PsyZei

Same, I told myself I would register this weekend, lol- and we do start in just a couple weeks. It's going to be an interesting year!

I told people that I liked to read urban fantasy as a way of relaxing. I would usually laugh a little and be like "I know this isn't a super intellectual things but..." So, if you read three books a year that aren't super intellectual, still go with one of them or whatever that genre is that you do like. Just spin it as your way of relaxing or having stress relief academic/non-academic balance.

I think it might depend on how you do it and what is most authentic for you. I alluded to my struggles from poverty/abuse/neglect/minority and the disadvantages and mental health struggles that can cause= but I wasn't overly explicit about any of it (there was not, I've been diagnosed with this or talking about specific abuse or whatever). I also wove the narrative throughout my sop, to make it the overall "this is why it is so important to me to do this research and work with these clients" reasoning. Again, I didn't go into anything very explicit and this is probably a very thin line to walk. For me, a big part of my academic career, research and clinical practice has hinged on not hiding where I come from and not even attempting to fit into the norm, but in embracing that I am not traditional or mainstream and that I can work with clients and research as being from the population of focus. So, doing this in my sop fit that narrative much better than it likely would for many applicants. Best of luck!

Hey! I initially applied during the 2017 cycle for the 2018 year, also was rejected or waitlisted by all schools. I had also applied for some master programs and when it came down between doing a psychology master program, with a research track, and a human ecology master program, with a clinical marriage and family therapy track I picked the second- as it more closely aligned to my area of research and practice interest. I applied again last cycle for PhDs, and while I initially planned to reapply to many of the same programs as well as some new ones, after networking (including reaching out through email- and definitely through conferences and with my professor's and advisors network connections as well) I actually ended up applying to completely different PIs this time around. Getting more research experience and starting to see clients let me narrow in on some specifics I wasn't really aware of before when it comes to clinical and research work. First, I wouldn't concern yourself with being rejected previously. PhDs are competitive. Second, networking is important, even if it's just through email (and with the current pandemic email or other virtual connections are going to be what you mostly do). I attended in person guest lectures, conferences and went to PIs research/poster presentations and school booths, etc... I literally stalked the founder of one of my favorite therapy models, waiting for them to show up at the conference I was at, to the point that when they did show up one of their students came and got me from across the conference floor so I could meet them (and I got an invitation to apply to their program and a follow up email out of it). You likely can't do most of that, but you could watch virtual talks or read articles and books and follow up through email. You can let them know about your interest in their research/clinical work and why you are enthusiastic about applying to their program and to work with them. My second time around I got interviews for 75% of the places I applied, literally the only programs I was not invited to interview at were the ones I hadn't managed, or made the time, to network with and meet the PIs at. So take advantage of the fact that everything is virtual right now and definitely send emails. Third, take advantage of how you have narrowed your focus and see if there are other programs and PIs that would fit you as well or better now than when you applied two years ago. I fully expected to be applying to the same programs and PIs last year basically up until the point I started looking at them again over summer and realized that they weren't really the best fits for me/I wasn't the best fit for them anymore. Good luck!

Yes! I really don't think people realize how difficult it is to get into PhD programs, especially if you don't come from a privileged background. My family of origin really just has no idea how hard doing this has been, or how competitive it is, then how hard the actual grad school is (especially right now with everything going on in the world). Ditto to you, if you ever want to vent or just not have to paint a rosy picture you can def dm me.

That is amazing, congrats!!! Good luck on the funk.

Right? Good luck!

I'm so glad you are networking with PIs! This proved really important when I was applying.

This sounds an awful lot like they are calling for a systemic therapeutic style. You should look at Marriage and Family Therapy or another human ecological approach- the name (in today's culture) is misleading to the point there has been talk about rebranding to just calling it Systemic Therapy. It is common for MFTs (especially postmodern MFTs, like myself) to feel that diagnosis are bull and that people are normal and responding in normal human ways to whatever situation or event they have experienced that has been traumatic, stressful, etc... As well as putting heavy emphasis on the fact that people act and react from within a system- which heavily influences their experiences of stress and distress, as well as the behavior patterns they have learned and that are available to them for use- and that this must be addressed in therapy. This is literally the reason I veered off the traditional psychology path (my undergrad degree is in just vanilla psychology) and opted for the less mainstream MFT path. Anyways, have fun looking into stuff. As an undergrad I ran into a similar paradigm shift and I am so glad I did. I hope you find the type of approach and a corresponding program that you are looking for.

I just had a meeting with my PhD advisor about what school might look like this coming fall and the overall gist I'm getting is that things are going to be a bit wild and fly by our seats. I was wondering how everyone on Grad Cafe is doing? Those planning to apply this fall, how is that going? Those about to start or continue grad school, what is that looking like for you? ---- I've got three kiddos I'm trying to figure out what their school is going to look like, my spouse is in an essential industry so that has also been quite a ride, and then the only thing I really feel like I've "got" for the coming fall is that they clinic at my program is going to be done telehealth style- which I feel fairly confident about doing at this point. Not an expert, but between all the random trainings I've done (thank you PESI) and the practice I got at the end of my master program last year I think it will be okay. What about everyone else, what are you freaking out about and what is going alright?

I did undergrad in two years and, obviously, did not do any research. I come from poverty and did not go to high tier school, so research wasn't even an option (they didn't even have psych graduate programs). I found a master program at a slight better university that gave me a GA for the first year (and I ended up taking out loans for the second year), and I made sure to get research experience during that program. It's not ideal, but it worked for me. That said, I would also just be honest. I was pretty up front in my personal statement about my background and journey to getting an education. I will mention that I had pretty high GRE scores and had work experience, prior to starting college, in a related field (community outreach with couples and families) to what I want to do with my degree. I agree with Psyche007 about being yourself. Just be honest about your journey and what you want, authenticity has a way of selling you that trying to polish up the rough edges often doesn't work as well for (in my experience).

I'm not familiar with either and my PhD program is Couple and Family Therapy, but I wanted to emphasize Rerun's point about networking when it comes to applying for PhDs. When applying to PhD programs this last season my interview offers and rejections with interview were split exactly based on my networking. I applied to 8 school and I had networked with 6 of them... those were the ones I was offered interviews at. The 2 I had no network connections with were the ones that rejected me outright. That said, not all of the 6 were networked with because of connections from my school... but three them were only networked with through connections from my school's faculty (included one that I never managed to interact with at all, but the PI I was interested in working with was a good friend of one of my professors- I assume that network connection still have a lot to do with my getting an interview). The other three (including two of my top three picks) were ones that I literally hunted down at conferences and made an over-enthusiastic fool of myself to make sure they would remember me and how much I liked their program. Of those three, two of them had no connections to anyone at my school, but I was still offered admission to them. So it's not an end all situation if you don't have the connections from your school, but in either case my experience is that networking is extremely important. So if you go to a school with less network connections (and really regardless of which school you go to), I would encourage you to be planning now for conferences &/or other ways to make connections with those in the programs you are interested in.

Given your experiences with grants and research, I would apply. If you don't get in anywhere then just consider it a practice application season.

I had something similar to this come up. I wonder if you would classify your professor as more laid back or more laissez faire? I have worked with both, and the laid back one (who I worked with on a small research project) was wonderful to work with (I could go to them with issues or for help and get help, they more or less left me alone other then that, and when an issue came up- like with irb, they were so chill about it that I found myself not freaking out either). Laissez faire on the other hand (that I worked with on a grant project), while they were a nice person, I couldn't really get help from (though they were "the expert" for grants at my institute) and it was kind of a nightmare. Guess how far that grant went? Yeah, nowhere. They were just way too hands off and I couldn't get what I needed from them. If I could go back, I would have switched to someone else (saying something like, I know you are busy and our availability doesn't seem to be lining up well, so I want to work with so and so- but would love if you could also review the final grant if you want), despite the potential issues, because I had a good grant idea and really think it could have done well if I had a better advisor for it. I've also worked with a very hands on professor (for medium-ish research project) who was as awesome as the laid back professor to work with. I also definitely got everything done on time, cause I didn't want to disappoint them by being late AND because they gave me the tools I needed to figure out how to do what they were wanting from me/what I needed to be doing. I've also worked with a professor that was downright abusive. My best advise for that is change as soon as you can. I almost waited too long because I was afraid of the backlash. The thing is, they are going to abuse you whether you switch advisors or not, so you might as well get to work with someone you'll actually be able to complete the project with while dealing with their abuse on the side- rather than dealing with their abuse AND having them sabotage your work. That ended up longer than I meant (sorry for that), but in the end I would base it on your mental health and if having this PI is going to affect your ability to graduate (since you said that it's not a big deal if you don't do too much research- maybe having them isn't that big of a deal). If this is negatively affecting your mental health &/or going to affect your ability to graduate, then please advocate for yourself so that you can get what you need. Especially if you think you have someone who will be okay with you switching to them. That's what I did with the abusive PI, I talked to the person I wanted to work with and made sure they were willing to deal with any possible backlash too. When they said yes, I wasted very little time going through the proper channels to get official permission to switch. Good luck, I hope things work out for you!

Agreed, that top bit was honestly how I was reading this- which takes it to the point of being careful how things are framed. Well said Poke ?

Thank you for taking the time to explain this, I appreciate it. I honestly hadn't even thought about it before yesterday as a potential issue- so had never looked into whether it was possible to go back on deferment. I'm already paying some on it monthly (but not as much as the anticipated monthly amount will be once out of deferment) in order to reduce the amount I'll pay per month once I'm done with school, but I hadn't looked into the intricacies of it beyond that. I only have federal student loans too and they are all managed by the same company, so it sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult of a process.

I hadn't thought about this happening. I wonder what would happen with student loan deferment if this happens- since if you graduate from the previous program in May and haven't started a new program by December you have to start paying on the loans. Would they then go back into deferment in January? Or would we be stuck paying on them and trying to attend grad school at the same time?

I'm glad that worked out for her! We have not seen anything that meets our basic requirements in our budget in Iowa City, so it honestly doesn't seem like Iowa City is an option for us, where Cedar Rapids has multiple listings within our budget that meet our needs. Iowa City is just a significantly higher priced real estate market than Cedar Rapids is. I am glad she was able to make the choice that seems like it worked out best for her. It's about 6 hours away for us, not nearby but definitely driving distance. However, everything is on lock down, so we are doing virtual tours and just trying to figure it out the best we can.

That's kind of where we are at, honestly. Iowa City would be great, but half an hour commute for a house that has what we want and is in our budget is gold. My spouse has been commuting 1.5 hours for the two years of my masters, so half an hour commute doesn't seem bad. The houses in Iowa City are just so much more expensive than the same thing in Cedar Rapids. We've tentatively set an appointment to view houses the second week in April, now just waiting to see if that actually happens.

Reach out and ask. I did for a school I hadn't received funding info from and they reassured me they were hoping I would attend and sent my financial offer two days later. I did state that I was aware there were other priorities with covid 19, but I wanted to check in due to the April 15th decision date being so close. I think it's very reasonable to check in at this point.

Are you looking at Iowa City or more Coralville or Cedar Rapids? My spouse was expecting to be transferring to Cedar Rapids, but said it looks like the transfer might be to Coralville instead. It seems like the closer you get to Iowa City, the more expensive houses are, though.

Just updating that I will be hanging out around the UIowa campus come F2020. Hope to see you around! We are trying to figure out buying a house with the Covid19 stuff, are you guts on lock down/stay at home orders? We think we are going to be starting tomorrow here in Missouri. I'm not looking forward to potentially buying a house without being abe to tour it ??

I officially signed, scanned and returned the paperwork today for University of Iowa's program! It was a really hard decision to make a decision and it came down to between them and University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the last couple days just trying to figure out which was the best path forward for my career and my family's future plans. I honestly found myself wishing only one had accepted me or only one had offered funding, lol! Both programs and mentors at the programs very good fits and programs for me. Now that the decision is made, I am really looking forward to next year. If anyone is going through the process of applying for Human Ecology related degrees in the future, feel free to reach out to me ?

I've been accepted to the PhD Psychological and Quantitative Foundations, Couple and Family Therapy program at University of Iowa. With everything going on, I didn't receive my financial letter from them until yesterday. We currently have a kiddo sick with Covid 19 symptoms and am trying to figure out telehealth for clients at my internship, so haven't had a chance to really sit down and look over the offer and other factors in depth one more time before making a final decision. Hoping to do that this weekend.

Right now my main focus is on surviving and keeping my children alive. Myself and both my kids are medically at risk with this virus. While I'm super glad to be pursuing a PhD, I am significantly less concerned about how the virus is going to affect the timeline of my degree than whether or not myself and children are going to survive. My oldest is at the doctor with my spouse (who is not medically at risk, but who works in an "essential" field so has likely been exposed) because my oldest has worsening symptoms of the virus as of 5 am this morning. The doctor was able to get him in to be seen this morning, but we don't know if testing is even available right now. Even if testing is available, I am concerned about the available of care (as pneumonia is a very serious concern for us with our pre-existing health concerns in the best of conditions, this virus is far from the best of conditions). That said, I do get the desire to know what the fall might look like. My master program, campus therapy clinic, and internship are currently working on getting telehealth and online classes figured out, so I assume the PhD program I'm attending will be doing something similar. I am totally on board with online options for classes and telehealth options for clients for the foreseeable future if that means more people coming out of this alive on the other side.