GingFactor

If you study for your PhD your attached directly to a faculty member in the research lab. They can only manage so many students so PhD cohorts are really really small. Plus, (in America at least) most PhD programs, not all though, are fully funded (grants for research pay tuition); so in that respect there is only so much money to go around therefore making cohorts have to be small. PsyD's however, typically have cohorts of at least 25. The University I'm at runs 50-55 in each cohort and I heard of a school in Florida that takes 80 students each year. PsyD is really competitive, PhD is even more. Gotta figure out if you want to be a researcher or a clinician more so you can see where you fall on that end.

I'm pretty sure that I am the graduate student version of you, HaikaShen.... I started looking at a career in psych when I was a Jr. in High School. The process is very intimidating, but you have to remind yourself that the reason grad school looks so scary right now is because you haven't been prepared for that yet; you have been prepared for undergrad studies. Once you go through undergrad studies, grad looks a little less daunting. I did my bachelors in psychology and it was a breeze. I got to live the stereotypical 'college life', had a great time, did fairly well in my psych studies (not so much in my general studies), and felt moderately prepared for grad school. Currently I am in a masters program (clinical psych) which is 2 years long (7 months to go currently!) and I am in the process of applying to PsyD programs for the next 5 years of study. That is all to build context for what I am ultimately trying to say... I'm not going to lie or sugar coat it. Grad school is hard, it's initially scary, it's a huge transition, and it's like nothing you have ever done before. But it is the most rewarding thing you'll ever do. You'll be immersed in a culture of people that are the most hard working people you'll meet, they're dedicated and driven. You get to be around professors that do exactly what you want to do and that in and of itself is inspiring. It's hard, but very do-able. It's do- able because you'll be doing what you love and what you are passionate about. What makes grad school enjoyable is that you aren't spending those 5 years only in a classroom. Most programs have you do a year of course work and then year 2-4 you are in the field working with clients and then year 5 (or 6 for some specialties) is out on internship (where you get to make money finally!) with no classes. Homonculus said it best, you are in a great position looking into the future so you can set yourself up for success. My number 1 piece of advice: find work in the mental health field. I took some time off and did this and it taught me A LOT about what I truly wanted to do. You get to see all the different kind of work people do with with a mental health background (therapy, case management, psychologists with different specialties, probation, correctional work, family therapy, couples counseling, and many more). I initially thought I wanted to be a master's level therapist and then that has transformed into studying forensic psychology and going to get a PsyD. Hope that calms some stress about your future. People with no goals risk falling into holes because they have no path, people with goals can see the obstacles they will face to follow their dreams and correct their trajectory to be successful.

I've applied to U. of Indianapolis, Florida Tech, and Spalding U (Louisville, KY) for PsyD programs. Should be finding out about interviews in the next 2 weeks for all of them. Is there a thread somewhere that people are connecting that are interviewing at the same schools? In my perfect world, I'd be interested in making contact with someone that may share the same interview date so we can split the cost of lodging (assuming they don't give off murderer vibes). I'm a year and a half into grad school so I have a well established status of "f***ing poor" and application season is expensive. Trying to cut costs where I can.