PsychPotato

I would personally also advise folks to not be super intimidated about applying to the "most competitive" schools. For instance, I'll be going to my first choice school in the fall and it's an R1 and ranked as the number one program in my field. I was super intimidated to apply there and even considered not applying because 1. I had heard the environment was very competitive, 2. I didn't think it was worth my time/money because my GRE and GPA are only average, and 3. I literally heard people make jokes (in passing) about how no one ever gets into this program so why even bother trying. Ultimately, I applied because my research fit was excellent and I ended up getting in! While interviewing I found that the school did not have nearly as much of a competitive environment as I thought it did initially, and I actually ended up loving the program. Not sure if this will help anyone else out but I thought I would share my experience!

Sorry for positing on two separate threads but I'm confused about where these requests should go! But, to the person who received an informal interview invite from U of Houston, could you please PM me your POI? Thanks!

To the person who received an informal interview invite from U of Houston, could you please PM me your POI? Thanks!

Me too, please!

Has anyone heard anything from the USC clinical psych program? I know that in past years they sent interview invites out by now but I haven't seen anyone post about it!

Decided to join the pool of folks freaking our about applications, at least we can all commiserate together!!! Program of interest: Clinical Psych Schools I've Applied to: UCLA, USC, UCSB, San Diego State, U of Houston, Northwestern, Loyola Chicago, Virginia Consortium, GWU, Clark University, Fordham, UMASS Boston Number one worry about applying: I'm trying not to overanalyze everything about my application, but specifically I think my quant GRE is sort of low at 157. I also don't have any first author publications. Not Worried About: I have two publications and a good amount of conference presentations, so that's hopeful - right?! Good luck to everyone applying

Hey everyone! Looking at this forum was so helpful for me during my GRE studying frenzy, so I thought I would share my scores/experience to help other folks out. Magoosh Estimated Math Score: 152-157 Magoosh Estimated Verbal Score: 157-162 ETS Prep Book Test 1: 155 Q, 164 V (October 6th, 2017) Magoosh 1: 153 Q, didn't do verbal section (October 7th, 2017) Magoosh 2: 155 Q, 163 V (October 11th, 2017) PowerPrep 1 (untimed): 32/40 Q, 32/40 V (October 12, 2017) - I didn't realize it, but the untimed test does not give you an actual score. PowerPrep 2: 151 Q, 166 V (October 13, 2017) - This test had me FREAKING out about my quantitative score! And I took it the night before my official test - eek! Real GRE: 157 Q, 163 V, 5 AW (October 14, 2017) As ya'll can see, my scores were a bit all over the place! I somewhat chalk this up to not giving each practice test the same level of effort. Some days I was more tired than others... However, my best score was definitely on my official exam! That being said, I felt quite unconfident as I was taking the official test. I was honestly shocked when I got my results. I began studying for the test around May/June but I didn't study too often. At the time I was finishing undergrad, working full time, and doing research so I didn't have the time/energy to study every day. I started buckling down a bit more in July and decided to purchase Magoosh. In August and September I would spend a few hours studying during the week (2-5) and then do the bulk of my studying on the weekends (about 4-ish hours a day). However, I didn't even study that much every week or weekend. I took a lot of time off! Especially if I was feeling stressed. For the two weeks leading up the the exam I studied a lot more, about 2-3 hours after work M-F and then 6 hours each weekend day. The whole time I also fest guilty for not studying more, since it seems like a lot of people consistently studied 20+ hours a week! This was totally not possible with my schedule (or sanity!) and I think I did JUST FINE on the exam - so if you're in a similar boat don't freak out like me! As far as material, I came into the test not having taken a math class in about 5 years so I knew quantitative would be my main focus. I initially thought that reviewing all of the Magoosh lesson videos would be the best way to learn, but I regret this decision now. I wasted hours and hours of time watching about 2/3 of all of the quantitative lessons and then started to realize that Magoosh gives you WAY more information than you truly need to do well (or at least as well as I hoped to do!). I actually found that the lessons gave me anxiety! I would be so freaked out about not knowing every component of the lesson that I would hesitate to do practice problems. Instead, I would watch the lessons over and over again. DO NOT DO THIS!!!! I realized (probably too late!) that the best way to learn the material using Magoosh is to take a stab at their practice questions and then review each question that you did not answer correctly. This made it a lot easier for me to learn how to approach a specific problem. I had a somewhat similar experience with verbal. I've always been stronger in verbal but I felt like I had a somewhat limited vocabulary, so I initially studied by memorizing words through flashcards. I also would not recommend this! It was hard for me to retain word definitions and I felt overwhelmed with the sheer amount of words I was trying to learn. Finally, I started doing verbal practice problems as a form of studying which worked SO much better. I would do a problem and then write the definition of the words I did not know so that I would be ready the next time. My case might also be somewhat unique as I have pretty bad test anxiety in the sense that I freak out if I feel like I'm not getting everything right, even on practice tests/practice problems. I had to spend a lot of time reframing my mindset about the GRE and about practice problems. I think the hardest part about studying was realized that I would never get everything right! This anxiety is why I waited until October to try a full practice test. I was so scared of the score I might get that I didn't try until the last minute! If I could go back I would frame my studying around taking practice tests, I feel like I learned the most from reviewing the problems in that format. I also purchased a good amount of study materials for the exam. Here they are along with my thoughts/rating: Magoosh: 9/10 (would be a 10/10 but I think the instructional videos have some superfluous info) ETS Official Guide: 10/10 (practice questions were very similar to the real GRE, which obviously makes sense!) Manhattan 5lb book: 8/10 (I wish they had more mixed practice sets) Kaplan GRE book: 5/10 (would not recommend, the questions and info is not super similar/relevant to the actual GRE) I'm sorry for this insanely long post, but hopefully it will help some people out! If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me! I know that this is such a stressful process

I've also received conflicting information on this. My primary mentor, who is a psychologist that accepts students into my university's PhD program, told me that contacting POIs is frowned upon by a lot of professors, especially those who are particularly well known/receive a lot of email! I was told to ONLY contact POIs to ask if they were accepting students and ONLY if the information wasn't available elsewhere (ie on the university's website). But I was also told by others that contacting POIs is a good way to get your foot in the door of the program... so I'm not sure what the best way to go is! I'm personally airing on the side of caution and not contacting anyone except to see if they are accepting students.