[Impostor syndrome is setting in hard...]

6 minutes ago, dancedementia said:

Wow. Are you me / in my program? This is my EXACT experience. I come in to office hours and make very clear that I have decided to pursue a PhD and am looking for guidance, but so many of my profs encourage me to either 1) not do a PhD, or 2) consider Counselor Education & Supervision. Their arguments are the same - counseling/psych is different, Counselor Ed would be shorter, less work, blahblah. It's frustrating, because I didn't come in to be talked out of my career goals! I just need some support from my professors but it's difficult to figure out who I can turn to. My experimental psych professors are largely all neuro/cog/developmental, so they're not super familiar with the clinical psych landscape.

The ED clinic was my internship for the CMHC program  We're required to do a minimum of 2 semesters of internship, but I will actually have 4 semesters worth just because of how scheduling worked out.

Yeah I am in the same boat. I actually just posted about me moving from the counseling field to psychology. Of course they want you to stay in the field but I dont think i would benefit much from it for my own goals IMO.

[Moving from Counseling to Clinical/ Counseling Psychology]

Hi All,

I am interested in applying for Clinical or Counseling Psychology Phd program for Fall 2019.  I  currently have a MA in rehab counseling w/ a concentration in Substance Abuse and Psychiatric disabilities and have state licensure (LGPC).

I have done 4  presentations : 3 posters (2 at national conferences, 1 local) , 1 discussion based presentation at national conference
4 years of research experience ( undergrad RA, senior thesis, 2.5 years as an RA at a well known hospital doing medical related research) currently an clinical research assistant in a clinical neurobehavioral lab focusing on alcohol related research in addition to doing different assessments working under psychiatrists and psychologists. Will be here for a 1.5 years by the time I apply so total research experience will be 5.5-6 years
TA experience for a couple Introductory to Psychology courses
VA clinical experience
University counseling center experience
Previous experience as a Manager at a non profit providing services to individuals with disabilities
Certified Phlebotomy Technician ( I had to draw participants blood for some studies)

I do not have any publications yet but interested in submitting the senior thesis by the time I apply and possibly turn one of the posters into a paper. And the other study I worked on  at the hospital will take forever to be a publication since we collaborated  with another company.  One or two current studies will be finishing up within a year or two and the other studies really just started. I am trying to figure out what will make me competitive enough  to get into these programs. This is my second time applying. The first time I applied to only a few counseling psych programs and got an interview and waitlisted. I am interested in taking the GRE general again since they were really low and Psych GRE because my undergrad GPA wasn't that high (3.2) my last 60 credits ( 3.6).  My grad GPA is a 3.7 and a 4.0 since I took classes at two different schools. What are some things that I can do to make me more competitive before I apply again? GRE aspiring scores?

My research interests include examining addiction,  alcohol/substance use disorders/ prevention in ethnic minorities and career development of college students of multicultural backgrounds. Overall I am interested in being in academia as a professor that does research and that is well versed in doing assessments.