OhPsych

School: OISE
Program: SCCP
Date of invite: February 1st
Date of interview: February 2nd 
DM for POI: Sure! 

Interview
School: Ryerson
Program: Clinical MA &PhD 
Date of invite: Feb 2nd, 2021
Date of interview: Visiting Day Feb 8th 
DM for POI: Yes 
I'm really surprised I haven't had any contact from my POI this whole season I just got an invite from the department for visiting day! Has this happened to anyone else not having contact with their POI then getting an invite to to interview day? Should I reach out and send a separate email to my POI saying thanks?
Also the visiting day time is the same time as one my interviews at another school and im not really sure what to do ?

School: OISE
Program: Developmental Psychology & Education (DPE)
Interview type: Zoom
Date of Invite: February 2nd

Interview
School: OISE 
Program: CCP 
Date of invite: Feb 1st, 2021
Date of interview: Over next few days 

Interview
School: OISE 
Program: SCCP 
Date of invite: Feb 1st, 2021
Date of interview: Feb 2nd, 2021 
Really not much time to prep but hoping everything will go well nonetheless! ? 

Hey guys, I'm really excited to say that I just received an email invitation for interview day at Ryerson! I was afraid that all the invitations had already been sent out, but I guess not
Feel free to PM for POI initials. 
I haven't yet received any information for a second clinical interview though, but I did interview really late in the process with my POI (late last week) so hopefully I will receive that information soon.
 

Ahhhhh super excited!! 
School: University of Victoria 
Concentration: Clinical Neuropsychology
Type: MSc/PhD
Date of acceptance: informal acceptance - Jan 29, 2020
Notified by: Personal e-mail from POI, said official offer should be received this week! 

HI Everyone
Who else dreads and anticipates Mondays? Here comes another week of watching. At least we get a break on the weekends lol.

An update for folks who have applied to Lakehead's clinical MA program: I spoke with their secretary recently, who said that the department is currently in the process of developing A, B, and C lists (top-tier, second-tier, do not admit). The A and B lists will be distributed to POIs the week of February 8th-12th. Applicants may be contacted with offers around this time (they do not have formal interviews, although your POI may or may not contact you to meet informally). If your proposed supervisor(s) is not able to supervise you, but they think you would be a good fit for the program, they will contact you about other potential supervisors you would be interested in working with. Offers will be sent out in small amounts at a time trickling down these lists until they have between 5-7 accepted offers. I just wanted to let everyone know that offers will likely be made from February until possibly April, so don't panic if people start receiving offers mid-February! Hope that helps give a little bit of clarity. Good luck!!

Hi!  I'm planning on applying to clinical psych programs for the next admission cycle, and I was wondering if any current students (or anyone who has gotten interviews / knows current students etc), has had not-stellar undergraduate grades, but has taken extra courses after finishing and managed to make up for it?
I graduated a couple of years ago but I had a hard time in my undergrad and my grades definitely show it... I have research experience and a couple of publications, and I've been thinking of taking some extra classes online at Athabasca to show that I've improved and to boost my GPA, but I'm worried that even just having such bad grades on my transcript will prevent me from making it through the first screening process. I know some schools say they only look at the last 2 years, but if I have some *really* bad grades, will that taint my whole application, or is it worth trying to take some extra classes? Has anyone had a similar experience? Thanks!

Got an official rejection from the PI I applied to at Queen's, it was such a kind email though I'm literally not even mad :')
 

School: Ryerson University
Program: Clinical Psychology, MA.
Interview type: Visiting Day on Feb 8th, following clinical interview, from program coordinator
Date of Invite: January 29th, 2021
Happy to share POI if you are interested!
 

School: Ryerson University
Program: Clinical Psychology, MA.
Interview type: Visiting Day on Feb 8th from program coordinator
Date of Invite: January 29th, 2021

I still haven't heard from all three schools I applied to, although I'm assuming rejection for two since invites went out weeks ago. I'm holding on to hope for one :/. 

Anyone else still heard nothing from any of your programs? At this point I’m assuming rejection from all of them.. Hoping I’m not alone but also hoping no one else is going through this! 

University of Nebraska Lincoln (clinical psych) might not be done extending interview invites!
I literally just heard from the PI I applied to and I have an interview! The interview is not on their regularly scheduled interview day either, I might add, because they cannot accommodate everyone at that time.
Don't give up hope just yet! It has been a wild year not only for us as applicants, but for those on the admissions end as well.
Good luck everyone!

Hey guys! I just got an invite to interview for UPEI's Psyd program and was wondering if anyone on here goes there/ has interviewed and could dm me? The invite says "you should expect to be asked to demonstrate key competencies that are central to the discipline of clinical psychology, including responding to a short clinical vignette, and to scenarios about quantitative research, qualitative research, and diversity." If anyone has any insight on how to prepare for this id really appreciate it! I'm not sure what id be asked for responding to research scenarios?
Thanks! 

Congrats! I also got an email today with interview! Looking for any helpful info/ tips. 

Got word from Windsor adult, for an interview! Super excited! 

School: Purdue University
Type: Clinical Psychology Ph.D.
Date of invite: 1/26/2021
Type of invite: Email from POI
Interview date(s): 2/15/2021
DM for POI: Yes

Hi All,
This post is a little blunt, but I hope that it is helpful.
I hope to offer a little bit of a unique perspective to the grad school admissions process. We've had a courageous professor that has stepped up and offered some insight, but I have yet to see any comments from current graduate student from an R1 university. To give you a little bit of a background of where I came from, I came from a disadvantaged background, and almost didn't make it through high school - I flunked out of calculus. Right now is a super anxiety provoking time of your lives during the admissions process even without COVID-19. Throughout this post, I am going to focus on what you may not all be considering and what is out of your control.
The first thing that is not getting enough attention is the virus. This caused a huge increase in the number of applications and a decrease in available funds. This means that a) the already small number of graduate student lines at my university decreased by a lot, and b) there were more competitive applicants than ever before. This application cycle is incredibly unusual and should not be considered to be normative. You all were extraordinarily unlucky applying this year.
Second, although there are structural limitations (e.g., GRE) that can prevent quality minority applicants from receiving interviews at top-tier R1 universities, I come from a university with grad students and faculty that are diverse and that have ongoing diversity initiatives to recruit diverse grad students and faculty. Because we have these initiatives, we recruit top quality diverse candidates. These students come from a different universities including R1 and even R3 universities. Regardless of their sexual orientation, race, or socioeconomic background, these applicants come in with several (sometimes first authored) publications, presented at several peer reviewed conferences, won several research grants, AND are excellent clinically.  Indeed, the most diverse graduate students in my department are often the ones with the best credentials. Further, a PI is not going to work with you unless you have those research "chops" that we like to talk about so much.
Third, if the numbers alone don't convince you, this is a competitive field. Many individuals want to be clinical psychologist, and let me tell you - it really is some of the most gratifying work I've done. This includes the research, grant writing, computer coding, course load, assessments, and therapy hours. But a lot of people want to do the work. This means you have to establish yourself as a competitive applicant, and I will tell you from several conversations that I have had with several who aspire to be clinical psychologist, many are not.
So here is my unsolicited advice for getting into graduate school and becoming what I believe is a competitive applicant in two pretty difficult steps. This first one is the most important: find a competent clinical psychological scientist that takes an interest in you as a person - this needs to happen. If it happens correctly, this person will advocate on your behalf that you are indeed a good person to work with to the potential PI of your dreams. Second, to be a really competitive applicant, you need to have observable skills, if I may be blunt: many faculty don't care about your GPA as much as this forum suggests. This means you need to publish (maybe even a few times), go to a number of conferences (to meet the PI of your dreams), and maybe even learn how to code and conduct some basic statistical analyses (time to start learning R). For some, this may mean getting a masters degree (many in my program have), for others, this will mean getting a post-bac position conducting good research with a quality PI. Many graduate students have to apply multiple cycles to get into graduate school because they do not know these things.
Finally, I do want to mention that there is always room for improvement and change in the system - we want and need more diverse representation in academia. As has already been stated, advocate for more funding to higher education and bug your state legislatures. Right now though, finding a high quality mentor and developing some observable skills as well as respecting some of the things that may be outside of your control may be the best option forward. Nevertheless, I wish you all the best of luck moving forward and hope you get in to the school of your dreams.
 

So I got rejected from the one program I applied to. I feel like I could write a book about why I decided to do that (lol). My research interests are pretty specific/behavior analysis programs seemed to fit/there aren't many people that research what I want to research/whatever. But I did it and I felt good about it. But ultimately I got rejected and the PI suggested I pursue a masters first (in the end she chose a someone with a masters over me IT MAKES SENSE). This is my third cycle and honestly at this point I guess getting a masters is my only choice if I really want to pursue this/a phd and I have to be honest I'm really not happy about that. I understand all of it but I am so not happy. 

And yes, a lot of school leave you on read (?) until about April when they send you an official rejection e-mail/letter. If this application process were a person, I would not want to be dating them haha

School: University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign (UIUC)
Type: Counseling Psychology PhD
Date of invite: 1/25/2021
Type of invite: Email from POI
Interview date(s): 2/15
DM for POI: Yes

On the note of competitiveness, diversity, and disadvantages - have any of you who have interviewed noticed just how many white applicants and white grad students there are in the labs you're applying to? I know whiteness doesn't = inherent advantages 100% of the time, but it feels very weird to me the faculty, current grad, and applicant racial and diversity background that still seems homogenous..