PsychApplicant2

Sheesh, the results page. Assuming that everything that poster said was true about their stats regarding LSU.... I think it’s time to have a conversation around having great stats but a low GPA and ultimately getting rejected. Could be other things too, but... I just feel bad

So much trolling going on in the results page. Another post about MIT - which doesn’t have a clinical program. Some people have way too much time on their hands.

I'm skimming through it now, but he mentions COVID & the GRE updates from 2020.

Updated version of Mitch's Uncensored Advice for Applying to Grad School Just in case anyone finds it helpful.

Oh, wow - don’t know why someone would lie or post information that they weren’t certain about on the results page, then! That’s my mistake. But the MIT thing is definitely fake!

Someone has been posting their ridiculous stats which looked sketchy, but we knew when the same person posted that they got rejected from MIT's Clinical Psychology program. The kicker: MIT doesn't have a clinical psychology PhD program. There was also another poster who claimed they got an interview from a PI, but that PI hadn't send out interview invites yet. I suspect others are fake, but those were the obvious ones.

It’s genuinely disgusting and I hope all of those person’s posts get removed. I really have no words.

Someone said on the results page that they got 1,000 applications and they will send invites at the end of the month

Yup, it’s those posts! The poster has really incredible stats, but I’m wondering if they applied to PI’s outside of their research interests? Also, personal statement + letters of rec carry a lot of weight. I’ve heard the personal statement can make or break... who knows.

I know exactly what posts you’re talking about. It’s really strange. Is the poster trying to brag or just comment on how ridiculously competitive the process is and that even with amazing stats, you can still get rejected?

Uh oh, now the results page looks like it’s getting worse... haha

I saw that too! The mods were fast removing posts like that. I’m sure it’s gonna be crazy for the entire month of January

Oh yeah, I totally agree. It’ll always happen. But the posts when people ask what PI rejected someone make me cringe. Like, come on?

I’m getting kind of annoyed at the clogging up of the results forum from people asking for PI’s... and I think it’s disrespectful to ask someone what PI rejected them. I’m seeing this with the University of Georgia especially. Thoughts?

Someone on the results page said that all stony brook interview invitations have been sent out. I think there were a few people wondering about them!

Another helpful response from the same faculty member on SDN regarding what they consider “competitive”: “I'm sure this varies based on program/lab but here are some general guidelines based on my experience. These are examples for each category, I'm not saying someone needs to have all of the things under "likely" to be competitive, just that those things would stand out in their package and up their odds. Not enough to be competitive in my lab: Undergrad in a lab for a semester or two No conference presentations or manuscripts Only one (or no) letters can speak to research skills/experience Possibly competitive, depends on overall package: Current undergraduate student At least one academic year in at least one lab Conference presentation(s) at a university/regional conference Undergraduate honors thesis or similar (small) independent project Likely to be competitive: Paid research position post-degree and/or research-oriented master's RA/lab manager in multiple labs and has letters from multiple PIs who supervised research National conference presentation(s) Author on peer-reviewed paper(s) (particularly if in my area) Received funding for research (grant/fellowship, not travel award) I do consider things like diversity and access to research activities (i.e., if they came from a SLAC or other school where there is less research) but it's hard to gauge someone's research potential from things like grades so more often than not I am ranking folks with demonstrated research experience (papers, conference presentations) and with strong letters that discuss their research activities above others. Also remember that this is a clinical PhD program at an R1, YMMV.”

I honestly figured that people with less research experience would apply... I don’t think a lot of people realize how competitive these programs are and I have a feeling that a lot of them applied just to apply! I am curious about how many applications this faculty member received for his lab.

Hey everyone! I just saw a post on SDN regarding apps this year from a faculty member. I’m going to copy and paste it here, but Here’s the link to the thread in case anyone’s interested. “Happy holidays everyone! I’m back with some stats now that I have done a first pass on all my 2021 apps. I would say these are semi-final data as I am going to go back over things before I make interview decisions, but I wanted to at least lay eyes on all these apps before taking a break and I thought I'd share this info before the holidays in case anyone was lurking on SDN and looking for something to think about . Some background (hopefully sufficiently de-identified): I am junior faculty in a clinical psych PhD program at an R1 public university. The program has been APA accredited for longer than I have been alive and I think/hope it has a general reputation as being solid. Small cohorts, full funding, and no one hasn’t matched to an APA site in recent memory. We had 1 fewer person accepting apps this year vs last year and given the career stages/academic famousness () of who was and wasn’t accepting apps this year I would have expected a decrease in apps. Overall apps were up around 50% over last year. I keep personal records on apps to my lab, so the stats below are only using those (i.e. not the full program), though I do get a disproportionate percentage of program apps (about twice what you'd expect just given # of apps/n of faculty accepting apps) so this is probably at least somewhat reflective of the pool in general. Comparisons between 2020 and 2021 assume that I am consistent in my ratings across years (which may not be correct given general 2020-ness and the big increase in volume, plus I refine my process each year I do this). Also, I should note a few people are represented in both samples because they applied to me both last year and this year, though may not have been rated the same because of changes on their end (e.g., more experience). We use a rubric to score apps. The range for app rubric scores in typical years is roughly -20 to +30. We included points for GRE scores last year but did not accept GREs this year so I tried to correct for that by adding mean 2020 GRE points to the total 2021 rubric numbers. This is imperfect, but seems better than nothing re: comparing samples and I can’t get into a major deep dive on this right now ?. Providing a few stats that were easy to compile and seemed meaningful, plus an overall indication of the competitiveness of each pool (total rubric scores). 2020 29% with masters 33% with postbac/master’s paid research experience 13% other than non-Hispanic white Undergrad GPA M = 3.7 Rubric points for research experience M = 2.4 Total scores on rubric M = 12.3 (for reference, the M for people I interviewed was 22.3) 2021 30% with masters 18% with postbac/master’s paid research experience 39% other than non-Hispanic white Undergrad GPA M = 3.7 Rubric points for research experience M = 1.9 Total (adjusted with 2020 GRE M) scores on rubric M = 7.9 My takeaways, both from my app review experience and these data, indicate a higher proportion of applicants who identify as something other than non-Hispanic/Latinx white (seems good!) and also those with less research experience (less good!) this year. In fairness, I think I was harder on rating letters than I was last year in an effort to try to separate the rock stars from the generally good apps. This may have depressed total scores a little, but the research experience points and % with post-degree research employment are objective data points that point to a legitimate shift. I did not get a single app that I would classify as "I was a psych major and am now unemployed so I'll try to go to grad school" as we had hypothesized. Rather, I saw more people who were current undergrads and/or master's level clinicians who maybe had some research experience but not enough to be competitive for my lab. I get applicants like this every year, but I think there was more growth in apps from this segment than others. I did also see growth in solid applicants with great research experience, so just more of everything. Not sure if this helps applicants feel any better- I would say that the pool is not saturated entirely with more super qualified apps, but also that it doesn't seem to be all noise either. Interested to hear what people think, and I'm happy to answer questions (within the bounds of maintaining my anonymity and not being too detailed about specific applicants or internal program processes).”

Absolutely email her back. How else would you schedule? Definitely not weird, it's an error on her end. It happens!

Prelim interviews are to get to know your personality. I think you're overthinking this a bit. The formal interview is for research based questions! If you're high up on the PI's list, you will most likely receive a formal interview where the PI will ask questions about your research interests. From what I understand, Prelims give the PI an idea if you'd be a good fit for the lab in terms of personality and such. Don't stress!

Oh, I didn't realize! That's good.

I'm so sorry. Why in the world would they accept applications and fees from applicants before they knew if they could take students or not?

Yeah, this website is being really slow and not showing me my account, or showing updated threads. Glad it's not just me lol!

Kinda wish there was a rule on the results page that posts asking for PI's just automatically get removed. It causes way too much clutter.

I saw some from University of Florida and Case Western.