PsyDuck90

I would email the PI and state your interest in connecting with your new lab mates and see if she can facilitate it by giving you some emails.

Faculty may shift foci over time, so what someone is studying now is not necessarily the exact thing they will be studying in 4 years. Just something to keep in mind. Also, faculty are often not looking for carbon copies of themselves. If your research interests align 90% but you want to add in the body image variable, it is most likely not a nail in the coffin. Typically, you do work on their projects, but the idea is that you will, via your dissertation at the minimum, be developing your own research study.

You don't need an exact match. When the time comes for you to actually apply for grad schools, reach out to people who are doing similar research and ask if they have considered/would be open to integrating the ideas you have. In the meantime, just focus on your undergrad studies and try to get involved in research there to learn the basic skills. Continue to look for publications on your area of interest. I just did a quick Google scholar search on "media and body image" with a ton of results. Look at the authors of these studies and then see where they're at.

Honestly, chances are that your spot went to the next person on the waitlist after you declined the offer. You can reach out, but it is unlikely to come to anything.

Close, PsyD in clinical psychology. I would recommend you figure out what you specifically want to study/do as a career before you spend any money on more education. You can also get research experience without being a current student by searching for research coordinator positions. This way you get paid to do research, which looks just as good (if not better) on PhD applications. Unless your undergrad was in a completely unrelated field or you need to make up for a low GPA, an MA isn't really necessary for PhD admission.

Don't the websites have pages listing the faculty and their research interests? And what do you want to do with your PhD once you get it? What type of job do you hope to have in the future? At the end of the day, a PhD is still a means to an end, with the end being your career aspirations. A PhD in clinical psychology is going to have a different career trajectory than a PhD in Developmental Psychology, for instance.

Which program has faculty doing research you're more interested in? Also, what are your ultimate career goals? Typically, masters in psychology are not terminal degrees.

Your doctoral program will matter more. As far as placements, you can search the forums here with many positive reviews of Wake Forest. And yes, they should have outcome data if you ask for it. As far as if their placements are better than MAPSS, no idea. But in the end, a program that is paying you is far more invested in your success than a program that you are paying a boatload of money for. I can't speak to influence outside of the U.S., as I've only ever lived in the U.S.

Between those 2, go with Wake Forest hands down. They have a good track record of getting students into fully funded PhDs. The main thing I've ever heard about MAPSS is that it's a big cash cow that brings tons of money to the department. A psychology MA is not worth the cost of that tuition.

Cost of living

Personally, I would probably go with B. It's guaranteed funding versus potential funding. However, is the tuition the same between the two? That's going to also make a big difference. If school B is $10k but the tuition is $50k per year, while A is potential $15k and tuition is $30k a year, then A would still be the better financial decision, regardless of funding.

You could reach out. It won't hurt anything. However, not all programs send out immediate rejections, even if someone isn't on an official waitlist. Some wait and just send all rejections around this time.

Just FYI, the poster you are asking posted that a year ago. This thread is for last year's cycle.

I know several people who graduated from there who do fabulous work on an institutional level as well as in a clinical capacity. That said, I know just as many who do similar work with an MSW from Rutgers for a fraction of the cost. MSWs really don't make a ton of money, and I'm personally not convinced that school recognition warrants a loan balance that is not commensurate with expected earnings. While people don't typically get into the field to make money, one should still expect to be able to live with some means of financial security post-grad.

Typically programs only allow deferrals for serious issues, like a health concern or something. In this case, if you are intent on taking a year, I would decline the offer and let the spot go to someone who is ready to start this year, hoping that you can get accepted again the following year.

They may have just had the information incorrect? My program went through this process, and my advisor had a large role in preparing and submitting all of the documentation for initial on contingency accreditation and full accreditation, so I got to see some of the information and process (it's a lot lol), so it may just be something they misunderstood. There was a lot to know.

That is not correct. If they are accredited when you graduate, then you graduate from an accredited institution. If you they are not accredited at the time you are graduating, then you are not graduating from an accredited institution. The status when you enter doesn't matter. It's the status when you finish.

I don't know anything about the specific program. However, accredited on contingency is the status given to new programs who meet all APA accreditation requirements aside from outcome data. In order for a program to be fully accredited, there needs to be a graduating class so that the university can provide those outcome statistics. On contingency status is a relatively new status APA created to allow new programs accreditation prior to graduating their 1st class (since the vast majority of accredited internships require the student come from an accredited program). The programs have to submit the self study for final accreditation within a short time frame after graduating their 1st class. For all intents and purposes, on contingency has all the benefits of full accreditation, but yes, there is a risk that the program may not graduate a cohort and submit the self study and everything associated with that (APA site visit) within the appropriate time frame. It looks like they have graduated 3 cohorts already and their contingency status expires in 2023, so I would maybe reach out and ask what's going on. Did they submit the self study yet? Are they waiting on the site visit? I know site visits had been suspended due to Covid. I would be a bit leery if they can't give you a clear answer, and honestly if that answer isn't "APA is coming for their final site visit on X date" because there isn't really any reason they shouldn't be at that step already considering they graduated their 1st cohort in 2017-2018.

It seems a little odd, but not totally out of the ordinary (as you said, colleges do it for early decision). However, the best option depends on what you intend to do. If you get off the waitlist, will you absolutely attend? If so, it's a wash. If you don't think so, then best to try and make that decision now. It wil also put you out of your waitlist misery. My deposit (different program) was also $500.

Are they asking you to pay the deposit now to hold your place on the waitlist or are they asking for confirmation that you would pay the deposit if you do get accepted. If the former, that's sketchy. If they are asking that you agree to pay the deposit if accepted, I don't see anything wrong with that. In order to formally accept an offer, you need to pay the deposit, so they need to know you'll pay it. How much is the deposit?

If you see the post I made (I think on page 140, maybe 139) of someone else asking about William James, and their outcomes data leaves a lot to be desired. The cohorts are massive, the debt load is insane, and the EPPP and APA-accredited internship match rates are not good, especially when you factor in they had to create a captive internship to inflate their APA-accredited match rate. Pacific has many of the same issues, although their EPPP pass rate looks pretty good (data only available for 2017).

Nav.psych is correct. It's unlikely there will be significant waitlist movement until after the April 15th deadline. People who are still holding offers are waiting and hoping for their top choice. Those people will then start releasing offers after the 11th hour, which will then cause some movement on waitlists. I think it's more common for people to get off the waitlist after the April 15th deadline than before.

It seems like this may be a good fit for you based on your goals. The reason it may have been seemingly easier is because a. Purely academic psychology degrees are less competitive than the clinical/counseling ones because so many people intersected in pursuing psychology want the option to practice. If you look at the curriculums of clinical/counseling psychology PhDs compared to the Educational Psychology curriculum, you will see that there are several years are clinical practicum followed by a year-long off-site internship embedded as requirements to graduate, along with courses on clinical skills and theories. These are required for state licensure in any state. I'm willing to bet the Educational Psychology PhD does not require all that. If it did, I would be very surprised. Clinically, there would not be any salary difference because you would still be using your counseling license. If you bill insurance, you are billing under your counseling license, and you will be getting that rate because that is the license you have. If you work for an organization, same thing. They will be hiring you based on your clinical license, not because of your PhD. In the clinical sense, you would not be a psychologist. In the academic sense, you would be a psychologist in the same way someone with a sociology degree is a sociologist. However, if you were to advertise yourself as a psychologist for clinical work, you would potentially be in violation of state regulations, since the public would assume you held a doctoral level license to practice clinically. So just be mindful of that concern as well.

I'm not sure what licensure laws were like whenever that person got licensed, so I can't speak to that. However, nowadays, people can practice as a clinician with a master's level license in counseling, marriage and family therapy, or social work, but they cannot be licensed as psychologists. Some states have grandfathered in master's level psychologists (like Pennsylvania), but only those who got licensed prior to a certain date are eligible for that. Other states, like Texas, have licensed psychological associates, but they often have less practical freedom than licensed counselors. Psychology licensure is specifically for those graduating from a clinical psychology, counseling psychology, or school psychology (in some states) PhD or PsyD (some states EdD is acceptable as well). A PhD in Educational Psychology does not lead to licensure because it is not a clinical degree. It's a purely academic degree, just like a PhD in sociology or anthropology or any other social science. Clinical degrees require several years of supervised clinical practice, followed by a full year off-site clinical internship prior to graduation and postdoctoral clinical training hours in most states prior to licensure eligibility, along with passing a national licensing exam. That is not built into an Educational Psychology curriculum.

FYI, programs are required to post their student admissions outcome data as part of maintaining APA-accreditation, so this data is publicly available on their websites. The following numbers are all for 2019, except for EPPP pass rates, as the latest data is for 2017 for some reason. Kean: incoming class size: 12, APA-accredited internship match rate: 80% (1 person went for a non-APA-accredited internship), EPPP pass rate: 100%, and cost: $24,674 per year out of state, $20,178 per year in state LIU Post: incoming class size: 22, APA-accredited internship match rate: 100%, EPPP pass rate: 83.87%, and cost: $52,964 per year (yikes!) St. John's, you didn't specify Clinical PhD or School PsyD, so here are both. PhD: incoming class size: 10, APA-accredited internship match rate: 100%, EPPP pass rate: 90%, and cost: $45,600 per year, but it appears all students get assistantship with full tuition waiver. School PsyD: incoming class: 17, APA-accredited internship match rate: 9% (very worrisome. School psychology does not require an APA-accredited internship, but these numbers are still very surprisingly low especially compared to EPPP pass rates, since that means these students were interested in pursuing clinical licensure as school psychology does not require it), EPPP pass rate: 85.19%, and cost: $33,480 per year If the St. John's offer was for the PhD, I would rank St. John's first and a toss up between Kean and LIU based on research fit. The match rate at LIU is better, but it is twice as expensive. The Kean EPPP pass rate is 100%, which makes me think that the 1 person who didn't go the APA-accredited internship route was not interested in clinical licensure at all. If St. John's is the PsyD, I would rank that program last.