PsyDuck90

I agree with the others. Look at the pre-req courses for PhD programs and see if you have those courses. If not, then a master's is a good route. I would suggest CUNY. They are significantly cheaper than Teacher's College and NYU, and there are tons of research opportunities. Depending on your niche subject area, you can choose which CUNY would be most appropriate for your interests. John Jay is more forensically based, Queens college is more neuroscience heavy, etc. As far as your concern about prestige, CUNY is a very highly rated R1 research university (for reference, while Columbia is an R1, Teacher's College is an R2). CUNY carries a lot of weight in the psych field. If you have that pre-reqs, I would just look for paid RA positions. Columbia Medical Center hires a ton of RAs. You can look at the other hospitals in the city as well. The Manhattan VA also has a ton of research, so you can check out USAJobs.gov to see if they are hiring (although that process may take awhile).

I think most schools allows multiple scores. When you go to ETS, you select which scores out of all the ones you have you want to submit to each school. It doesn't cost any different to submit both scores vs 1. They will just see a report indicating whatever testing dates you select.

I would not advise it. 1. Most portals won't allow a 4th upload. 2. It gives the impression you can't follow directions 3. It probably won't be read even if you can submit it. If you truly think the information about your TAing will make an impact, you should opt to replace one of the other 3. However, most programs mostly care about your research experience. As cynical as this may sound, a letter speaking to you as a human being will probably not matter at all. Your research fit is 1 of the most critical pieces of the application. They'll examine your human-ness at the interview weekend if/when you get to that stage.

It really depends on the program. You just miss the 315 cut-off some schools have but are over the 310 that others might. If it's clinical, they should be posting the average stats of their incoming classes over the last few years, so you can see how you stack up against those.

You only have so much space in your SOP to convey what your goals are, how X program can help you achieve them, and why you would be a good fit for said program. While it is great that you have experience in administering the BDI, the more important message is that you have in some context worked with those who (possibly) have MDD. The BDI doesn't require much training/skill to administer and interpret. If you were interpreting the scores on a WAIS or PAI or something, there's a bit more complexity in that, which may warrant more discussion. What exactly is it that you want to say about your administration of the BDI? If you can frame it into a larger context, such as your administration of this measure has led you to want to pursue research examining the cognitive-affective aspects of depression, then thats a clear explanation of the importance of this. If it's to say that you administered the BDI as part of your duties as an RA, that can just go into the CV, as most clients just complete the BDI in the waiting room and you count up the ratings to see if they meet the cut-offs.

You want to go in depth about what your goals are and how this program/PI can help you achieve them. Administration of the BDI can just go in your CV. You want to go in depth, but it should be about the bigger picture, not the minutiae of administering a self-report assessment. They are going to teach you that in grad school anyway.

I think the thing you need to ask yourself is this: if you only apply to this program and don't get accepted, then what? How would you feel emotionally? What would be your next step?

I agree with Sigaba's suggestions. Also, when I was applying, I don't recall any programs requesting more than 3 letters, so I don't think it matters if you can't secure this 4th letter because it won't be needed. Also, the committee doesn't know that you couldn't secure a letter from a job previous to the one you have now. Most people focus on letters from previous faculty. Research and academic rigor are usually placed above any clinical experiences because the program will spend 4+ years teaching you how to be a clinician (and clinical experiences you get before a doctoral program aren't usually that similar to what you would be doing unless you have a masters level clinical license). They want to know if you can do the academic work.

Only those with a clinical psychology doctorate (PhD or PsyD) can apply for licensure and be psychologists. Other psych doctorates, like developmental, social, etc. are not clinical degrees, and you can not see clients and diagnose. You can also get a clinical licensure at the master's level in counseling or social work.

This 100%. I've TAed before and now I've been teaching for 3 semester. The old saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." holds true. When students are performing poorly because they aren't doing the work, I will dedicate about 5-10 minutes of class time to address the concern and see if they have questions. I will remind them they can email me with questions or stop by office hours. After that, the ball is in their court. If they don't want to do the work or follow the instructions, that's on them. Some students will fail. I'm not sure what your discipline is in, but since I'm psych, I do a lot of stats. I will sometimes plot the scores of exams to see if they are in a normal distribution (do you get a bell curve). Sometimes when you analyze the scores, you realize that the scores are evenly spread out. Not everyone will get an A. If everyone gets an A, then you are making it to easy. If everyone gets an F, then you've made it to hard. Remember, a C is average. And what you consider a poor grade will be different from what others consider a poor grade. Not everyone in that classroom is interested in going on to graduate school.

I don't have any specific program recommendations. However, I find it is sometimes easier to work backwards. What is your ideal job? Figure out what job you would ultimately like and then work backwards from there to see what credentials you would need.

ABA and clinical psychology are two separate fields, so you probably won't find too many programs that offer a concentration in ABA. It is also an MA level licensure, vs psych is doctorate. You also don't need to be licensed in ABA to diagnose Autism. ABA therapists provide the treatment, but clinical psychologists are typically the ones who diagnose the disorder. I would focus on programs that are strong in pediatric/developmental neuropsych.

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Hmm, that's early. Even so, there is still plenty of time. I would check in about a week before the deadline.

Deadlines are typically December 1st, right? So your recommenders have until then. You are SUPER early. If you get to the week before Thanksgiving and they still haven't submitted, you can possibly send them a simple reminder, such as "Hello Dr. So and So, I just wanted to make sure you got all the links for uploading the recommendation letter." I actually did have 1 app where the link was not being sent to my 3rd recommender for some reason. She had uploaded the letter for all the others, except that one.

I'm not sure what you mean by sample paper. Apps can be edited up until you submit, so if, for instance, the app requires you to upload a document before proceeding to the next section, you can go back to previous sections after the fact. You can do a "dummy" application for a school you don't plan to apply to. People start apps and change their minds all the time. However, you're just adding more work for yourself. You can get the same results (tracking amount of time it takes to enter your name, address, etc) by just starting an application for a school of interest. Then, you can go back and upload the newer versions of documents such as SOPs and writing samples. The bulk of the work in applications is really writing out your SOPs, any additional pieces of writing they may want, formatting your CV, and gathering supporting documents (GRE scores, transcripts, etc.). The actual application usually consists of filling out basic contact/demographic information and uploading appropriate documents.

Personally, I feel like if it is that important to you where you would consider postponing the start of your career for yet another year, you would most likely find it important enough to take some classes spread over time to finish it later. A 2nd bachelor's is most likely not going to increase your marketability once you have a PhD. I don't think there is any rule barring you from completing a postdoc a year after graduating, but I'm assuming they would want to know why there was a gap.

Is there a common application or does each individual school require an application? Individual applications usually mean individual submission links.

You can, but why not just start 1 application for a school you're interested in and see how much time it takes you to complete it? It seems like more work to fill out a whole application for a program you aren't even going to apply to. You don't have to do all applications in 1 shot. You can fill things out, close it out, come back to it later, etc.

Programs traditionally extend interview invites after the deadline, as they choose students from the total applicant pool. Unless a program specifically states it has rolling deadlines (which is not common and I don't know of any clinical/counseling psych program that does). If you email a faculty member directly, you may hear from them regarding your email. It is best to be as close to 1000 words as possible. If you are 1001 it probably isn't a big deal, but you want to make sure you are as close to 1000 as possible.

I can't think of any programs off the top of my head, but 1 thing that worked for me when figuring out school was to find recent pubs within my area of interest and see where those authors teach. Refugees are a difficult population to get access to, so there probably is a limited amount of people who do that work.

Subsidized loans for graduate study don't exist anymore, so there is no way for you to reach that $65k subsidized loan limit. Unless you're planning to rack up about $100k in loans in grad school, you don't have to worry about hitting your aggregate amount limit.

I wouldn't do that. I would just pick a portion of it and upload that. They want to see that you can write well with the writing sample, and if I recall from my own app experience, most of my schools provided a specific page limit somewhere in the application portal or on the website.

It's ok to submit closer to the deadlines. Clinical programs don't do rolling admissions. They get together as a committee usually to look over all the apps once the deadline has passed. They're also more focused on the internship apps of current students applying for that right now (deadline is coming up).

It honestly depends on the emphasis of research in the PsyD program. For instance, I am in a small cohort model university based PsyD where research is a huge part of the training model. When I applied, I identified faculty of interest just as I did for my PhD apps. Everyone in my cohort had specific faculty mentors in mind that were strong research fits, and that is a large factor in why we were offered admission over other strong candidates. We have also been heavily involved in research from day 1 of the program (a few of us even started in the labs in the summer before our 1st semester began). If the program doesn't really mention research as a big component of your training, it may be less important.