ventiamericano

Okay but... see you there?! ?

Ahhh!! Just got my first (and probably only) acceptance!! Can't believe everything I've worked so hard for has finally paid off. I accepted pretty much immediately, LOL. School: Ryerson University Concentration: Clinical Psychology Type: MA Date of acceptance: Feb 16 (formal acceptance with letter) Notified by: Personal e-mail from Chair of Clinical asking for a call, then accepted over the call

Trust your gut!!! More often than not, these feelings aren't one-sided. You got this!

Ok wait, literally same LOL. My PI said that I could e-mail her in the meantime and I'm literally trying so hard to not just e-mail her questions. UGH, when WILL THIS PROCESS JUST END??? I swear the not knowing is worse than knowing you got rejected, waitlisted etc.

I feel this thread so hard, lmao. Literally just went to the interview day for my dream school and still haven't heard anything. To make it worse, I know that the chair of grad studies is already starting the acceptance phone calls so cue the anxiety. Have wanted to reach out to my POI so many times but didn't want to risk looking like I'm kissing ass especially since I already said thanks LOL

Anyone heard from their Ryerson POIs after the open house?

Omg!! A real famous GradCafe-er!!!

LOL yup, I think this day will literally burn me out in terms of social interaction... Nothing like a 10 hour day of chatting lmao

I am! I've heard it looks bad on candidates to skip out as this is the real chance to mingle with grad students/faculty that doesn't really (for the most part) involve talking about research.

Hey everyone! I just got my itinerary for an open house (Ryerson to be specific) and it seems that they scheduled a time for me to meet privately with a PI who's not the one I applied to. Any advice or insight to how to prepare? I know there's a separate thread for this but I was hoping other Canadian prospective grads (or grads) could share their experiences - thank you!!!

OH, gotcha. I read what you said and thought that we were going to be interviewing with more people than just our POIs and their labs. I almost had a heart attack hahaha

I haven't yet! Oh no, you're scaring me LOL. What does it look like? My POI told me the day was just going to be tours and chatting with faculty/grad students... No idea that there was going to be several interviews...

The open house is March 1st so hang in there friends - lots of time for invites to be sent out!

Hey guys! I was wondering if anyone had any advice for an in-person meeting with your POI @ the school's open house? We already had a skype interview that went really well and we covered a wide range of topics from research interests, direction of the lab in the next couple of years, favourite current scholars etc. I'm kinda stumped now to what to expect when we meet in-person as we've covered so much ground. Any insight/tips?

Oh wow, so the final decision is up to the committee? Like the PI has absolutely no say in who gets an official offer...?

I would say that you get interviewed no matter what in most places. I applied to my current supervisor and she made me go through the interview process and actually asked me the same question she would ask any other candidate to keep it standardized and unbiased. But yes in this case, I believe that all preliminary interviews @ Ryerson have been conducted and offers to the open house have been made @Mickey_. Sorry about that! Don't lose hope - other places are still handing out interviews

Thanks, guys!!

Question for everyone - is there a difference between the terms "short-list" and "waitlist" or are they used interchangeably? Just got contacted by one of my PIs and they said I was currently waitlisted but would be updated again after the committee meets. So I'm a bit confused to whether they mean I'm in the running to be invited to the open house or if I'm the third (or Xth) option if their other candidates don't work out...

I think so. I (and others here) got sent a general rejection letter ~a week ago from the graduate secretary. My guess is that if you haven't received that e-mail or if the status of your application hasn't changed, you're most likely still in the running and your POI is just taking his/her sweet time haha.

Thank you so much for your support!!!

Ryerson - sorry about that!

Also just got an invitation to the open house! The e-mail also said that not all POIs participate in the open house (as others have mentioned), however, they should be reaching out soon to make alternate arrangements. Apparently not attending doesn't impact how your application will be weighed, so good news! EDIT: School is Ryerson

My POI said in her first e-mail (and in the interview) that the first stage for interviews in her lab is a Skype call, with the open house being a second stage (so sounds like it may be mandatory for her). I'm just confused because she said she'd get back to me in a couple days, and she did, but with the info for her grad students for us to have a second call. Haven't heard since then so don't know what I should do, haha ?

Thanks for letting us know! Do you think our POIs would at least let us know if we do/don’t get invited? I haven’t heard back at all from mine and our interview was last week... wondering if I should follow up.

Hi there! I totally agree with what everyone has said so far re: getting more research experience, going back and doing a Psych-oriented undergrad, as well as racking up your GPA as much as possible. I can't stress enough how important these three pieces are in your application - when applying to Clinical psych, you're entering a pool of applicants who have been aiming towards this goal for YEARS. That means, they have already done an undergrad in Psych (or sometimes even a Master's in another relevant field such as stats), probably have a killer GPA as well as years and years of research experience, publications, etc. It wouldn't be fair to yourself (or your application) if you didn't pull enough time out to adequately address each part. The chances each year get slimmer and slimmer (no exaggeration lol) because the pool gets more competitive. However, I came specifically to comment on this post (and add my two cents) on your reasons for pursuing Clinical. While it is true that you will receive rigorous and gold-standard training in clinical settings, this program is NOT (and I really want to stress the not) geared for individuals who just want to be a clinician. There are many college programs out there that are way more well-suited for people who want to be a clinician - social work, counseling and therapy programs etc. Being honest with you, if you really want to "help" people, this is where your energy is best used. There's a misconception going around that Clinical psych is somehow the only way to practice therapy or interact closely with patients with debilitating mental disorders and that is so not true. Mental health nurses to occupational therapists to social workers etc (you get it) - they are ALL professions that work closely with these populations and they are really the people that "help". PhD programs (especially in the states) are EXTREMELY research-intensive and there's almost a push to produce more academics than people who will work more in the clinical setting. I'm Canadian so our programs are slightly more towards 60% research and 40% clinical practice, but there is again more of an encouragement for people in this program to move towards research/academia then there is the other way around. This is because the level of education along with the intensity of research training you're receiving would be (for lack of better words) "wasted" on someone who wanted to go strictly into clinical practice. In the words of one of my supervisors, "Clinical psych grads are made for academia or they are made to be expert consultants who foresee multiple clinical practices and inform treatment/prevention practices in these settings". Essentially, with the amount of work you're putting in and with the level of expertise you come out with, you are crafted to be a scientist or someone who is making/informing treatment/prevention/intervention practices on a high level. Not saying you wouldn't ever get clinical exposure in either realm, but that exposure might be less than you'd like. Again, I don't mean my post to sound harsh but it just seems like your passion is to really be more involved at the hands-on level with patients, and I just want to stress (alongside my peers here) that there are more fast-tracked ways of doing that than to sign yourself up for what is basically hell for 5+ years LOL. ALSO, I want to finish off with this: if you do decide to apply to Clinical, I would reaaaaaallly stray away from mentioning mental health issues (within either yourself or your family) as motivating factors for pursuing this line of research. I have consulted MANY people on this, from PIs to grad students, and they say that mentioning personal facets like that is a huge turn-off for grad school committees/POIs. Your motivating factor for pursuing Clinical grad studies should be that you love the area of research and you can see yourself building on it, not that you were inspired based on your own experiences. I want to stress that there's nothing wrong with that being one of your motivations, and I'm glad that you had such good experiences with the mental health system that you see yourself in it, but you want to stray away from mentioning this to your supervisors/fellow peers.