Hi everyone,
I'm in desperate need of advice and would appreciate any feedback anyone would be able to provide.
I'm currently a first year student at a Clinical Psych PhD program that does not feel like a good fit and I'm interested in applying again in December. The program is a lot more clinically oriented than I had initially thought and I am very interested in research. Students are not matched with a mentor until after starting classes and I was matched with a mentor that doesn't really seem interested in helping students get experience in research (working in lab, publications, etc..). The program also isn't fully funded so I'd be looking at about ~200k of debt after graduating, which just doesn't seem worth it to me right now. When I was interviewing for the school, I was told that if research was something I was interested in that I'd be able to put in the extra effort to get the experience I felt I needed, but that's not really looking like the case.
I can try switching mentors next year, but many other students from my cohort are also interested in switching over to the main lab I'd be looking to switch into, meaning there's no guarantee that it'll be a successful switch. I don't want to waste another year (and about 25k in loans) to see if it'll work out.
With all of this said, I'm really leaning towards applying to different programs in December, I'm just not sure how to go about it and I wonder about the following:
1) Would it be best for me to finish the semester or even the year? I'd really like to avoid taking out more loans for next semester since I'm aware that you can't really transfer over credits to other programs, I just don't know which would look better on an application. If I leave now, I can still get a partial refund, but would that look terrible on an application?
My GRE scores aren't very great (155 for verbal and quant), so would completing the semester compensate for that at all?
2) I've read on other posts that a letter from the DCT can go a long way, but I'm not sure how to talk to my DCT about this and if they'd even be willing to provide a letter since I don't think they'd be supporting my decision. Is this something that'll severely impact my application?
3) Has anyone else gone through this? If so, can you share your experience?
Thanks!