Psyche007

This seemed useful and appropriate: https://psychology.unl.edu/psichi/Graduate_School_Application_Kisses_of_Death.pdf

What experience do you have working in the field? Have you experienced any ‘helping professions’? Which demographic do you want to work with? Do you want to focus on psychotherapy, as dancedementia said, or are you interested in testing? When you look at mental health/substance abuse/clinical psychology, what questions do you have that there aren’t answers to? In general terms, a clinical psychology PhD wants to work towards answering a research question as well as clinical work; a PsyD wants to focus on clinical work, which can include psychotherapy and both administering and interpreting assessments and tests; and a Master’s level clinician (LMHC, LCSW, LMFT) can fulfill a variety of roles while their clinical focus is typically therapy. Any of those licenses can qualify you for a leadership role in an organization or allow you to start your own practice. If you can’t answer any of those questions confidently, you might want to consider part-time work in a research lab and a community mental health setting because you’ll work out pretty quickly which aspects you enjoy. For mental health experience, at the Bachelor’s level some options are: If you want to work with special needs children, you may want to look into Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), which is a growing field. There is some discussion as to its efficacy, but it is regulated. You can undergo the training quickly to become a Registered Behavioral Technician and start working quickly with minimal investment. You can continue to work and grow, eventually obtaining a masters or doctoral degree in psychology or counseling. If you want to work with chronic mental illness, psychosis, suicidal ideation, you can work as a behavioral technician (different from ABA) in a locked unit. It’s a hard job but rewarding. You certainly are exposed to a wide variety of patients. You could also work as a case manager or discharge planner. Case management can be extremely demanding and burnout is high. You can work as an intake coordinator for a variety of institutions, private and non-profit. You can work as a substance abuse counselor, depending on organization and state regulation. You can work in Prevention, educating communities on avoiding issues with substance abuse and mental illness. There is a lot you can do, but to progress you will need further education and licensure. It’s just a great way to experience the reality of the work. I’ve met many people who were in love with the idea of providing therapy and then found it emotionally draining or enraptured with working with children until the met the parents.

My two penneth. TL;DR: Real-world experience + academic knowledge = displays passion for solving real problems for real people. It's hard to convince people you want to make a difference with words alone. Look critically at the state of the field. Our writing sample asked us what the field of clinical psychology would look like in ten years. A gap year working in the field and getting more research experience can help mature you as an applicant. Know your potential niche. If you're not reading much about your specialty in your spare time, are you really that interested? For PhD: establish a connection with potential mentors early. They need to feel certain there is a benefit to mentoring you, both academically and personally. For PsyD: develop better responses than "I've always wanted to help people" and "I want to work with kids who've had trauma". I must have heard that answer twenty times. I offer the following colour about my experience for insight potential only. I have two individual Bachelor of Science degrees in Applied Psychology (4.0) and Health Studies (Physician Assistant track, 3.87) from a small private university. My research experience is limited to a single directed study as an undergraduate, although I have worked on other directed studies such as technical writing. I have worked in mental health and substance abuse for 8 or so years in various roles, most recently as a counselor in a medication-assisted treatment facility for opioid use disorder. I'm 42. My GRE scores were very good; I could have improved the quantitative score but decided to stick with my first result from when I took it 3 years ago (I was considering applying to PA school). I applied late in the cycle as my on my references was sick. My first recommendation letter was from a PsyD I've known for 10 years. She taught me at undergrad, gave me an internship, employed me for 3 years, and has been a personal friend ever since. The second was from a PsyD who graduated from Nova. I her met when she joined me as a post-doc working for the first reference. The third was from a microbiology PhD who taught me the majority of my biological science classes during the PA track. I had never applied before. I applied to a single programme this cycle and was accepted. I have a family and am tied to the area. Given all this, it's hard to say what anyone else needs to do for acceptance. I applied for a PhD programme with secondary consideration for PsyD. I suspect, but I cannot be certain, that they treated me as a straight-up PsyD applicant on interview day. My personal interview was not with a PhD mentor. This error was identified about 5 minutes in. We stopped and the interviewer made a phone call to the academic affairs director. I met with her and she asked me who I was interested in working with. She introduced me to the POI during the lunch break and we spent the entire time talking while he had lunch. We connected over research interests such as treatment efficacy and my experience working in opioid use disorder. He asked me to come and see him after the day was over. We talked further and he expressed interest in having me join his team and told me he'd review my file. Nine days later he sent me an informal offer, with the formal offer following the next day. The interview day itself was a lot of fun. I was extremely over-prepared, but that came from a considerable amount of personal reading and prior work experience. I have two major topics of research interest with identifiable basic and applied research goals that I could articulate easily. I am comfortable stating that my real-world experience lent me a good deal of confidence and allowed me to relax and be myself. It also encouraged me to take control of the day whenever I could, because if I had sat back, I'm certain I would be facing rejection. That's my experience.

School: Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Type: Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Date of acceptance: Informal Offer 2/27/2019 (POI email), formal offer & acceptance 2/28/2019 (Academic Affairs Director email).

My scores were certainly competitive, but I’m also 42 with about 8 years of professional experience in mental health/substance abuse. I have 2 BS and no Master’s. I had never applied to a PhD programme before and I applied to a single programme this cycle. In my opinion, the single most important element of the interview day was how I spent my unstructured time. My individual interview was given to a faculty member I had not expressed interest in working with, who identified this immediately and sent me to the academic affairs director. She introduced me to the primary faculty member I expressed interest in working with. I spent my entire lunch break speaking with him and was invited to speak with him again after the day had ended. This ended with him stating he was interested in having me join his team and would review my file. A week or so later, I got the informal offer. — TL;DR: Establishing a connection with potential faculty advisors seems to be paramount, fostered via real passion, direction, and general domain knowledge. These people need to feel confident there is real benefit to mentoring you, academically and personally.

Formal offer from NSU, Clinical Psych PhD. I accepted. It was the only school I applied to.

-deleted- Wrong forum.

I received an email yesterday from my POI (established during interview day) with an informal offer. Got the formal offer today and accepted. I didn't apply to any other schools.

School: Nova Southeastern University Type: Clinical Psychology PhD Date of Invite: 01/28/2019 Type of Invite: Mass email Interview Date(s): Monday, February 18th 2019, 8.30 AM to 4.00 PM. Faculty individual, faculty group, and student interviews. No POI.