Clinapp2017

Your GRE scores are great. Good job!

So, here's my advice from my experience 2 years ago when I was in your shoes and applying to Clinical Psych Ph.D. programs. I applied to 10 sites, got 6 interviews, and got into my top choice. This advice isn't a "hard-and-fast" guide for everyone, even in clinical, but I think these tips are helpful (even if they've been stated before). For phone interviews: Honestly, I dressed pretty casually for these because I personally wanted to feel comfortable. Some will say dress for success. You do you, honestly. Be in an area, like a bedroom, where there is minimal background noise. I also advice to use a good pair of headphones with a mic, if possible. Have a note pad and pen to take notes from the conversation. At the top of the note pad, write down before the interview at least 2-3 questions that you have, as well as anything else you think is relevant. Speak calmly, and take a breath before you answer the phone. Skype interviews: Wear at least business casual. I actually usually wore a suit (I am a male, so that's a wide difference honestly). Again, I'd advise to skype in your room or somewhere that is quiet. If your room doesn't work, I advise finding a quiet place at work or a library in a private room. Again, wearing headphones can help with quality of your speech/hearing your interviewer. Same rules of notepad and pen apply as before. Look at the camera lens, not at yourself or the PI on the screen. Looking at the camera feels weird, but it means you are making eye contact. In-person interviews The agendas for campus interviews vary WIDELY. Some places will be a short day of interviews with a handful of people; other sites will have 2-3 day extravaganzas with parties, interviews, campus tours, etc. Plan your wardrobe accordingly. Unless stated otherwise, you should be in business formal for all of the interviews, and business casual for all of the dinners/parties. At the parties/socials, DO NOT (and I mean this) get drunk or out of control. That's pretty much an immediate ax from the committee. Generally speaking, just have a few drinks if you'd like (or don't... nobody cares), and socialize with current students, other applicants, PIs, etc. BE NICE!!! It often helps, especially with other applicants, to talk about pleasantries and stuff going on, as well as shared interests OUTSIDE of psychology. Nobody wants to get into a metaphorical d*ck waving contest with you, and the grad students interviewing you, especially, will not look favorably on that. This goes with the above, but if you are staying with a host or really whenever you are interacting with grad students, you should be on your best behavior. You should be polite and respectful of your host student's home, and it is often nice to bring a small gift from where you are (less than $5) and a thank you card. While you should and can ask candid questions about life as a grad student, the culture of the city/university, faculty-student dynamics, etc., you should probably think at least a little bit before you ask questions or say things because they can, and do, get back to the PIs. For example, a student I hosted my first year as a PhD student who was interviewing for a lab that was not my own told me about how he had "6 interviews" and my school was his "4th choice." As it was pompous and completely unprompted from me, I relayed that information back to the PI because ultimately PIs want to make offers to students who actually want to come to this university. Same rules apply for skype/in-person interviews. Try to have 2-3 questions per person you are scheduled to interview with during your visit. These help if you get stuck on questions to ask. You can often ask the same question to multiple grad students if you are, for example, having conversations with every lab member. Bring a book or something fun, non-academic to do during down time. Depending on the agenda, you can often have hours of down time during the actual interview day, and if you are an introvert like me it can be relieving to just read a book or do something that does not involve talking to people. It is always good to bring deodorant, gum, and mouthwash in your purse or backpack/satchel to the interview day. If you are like me and sweat bullets when you are anxious (e.g., in interviews), it can be helpful to have these handy. This list is by no means comprehensive, but just some thoughts that I have from my experience on both ends of the interview table. Feel free to comment and ask questions or PM if you have something specific you'd like to know about. Most importantly, YOU DESERVE THIS D*MN INTERVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The PI reached out to YOU, meaning that s/he thinks you'd be a good potential fit for your lab. Keep that in mind and just be yourself.

It’s hard to get all the DCTs on board with having unique interview days because academic calendars don’t revolve around interview days... in fact, interview days are often set as the dates that are the most convenient for faculty, which (not surprisingly) means a lot of schools share the same day. My personal recommendation having gone through this process with 7 interviews and multiple acceptances is to accept the first interview you are offered for a day that potentially overlaps with other schools. Programs understand that other schools have the same interview days. If they are making you an offer, they probably think you’re competitive and worthy of their interview slot and time. If you wind up with overlapping days, ask the second school that offered you an interview if there’s an alternate day available (there often are) or what the best way to interview would be. Without being an a$$ you can state that you are very interested in the later school’s offer but already made an agreement to travel to a school that reached out to you earlier. It it really isn’t the end of the world. I’m attending a very good program now that I had to originally Skype at (and arranged an off-interview date visit) because of an overlapping committment.

The 50th percentile isn't competitive; it's like the minimum cutoff. If you look at good clinical PhD programs and their admissions stats, you will usually see mean percentiles for the admitted class of students hovering in the 75-85th percentile. Of course, like all mean scores, there is some range, but I would not say a 300 is a competitive stat from the point of view of someone on the other side of this process.

Yes. I would keep it brief and mention something in particular you found helpful or interesting.

I know it's hard, but everyone needs to try to take a deep breath, go do something fun, and enjoy the holidays. Some programs, such as the program I attend, will not even begin reviewing applications until after the fall semester is over, meaning that the faculty will meet and extend invites to the applicant pool sometime early to mid-January. It's still a few weeks of waiting, but checking your email or worrying if you have not heard anything that you are not getting interviews is counter-productive. I was there two years ago, though, so I get it! I am rooting for all of you.

A good way to see it is generally anything below 80% match is a probably not an ideal place to be. Especially for the "diploma mill" places, you'll often see match rates even below 60%, which is bad considered there may be 20+ students in a cohort. I think funding definitely should also be a consideration unless you are independently wealthy. As a psychologist or researcher, odds are you'll have a relatively low salary at the beginning of your "real" career, and the ceiling is also low considering our extensive training (maybe 120,000-150,000 in a thriving PP or clinical setting, esp. in a high cost-of-living area). Having a lot of debt may mean you could be paying off large loans for 20+ years, which is not worth it for our line of work... it makes a lot more sense for medical docs b/c they can easily make 200-300-400k and beyond. Just food for thought. Debt is not fun. Try to avoid or minimize it.

From my understanding of admissions of my clinical psych PhD program: basically, if you’ll be funded (in a secure fashion) for 5+ years on research grant money, the advisor can do basically whatever they wish (committee still must approve). Teaching or clinical fellowships are usually required to be approved by the full committee, but slots are given each year to profs based on some priority system (who hasn’t taken a student in a while, new PIs, etc.).

Nice scores! Google is handy (can’t beleivd you were on the phone for over an hour): https://greprepclub.com/forum/gre-score-percentiles-3352.html

Yeah. Participating is not cv-worthy.

For the CV - no certain format, just don't use annoying fonts. Also, really consider what you have on there. Nothing makes my mentor more mad then when people have things from high school on their CV (exception being national merit or if you actually cured cancer at your prom or something). For the submitted works, I submitted a sample that was currently under review at a journal and just made sure that it was clear to my prospective mentors that the manuscript was under review. What do you mean by a university assessment, like a test?

Give yourself some rest and self-care. It is a long-haul, but you got this!

That is completely unnecessary, but if you do that I would not exceed 4 double spaced pages. I did 2 single spaced pages. Honestly, my opinion (and many in my research area): APA is a dumb citation and writing style. It wastes a lot of space and kills tree. Okay, rant over. GL with your statement!

People are super busy. Yes means they have funding. Agree to not read into it too much.

Overall, a good start, but I have some suggestions after a brief read-through (from a clinical student perspective): Paragraph 1: The sentence about "psych going beyond psycho-analysis" is kind of weird, and as a reader I was thinking "Okay... so when you were in intro to psych?" I would consider ditching this entirely. I would talk more about a specific experience or something in research regarding prejudice or intergroup relations. The paragraph feels empty when you say "I have done research" but don't talk about what that research topic was. Paragraph 2: Expand on what "SONA and Qualtrics" means. What were the surveys you were doing. What were you studying. Re-word your sentences to tell us what your funding you received was used for Actually... reword everything about your study... it was hard to follow what you actually were looking at for your pilot Say you gave a "talk" not a "power point presentation" I don't know what SEPA conference is... spell out the acronym and don't assume readers know what you mean Reword paragraph to say you worked for Dr. Delaney for 2 years. It sounded like, from the early part of the paragraph, that you only worked for them for 1 semester, and then it turns out later you say 2 years. Just say how long you worked for them once and then say what you did. I would never say "I am prepared for success in a PhD program." That's for the committee to decide, and your qualifications should speak for themselves. Paragraph 3: Again, explain what surveys and variables you were analyzing Third sentence is weird. Consider rewording. It sounds like you are rating photos of how attractive participants are... Define SPSP conference. Again, don't assume we know the acronym Paragraph 4: I am not sure how useful or not useful it is to talk about classes like this... seemed a little dry to me Perhaps this could be done better by weaving courses related to your research into other paragraphs. For example "At the time I was researching topic Y, I was enrolled in Class X which bolstered my ability to pursue that reserach topic." Not exactly that, but you get the point. Paragraph 5 I would almost move this paragraph up into the first paragraph, bc it sets the stage early on for what you want to do and why the university you apply to is the place for you Hope this helps. I am happy to send you my SOP for my clinical program if you want another idea of what a SOP can look like. -CApp

This forum is not for homework help, FYI.

Based on percentile scores, I would send the second one. According to the conversion charts, GRE 1 is V at 88 percentile and Q at 66 percentile (not competitive depending on your program). GRE 2 is V at 80th percentile and Q at 81, and you cross the 320 combined mark that makes candidates the most competitive. I would agree with @ResilientDreams and send both if allowed, but 2 is probably the better of the two options.

The GRE scores are not good as is. To be the most competitive for clinical programs, you want to at least surpass the 310 cutoff for the combined score. My undergrad mentor (who was heavily involved in admissions across the department) said he even thought going above 320 combined makes students the most competitive. It sucks, but gre and pubs are the only things that carry the same weight across applicants. A high gpa is good, but a 4.0 means different things across programs with different rigor.

Even if you don’t want to be practicing clinician, pursuing a PhD in Clinical can be wise. If your work involves clinical populations, there is significant value in learning assessment and treatment techniques, even if they don’t overlap with your interests. An example of this from my life is the study of neurodegnerative diseases, which isn’t exactly what most people think of when they think of clinical psych. However, many of these conditions have presenting components of anxiety, depression, etc., so me learning about this through clinical experience hands-on is important to me. I also think having more options after finishing a PhD is always better that less. Clinical gives you the flexibility to open a private practice or just do clinical work if you wind up hating research and the academic struggle-bus. This, to me, was valuable.

A boss who is a neuropsychologist would be almost certainly appropriate. FWIW: I am studying clinical psych with a neuropsych focus now and has my clinical supervisor for one of my neuro internships in college write a letter, paired with two research mentors.

What programs are you applying to this fall? It would be helpful to know so students or faculty can comment on this more. In clinical psych, an honors thesis is probably appropriate.

Mentorship style (hands off, hands on) Lab culture (any outings or shared events) Expectations and commitment from you (what does he want out of his students) Those are a few ideas. I feel like having a list of questions is good, but what is even better is when the conversation flows more naturally. My current mentor and I clicked over a random baseball souvinier in her office, for example.

You can put that you presented at that meeting on your CV under "presentations," but do not list a "published abstract" as a "publication."

A narrower scope than “assessment” would probably be helpful if you want recommendations. Even in clinical neuropsychology tracks, people specialize in research in specific areas (e.g., TBI diagnosis and treatment) vs. assessment broadly.

Use google scholar to search for recent articles on that topic. Then look at who the authors are and their affiliations. From there, use regular google again to look those people up. Hope this helps.