psychology_student_

I strongly advise against this, and at my r1 school this practice is highly discouraged.  it is unethical to put unpublished work on a cv.  not saying your work is shite, but one could literally put any kind of crap research they did on their cv as something like "publications in progress". 
Another reason you don't want to do this is b/c you could undermine the peer review process.  chances are youre applying to people who have published similar research you've done in your pre-doc programs.  the blinded review process could be 'un-blinded' if faculty at a uni youre applying to serve as journal reviewers to the journal you have stuff submitted to, they could recognize your "under review" work b/c they might be the ones reviewing it! 
Just explain in detail about your research experiences in your letters and statements, most faculty are not naive about CVs w/ stretched out truths

I had a similiar experience of having a Human Bio w/ concentration in Psych undergrad degree. 3.3ish overall GPA. Just got Master's in gen psych last spring and got into a very good phd program this year first time applying.

It's literally their first FAQ on their website:
"The typical applicant who is competitive has (a) GRE scores over the 50th percentile, (b) a GPA of 3.5 or above for the last 60 hours of the baccalaureate degree, and (c) a graduate GPA of 3.75 (if a previous master's degree has been earned). We look for experience in both research and counseling, and we are committed to training a culturally diverse group of students. Mean GRE score percentiles for students admitted in recent years typically fall between 75-90."

I strongly advise against this, and at my r1 school this practice is highly discouraged.  it is unethical to put unpublished work on a cv.  not saying your work is shite, but one could literally put any kind of crap research they did on their cv as something like "publications in progress". 
Another reason you don't want to do this is b/c you could undermine the peer review process.  chances are youre applying to people who have published similar research you've done in your pre-doc programs.  the blinded review process could be 'un-blinded' if faculty at a uni youre applying to serve as journal reviewers to the journal you have stuff submitted to, they could recognize your "under review" work b/c they might be the ones reviewing it! 
Just explain in detail about your research experiences in your letters and statements, most faculty are not naive about CVs w/ stretched out truths

for simplicity, clinical is concerned w/ "clinical" populations, counseling is more concerned with "normative" or "typically developing" populations. Also, most clinical programs are housed in psychology departments, whereas counseling programs are housed in education departments. It's everything you've already googled, tons of overlap b/w the two, some differences as far as approach, used to be more distinct in the past. Still two different entitites though, major differences just being what they're generally ineterested in researching, who they're interested in researching, and somewhat "how" that research is conducted (qualitative is more counseling, but both do mixed-methods and counseling is for sure very heavily embedded in high level stat stuff like HLM SEM and whatever). My MS advisor also said there are a lot more "bad" clinical programs than there are "bad" counseling programs (which I think he relays to like for profit PsyD kinds of clinical programs).
To make app stand out, for sure try to have really good LORs, that will just help the committees take more interest in learning about you. I'd also say to stand out u should make sure your your supervisors' and advisors' names are clearly included on your CV/resume. If a committee member recognizes one of the names then that will certainly help you stand out from the crowd (this worked for me).
 

My understanding is that different institutions have different titles. People doing the same job in different places may be called an assistant, associate, coordinator, manager, etc. However, there may be a distinction or hierarchy within your institution. For example, I know many people who were "coordinators" post-bacc doing the same type of thing I was doing as an "assistant", but at my institution, research coordinators all held master's degrees. 

The shorter the better! I didn't include my CV but wrote one sentence about my background (completed my MSc... blahblah)
Do ask 1) whether they plan on taking new students, 2) state your interests (and confirm they align with the direction the PI is moving),  3) potentially ask for other recommendations of people to work with if you feel comfortable (they understand you're not gonna apply to one university)

I worked as a neuro-psychometirican tech for about 9 months during my master's and it was a good job with amazing opportunities. I worked at an AMC, which was great because there were lots of research opportunities for me there from all our testing data (didn't do anything research-wise while I was there, but hindsight is 20/20 as I could have been more proactive on that end) and there was a lot of cross-departmental collaboration. One of our neuropsychologists worked a lot with fmri, wada testing, that kind of neuro stuff, so we got to interact with neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists, neurologists, and all the people in their departments, so those were really good experiences. If your position isn't at an AMC or a hospital and just a private practice or a smaller setting, there still can definitely be research opportunities if you get your supervising psychologist on board and take some initiative. If your long term goal is clinical work as a PhD then the psychometrist position is a great route to go for sure.

i suggest using this website to look up accredited programs and doing the research yourself to figure out if they offer funding: https://www.cacrep.org/directory/

co-signing isn't a thing don't do that. you can certainly ask them each for a LOR though

you should apply to many more.  even without knowing your stats, it's more than likely you won't be enrolled in a grad program if you only apply to those 7 schools. all phd psych programs are super competitive and the one's you have are super duper competitive.  if you can afford it, apply to as many as you can (16 is a good number to ensure you get in somewhere).
in applying to more schools, try to diversify your geographic locations. those programs are comeptitive not only b/c of academic admission standards but also they are all on the east coast, everyone and their mom is applying to those east coast schools.

i suggest using this website to look up accredited programs and doing the research yourself to figure out if they offer funding: https://www.cacrep.org/directory/

for simplicity, clinical is concerned w/ "clinical" populations, counseling is more concerned with "normative" or "typically developing" populations. Also, most clinical programs are housed in psychology departments, whereas counseling programs are housed in education departments. It's everything you've already googled, tons of overlap b/w the two, some differences as far as approach, used to be more distinct in the past. Still two different entitites though, major differences just being what they're generally ineterested in researching, who they're interested in researching, and somewhat "how" that research is conducted (qualitative is more counseling, but both do mixed-methods and counseling is for sure very heavily embedded in high level stat stuff like HLM SEM and whatever). My MS advisor also said there are a lot more "bad" clinical programs than there are "bad" counseling programs (which I think he relays to like for profit PsyD kinds of clinical programs).
To make app stand out, for sure try to have really good LORs, that will just help the committees take more interest in learning about you. I'd also say to stand out u should make sure your your supervisors' and advisors' names are clearly included on your CV/resume. If a committee member recognizes one of the names then that will certainly help you stand out from the crowd (this worked for me).
 

my opinion is do it if you want to go to that program

for simplicity, clinical is concerned w/ "clinical" populations, counseling is more concerned with "normative" or "typically developing" populations. Also, most clinical programs are housed in psychology departments, whereas counseling programs are housed in education departments. It's everything you've already googled, tons of overlap b/w the two, some differences as far as approach, used to be more distinct in the past. Still two different entitites though, major differences just being what they're generally ineterested in researching, who they're interested in researching, and somewhat "how" that research is conducted (qualitative is more counseling, but both do mixed-methods and counseling is for sure very heavily embedded in high level stat stuff like HLM SEM and whatever). My MS advisor also said there are a lot more "bad" clinical programs than there are "bad" counseling programs (which I think he relays to like for profit PsyD kinds of clinical programs).
To make app stand out, for sure try to have really good LORs, that will just help the committees take more interest in learning about you. I'd also say to stand out u should make sure your your supervisors' and advisors' names are clearly included on your CV/resume. If a committee member recognizes one of the names then that will certainly help you stand out from the crowd (this worked for me).
 

I worked as a neuro-psychometirican tech for about 9 months during my master's and it was a good job with amazing opportunities. I worked at an AMC, which was great because there were lots of research opportunities for me there from all our testing data (didn't do anything research-wise while I was there, but hindsight is 20/20 as I could have been more proactive on that end) and there was a lot of cross-departmental collaboration. One of our neuropsychologists worked a lot with fmri, wada testing, that kind of neuro stuff, so we got to interact with neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists, neurologists, and all the people in their departments, so those were really good experiences. If your position isn't at an AMC or a hospital and just a private practice or a smaller setting, there still can definitely be research opportunities if you get your supervising psychologist on board and take some initiative. If your long term goal is clinical work as a PhD then the psychometrist position is a great route to go for sure.

I currently have a list of 26 clinical programs but will be narrowing it down to hopefully about 15-20 before applying!

I have 33 schools/59 POIs on my list right now. I know some of them won't end up taking grad students, but I'll probably still be applying to ~20-25 programs!

Yes, dont ask the student for the LOR and just be up front with the LOR about your intentions on applying to graduate school. Make it a concentrated effort to get to know the supervisor/keep them updated on your researc progress so that you establish that rapport with them.

adcomms will see you as someone who thinks that a "low-ranked" university is in the top 40 and that's how they'll deny you. your pretentious attitude aside, any experience is good experience.

My advice is to really seek out stellar people who will write really good LORs.  I did 8 interviews and most of the interviewers made a specific reference about something good that my LORs mentioned on my behalf.

I had found this around last August/late summer and it was very helpful for my applications and planning

adcomms will see you as someone who thinks that a "low-ranked" university is in the top 40 and that's how they'll deny you. your pretentious attitude aside, any experience is good experience.

I wouldn't spend my time applying to economics PhD programs unless you have some significant math experience. I majored in economics during undergrad and saw that those who were successful in applying to econ PhD's typically double majored in math and econ (or at least minored in math), had 3.8+ GPA's, several years of research experience, and 166+ quant scores on their GRE's. The only other way is to have majored in a STEM discipline (math, physics, statistics, etc.) with high grades and equally high quant scores on the GRE. It's essentially an applied math degree when it comes down to it.

adcomms will see you as someone who thinks that a "low-ranked" university is in the top 40 and that's how they'll deny you. your pretentious attitude aside, any experience is good experience.