older applicant, so emotionally I want to just take one of those offers and get going with my life. I went into this application cycle thinking I wanted to do primarily clinical work, which is why most of my programs are PsyD or balanced PhD programs. But as I've gone to these schools and spoken with POIs, I'm realizing that hey - I actually want to do research. I have several years of research experience, but not in one lab (just lots of small projects with multiple PIs), so I know what I'm getting into and I know I enjoy it. I think I got a little jaded this past year because I was running a study that was going NOWHERE and I said "screw research". But talking with POIs about their projects, brainstorming ideas, etc... it made me want to go back to that. So current options are... Say screw research, take one of my PsyD offers, and get on with life. Look for full time research coordinator positions, work for 1-2 years, and reapply Work a full time clinical job (I have my masters degree so I can provide therapy) and volunteer for research on the side The biggest considerations are: My PsyD offers have very little funding (I've gotten scholarships from both but they're like... 20% of my tuition lol) If I work as a research coordinator for 1-2 years and then apply, I'm going to be 40 when I graduate with my PhD. Ehhhhhhh. Part of counseling and therapy is helping your patients understand limits and check their realities. I know we often tell folks, "You should go for your dream! You'll regret it if you don't! You're never too old for anything!" But the truth is, for the majority of us, we don't have that luxury. I do come from a lower SES background. I do want to finish my studies as soon as I can (my fiance is in med school and we'd like to sync up timelines as much as we can, because honestly, when you're in your 30's and MARRIED, long distance relationships are REALLY not cool anymore). I have chronic health problems that may very well mean that I will croak at age 55 (morbid, but hey, reality). Do I really want to spend my 30s in a lab, finally get to practicing at 40, and then not be able to have a fulfilling career before I go? For that matter, there is NO guarantee that working as a full time research coordinator for 2 years will guarantee me ANYTHING. I could very well apply to these same PhD programs and get rejected across the board again. I'm risk averse by nature, and this thought sends shivers up my spine. Thoughts? (Sorry for wall of text!)