Marginally Significant

School: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Type of Program: Clinical-Community Acceptance Date: 2/26/2020 POI: CH

I got an e-mail from the POI and told that an official written offer will be sent later.

That's great to hear! Like I said, everything will work out!

Sure! PhD programs typically lean heavily towards research, so revealing that your interest leans more towards practice may be perceived as either a mismatch or bring up concerns about whether the person is fine with committing themselves to research for the next 5+ years. Her advice was to basically go a "white lie" route if practice is a primary interest and say that you're interested in both, but lean towards research. There was one program that actually told us to be honest about our career goals during the interview and encouraged us to not lie that we're 100% into research though, so it's not the case for every university and it's fine to reveal that you are primarily interested in practice if you get the perception that the program/faculty won't hold it against you. But if uncertain, it's typically better to lean more towards the research side. They still value clinical experience as well if you have any, but it's the career/end goal that becomes dicey. That said, I can't say if that's the case for PsyD programs, although I would imagine PsyD programs would be fine with students wanting to pursue a career in practice considering that PsyD programs focus more on practice. It's pretty ridiculous all things considered, but I pretty much see it as something we as the "next generation" of faculty members can stop doing since I feel like that encourages bad mentoring and leading graduate students into the wrong career direction

1) You can definitely get into a PhD (Can't speak for PsyD as much) in clinical psychology programs with a MA outside of clinical psychology. You would not be disadvantaged, and probably advantaged if anything unless you didn't do well in the program (Assuming it's a general/research-oriented one). 3) A Masters definitely helps if it can patch up your weak points as an applicant (e.g., lack of research experience, poor undergraduate GPA, etc). Unless you are applying to a program more clinically oriented, research tends to be valued over clinical experience. If anything, depending on the program/university, expressing interested in a practice-oriented career/lean towards practice can potentially hurt you (Or at least that's what my mentor told me). It's not the only option/route to patch up or strengthen your background, but it definitely does a great job doing so.

From what I noticed, no one had any problems with data analyses with their laptops in the masters program I'm currently attending, so I doubt it'll be an issue to begin with. The only time I recall a laptop having issues with analyses was actually from the professor's laptop for a psychometrics/measurement seminar, but that's because he intentionally tried to create as much variability as possible by not training or explaining anyone in coding a specific behavior to demonstrate issues with reliability. Unfortunately, there was too much variability in responses, and SPSS was not happy. But given that this is a deliberate attempt to tank reliability as much as possible (Which obviously won't happen in an actual study unless your measure(s) are very unreliable, but I'd be more concerned about the measure than your laptop at that point), I'd say that it's pretty safe to assume you don't need to worry about choosing a specific laptop or replacing your laptop.

As a current student in the program, I know that some of the labs have already chosen their incoming graduate students, but I can't say if they actually informed they officially informed the applicant. So I'd say that you'll definitely hear back soon.

Update for Iowa State University: I contacted my POI about a week after the estimated time they gave for announcing admissions, I am informed that I am placed as top choice on the waitlist, but it's too early to provide more information beyond that. A friend I made during interviews also told me that she got a rejection e-mail one day prior, so my guess is that e-mails are sent out to interviewees who they made a definitive decision for their application.

Agreed, and to elaborate further, even subdisciplines within a field have varying views of what is a high impact factor. To use psychology as an example, journals focusing on cultural issues tend to have smaller impact factors compared to broader subfields such as social psychology. Then, you have subfields that can publish in other fields such as biomedical journals or education journals because of overlap, and those outside fields have their own standards for "good" impact factors (Although that can be a good thing if said outside field typically has higher impact factors compared to your field). It's pretty frustrating to not have a nice clear-cut number for a "good" impact factor, but mentors/advisors/faculty closer to your area can generally give you an idea of which journals to submit for publication based on not only impact factor, but other things to consider as well (e.g., the review process, likelihood of getting the manuscript accepted, what reviewers tend to look for in the journal, how long it may take before the journal decides to publish/reject your manuscript, etc). I would say make sure that whoever you're talking to for advice is also aware of your goals for publication (e.g., Are you publishing because you want to get into a PhD program and would like a publication under your belt before you submit your application?) because your goals can also shape which journals you should apply for because sometimes the journal with the higher impact factor may impede on your goal(s) in one way or another (e.g., the likelihood of getting the manuscript published before PhD applications are due is slim, thus applying to the journal may not be a good idea even though it has a greater impact factor).

New Mexico State University just sent an e-mail that I am placed at second alternate choice (Waitlist), so anyone who got an interview should check their e-mail since this was sent by a faculty member coordinating the admissions process and not the POI.

@sassyyetclassy already touched on the multiculturalism point a bit, but I'll go more in-depth about it as someone that applied to both clinical and counseling programs with a focus on multiculturalism in research and practice. While there are clinical faculty members/labs that addresses cultural/diversity issues in their research, the researchers that address these topics are more often in counseling programs because counseling psychology has a longer history of addressing multiculturalism whereas clinical psychology is beginning to take the steps to address it more seriously. You'll also find counseling programs to be more critical in how multiculturalism is defined/addressed in research (e.g., you'll receive more flak if you consider a study with sufficient sample sizes of ethnic minorities as an adequate approach to providing support for culturally adapted/appropriate treatment in counseling programs in comparison to clinical programs that would say that it's sufficient support if there's no group differences in treatment outcomes). It's actually quite interesting because a graduate student asked everyone in one of my interviews why they applied to a counseling psychology program instead of a clinical psychology program, and everyone had a "Ah... Yeah..." response when someone immediately responded with "You know, the typical reason" (And it was clear everyone understood that it was about insufficient focus on multiculturalism in clinical psychology). From a research point of view, both programs are fine, but you're probably going to apply to more programs in counseling psychology than clinical psychology if multicultural research is your topic. Personally, I applied to three counseling programs for every clinical program simply due to better research fit. Deviating from multiculturalism, but other research topics also follow a trend of counseling psychology producing more research on the issue. Although there are mental health stigma researchers in clinical psychology as well, I also noticed that counseling psychology and social work also tends to do research on that topic more often than clinical psychology. I think it ultimately ties back to the history of the two fields and their emphasis when they first started out. While there are obviously individual differences in that it depends on the program fit, I did notice that mental health research questions/topics that does not address psychopathology directly (e.g., stigma, help seeking behavior) are more common among counseling psychology. Conversely, I also noticed less opportunities to work with child/adolescent populations and more opportunities to work with college populations in a counseling program in research and practice (But again, there are individual program differences). My mentor in the masters program I'm in more-or-less said that there's little difference between clinical and counseling psychology in terms of what one field can and cannot do because the lines/boundaries between clinical/counseling/school psychologists have been increasingly blurred for the past few decades, and it's more about program fit and how clinical/counseling psychology programs stack on the areas most important to you. Therefore, her advice is to apply to both clinical and counseling (And school for your case) as long as there's a good program fit. However, one thing you may want to prep if you apply to counseling psychology programs is that they love asking these two questions: 1) Why are you applying to a counseling psychology program as opposed to a clinical psychology program/Do you lean more towards clinical or counseling psychology programs? and 2) How will you/do you support multiculturalism? These two questions (Thematically, not necessarily that exact question) popped up in every interview with a counseling program) popped up in every single counseling psychology interview I had, whereas all of the clinical interviews I had did not ask about counseling psychology and only one clinical program addressed multiculturalism as a program-wide concern during the application process (But this is due to the UC system requiring a diversity statement for any graduate applicant rather than the clinical program specifically asking about it). Therefore, if you are not comfortable with answering how multiculturalism is relevant to you and/or applying to counseling psychology programs for the sake of applying to more doctoral programs, you may be coming into interviews at a disadvantage.

In my previous application cycle, I was waitlisted for one MA program and one PhD program. I was ultimately rejected from the PhD program, although I got into the MA program after an additional interview with my mentor and cleared her concerns about whether I would be happy doing research on child and adolescent populations. Not going to lie, I cried a lot during the day that I got rejected by the PhD program because the POI was someone that heavily influenced my interest in mental health stigma and help seeking research and it hurts knowing how close I was to getting into the program (The amount of times I had Miss Y by Marina and the Diamonds on repeat while doing so is embarrassing in hindsight). However, I found that a good way of coping is to flip it from being rejected to a motivating challenge to prove myself to the POI that I am worth investing time and effort into mentoring when I reapply to the program. I ended up pushing myself as hard as I can in lab because I wanted to pull a Pretty Woman and go "Do you remember me? Big mistake. Big. Huge!" when I meet the POI again (Okay, not literally, but the point is that it's a great motivator to be able to meet the POI again and show how much progress you made since last time. Great daydream fantasy though), and my CV grew a lot from it. Haven't heard back from this POI yet (Although the program is known for being on the slower side on the admissions process, and timing of the e-mail confirming that the graduate office sent the materials to the psychology department confirms that's the case for this year as well), but I did get more interviews this year as a result, so I think it definitely paid off. Regardless if the POI actually offers me an interview again, I'm definitely at a point where I'm grateful for the POI's impact had on me. Long story short, it's fine to cry it out if it turns out you are rejected. The wait is emotionally draining, and it's understandable that it hurts to be that close to getting into a program. However, you can also utilize it as a motivating force to get into a program the next cycle. On the flip side, I wouldn't see it as a zero-chance of getting in. Like I mentioned earlier, I was waitlisted for an MA program, but I got in at the end. It also turns out that was the case for about a third of my cohort, so there's definitely still a chance of getting in.

Something that my PIs told me in lab is that graduate program application pages/status are generally not a good way of determining whether decisions have been made because those sites typically handle all graduate programs and not just the psychology department. In most cases, it doesn't update from "in review" until all graduate programs in the university made their decisions. Therefore, I wouldn't stress about the page saying that it's still under review. Definitely a stressful/awkward situation, but it's not as bad as it seems.

It... may have been inspired by half of my research conference submissions lol Thanks! Luckily (?), my previous round of applications resulted in two waitlisted schools (With the PhD program rejecting me in the end), so I'm more or less desensitized to the waitlisted gloom and focusing on prepping for my other interviews and finishing up my thesis and letting it become a pleasant surprise if it turns out that the slot opens.

Finished the interview this morning, turns out that the POI already offered admission to a student, but extended an interview for shortlist/waitlist options if the person rejects the offer. Based on that, I think offers are already sent out, and any interviews offered at this point would be for alternative options unless the professors are working on interviews at a different pace.