JakiraJakira

I was in the same boat but found out recently that I got a 12k fellowship for the first year. I also found an hourly position on campus that pays well enough to afford to live. I have applied for 10 GAships so far (been rejected from 4, no response from the other 6 yet but they all were completed in the last week). This means that my Out of state tuition will be around 12-14k for the first year. I would have likely accepted the offer without the fellowship though because I only received one other offer of admission and that one was guaranteed no funding (did not get allocated a GA for the first year). Indiana University has been super helpful and helped me find the 10 GAships I applied for (and even the hourly position) and historically only 1 student in the last 3 years has gone unfunded their first year (and they were a veteran with GI Bill tuition). I figured that if I had to take out some graduate loans for the first year in order to apply to my dream program it would be worth it. Admissions was super stressful for me this cycle and I don't know how my chances would change much next year considering most of my dream programs do not promise funding but only have a good track record of finding it (for the first year). If you still have time (2 days) I would see about reaching out to current students to inquire about the likelihood of you finding funding for at least 4 years in the program. I also have some considerable debt from undergrad and can only reasonably take out another 20-30k worth of loans. I know people have discouraged others from taking unfunded PhD offers but, in our field, especially in this cycle it is hard for most applicants to get into fully funded programs. Only 10-15 of the 60+ PhD programs in our field guarantee funding. What if the PIs at those universities do not share our research or career interests or what if only 2-3 of them have faculty we would want to work with (and we don't get in) ? Please don't feel bad about taking an unfunded or not guaranteed funding offer (as I am sure others are in similar situations)

I wish I could relate but I wanted to offer you advice if you wanted to look into the School Psychology route. If you are wanting to work with children and adolescents (up to age 22 since that's when students can no longer be enrolled in high school) it may be a good route for you to go into. If you want to work within schools (as part of an interdisciplinary team) getting an EdS degree in School Psychology would be a great option. If you want a flexible degree that would allow you to work as a clinician outside schools, work as in a leadership position within schools, or work in academia a PhD in School Psychology would be ideal. I got interviews at 8/9 schools this cycle and two offers and I am coming straight from undergrad. I have 2 years of undergrad research experience and 4 years combined leadership and education experience (spread across jobs, practicum and student teaching). You would definitely be competitive with your work and research experience if you were to apply to one. You would likely be competitive for the funded programs as well. Many School Psychology programs have faculty whose research interests are very similar to faculty in Clinical Child programs. Let me know if you have any questions! I could probably connect you to people who know more about the opportunities if you applied for a school psychology PhD. The School Psychology sub on Reddit would also be a good place to ask!

Yes, they are much easier to get into. Depending on the university they can be taken seriously but if you want to practice with clients (and be a health service psychologist) I would recommend not attending. If you have an interest in working with children you could always try School Psychology next year. Quite a few programs offer specializations in mental health disorders, clinical practices and school mental health facilitation (I should know since I am attending one next year!)

Does your partner want to work with kids or conduct research on subjects involving kids? School Psychology is the only applied field that you mentioned and would be beneficial if your partner wants to conduct field-based research working with students. Depending on the program you could also dip into more developmental or educational psych topics (depending on program philosophies or faculty research interests). Educational Psychology is almost exclusively research oriented and leads to careers working in educational research. Think working for ETS or Pearson. You could also work as a faculty member but the field is very technology and learning science oriented and would not align well with peer-to-peer interaction research. I do not have as much experience with Developmental Psychology but from what I have heard it is just as research oriented as Educational Psychology. Due to the vast differences in what you could do with the different subfield degrees I would highly suggest that your partner apply to either School Psychology (by itself) or a combination of educational and developmental psychology programs. Here are some graphs from a report APA did in 2016 regarding admission statistics broken down by subfield. Applications have only gone up in the last 5 years so the percent of applicants admitted will likely be less next year. Best of luck to your partner!

I finally was able to accept an offer! I'll be attending Indiana University! I found out yesterday afternoon that I was awarded an Adolescent Mental Health Fellowship from the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology. Along with an hourly position I was offered working at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community I now have full funding for next year! It feels late in the process but I am so glad things worked out and I am able to attend my top choice. I wish everyone here the best of luck in securing funding, receiving acceptances off of the waitlist and enjoying the remaining time they have before we start in the Fall! Thank you so much to everyone that has given me advice on the forums here or via chat. This community has been so helpful in navigating through this cycle. This cycle may have been the most competitive one in history but I know so many of us have made it through to the other side! If anyone else has accepted an offer from Indiana University either for their PhD program like me or their EdS program I'd love to connect!

While I personally would rather any person entering School Psychology to actually want to work with school populations (since it deprives spots from people who do) many School Psychology programs have faculty working in Clinical Childlike research areas. Some schools like Ball State and Lehigh rarely pump out school practitioners = and rather pump out clinicians that end up at Children's hospitals or other private practice settings. It is so much less competitive than both Clinical and Counseling Psychology. Just make sure you apply to faculty or programs with a more clinical research or training focus and you should be golden. Many of the programs I applied to often accept a few students every year who would like to work outside of schools (but certain schools discourage people viewing the field as a clinical backup). If they sense that you are viewing them as a backup (rather than fit truly being there) it will likely not help your chances. Acceptance rates are around 10-25% among top School Psychology PhD programs (it was even worse this year) which is higher than Clinical/Counseling but not a walk in the park easy. Best of luck everyone applying next cycle!

Please also post this on the School Psychology sub on Reddit. A lot of people there are considering Columbia and while others (including myself) have said that public universities in the area would be much better many are still waiting. The perspective of a current student may help them make the decision to stay far away.

Yep! It seems that timelines are wacked out in a ton of spots.

I was nominated for a couple of fellowships as well. The sad thing about fellowships is that because of how competitive they are it's hard to say how likely you are to receive it. I was told I was nominated in early February and all I know is that I should hear back before April 15th. While I hope I get one I understand that since it is decided at the university level my POI does not have a big say in whether or not i'll get it.

It seems a lot of programs in school psychology don’t include the funding in the offer of acceptance. Instead they forward you opportunities and help you apply for them. It’s really weird that they said you could only apply for them if you accepted their offer.

That seems really weird. Like do you mean apply for one? Because if they aren’t guaranteeing you funding and you accept you might screw yourself out of other opportunities (assuming you got other offers) if you don’t get that funding.

Yeah! I see you are from the UK. Public transit is so much worse in the US so outside of our biggest cities it is very difficult to live and work close together. My home town of 40k people was barely accessible by public transit (and even then it was spotty). If I wanted a job I had to commute with a car. It’s a barrier that many in the US have to getting jobs, going to college etc. I would say most people have cars in the US where I am from. Less so in places like New York or Los Angeles.

Hmm. I would try to find one in the general vicinity of the IU Bus routes. I have a car and would need parking for me and my fiance since he will be commuting to IUPUI for MSW classes a few times a week. I mainly looked at places farther away since they have better pricing for what we were looking for so I don't have any general recommendations for places. I would reach out to your program about grad housing boards where you could find a roommate. Those would be the most affordable on your stipend and you could probably find something affordable near campus or a bus route. For example, the Sassafras Hill community has 2-bedroom apartments on the IU bus route and rent is around 700$. You could split that evenly and with electricity, water and other utilities only spend around >500$ a month on rent.

I am! I have been looking on rent.com and found several good apartment complexes in the general area of Bloomington.

Thank you so much Schoolzy! I appreciate all the positive vibes and support you have given me on here! I don't think I will choose not to go somewhere. I am not sure waiting a year would be the best for me since I am confident IU is the best fit for me program wise. Plus, we have great loan forgiveness options and with the hourly position I wouldn't have to take out a backbreaking amount of loans to attend. This forum has been so helpful for me and helped me vent about the whole application process. Thank you to everyone on the forum for being so helpful and engaging regarding this year's application cycle.

Not currently. The director said that she only had the funding to hire an hourly assistant but that they have several grants "in the pipeline" that if are awarded would be enough to turn my position into an offical graduate assistantship and provide tuition remission. One of the current students in the PhD program has a full assistantship at the center so I think it is more related to the funding they have currently. That's the only reason I haven't fully committed yet. I still have a month to get more information.

Thanks, Schoolzy! I still haven't heard back yet about the funding opportunities I applied for but I did receive an offer from a center on campus to work as an hourly research assistant with the potential to get it upgraded to a RA if one of the several grants they applied for is awarded. The hourly wage would be plenty for me to live off of and halves the amount of loans I would have to take out my first year if I can't find full funding.

Congrats! IU has an amazing program and I will most certainly be accepting my offer in the next week or so. I visited Bloomington yesterday to look at apartments and it is so much more affordable than where I currently live haha.

Congrats! I did my undergrad at Miami University and they have a great Clinical program.

You're welcome! Happy to help.

I also have a research interest in promoting social-emotional well-being. These are the programs I am aware of that have faculty members researching in areas similar to yours. I'll note faculty where I remember but I am mostly glancing at my list from last summer when I was making my short list of programs to apply to. If a program is here I know at least 1 professor has research interest related to Social-emotional wellbeing. UMass-Boston: Dr. Bender and Dr. Daniels U of Arizona: Dr. Yoon UC-Riverside: UC-Berkley U of Northern Colorado: Dr. Bardos (he also has a disability focus on his research) UW-Madison U of South Florida Northern Illinois University Loyola U Chicago Ball State University of Mass-Amherst U of Maryland College Park Michigan State U of Minnesota U of Buffalo U of Nebraska Lincoln Kent State U of Utah There might be more but this is just what I had on my list!

As much as I probably would hate Florida too (I can't tolerate the heat) I think that research match is probably more important than location. Obviously if by location you mean a lack of practicum sites that would match your career goals than it would hurt more but you probably will be so busy the location won't matter as much. Especially if you want to go into academia, I would choose Florida. I know that UF has a much better reputation for producing faculty members and has a very highly ranked program. The fact that it is both NASP and APA accredited it also very important. Especially if you have to take a job at a specialist program before getting a job at a Eds/Phd program.

I agree so much with Schoolzy. One of the programs I got accepted to (Indiana University) I added to my list at the last minute because a program I had previously had announced they likely were only accepting a few students (half of what they normally do) and I did not want to take a risk. Indiana was like #6-7 on my list after 2 safety/in-state schools (Kent and UC). The more about the program I read and then my experiences on interview day were just so welcoming and helpful. I feel like I truly belong there and am glad I added them to my list. Two of the three other schools (Buffalo and Ohio State) I got accepted or waitlisted at were my initial #2-3 spots. One of them (OSU) I had a really awkward interview and student social experience with (I just felt the faculty were super distant and so busy) students even said they had to work hard to get faculty to meet with them to work on things. Not to mention my POI has not been very good about communicating with me this entire cycle and seems way to busy to give me solid information. The other one (Buffalo) I realized was much less of a fit than I had previously thought and since it is only APA and not NASP accredited I was worried about the experiences with schools that I would be provided in the program (I want to work in School Mental Health) I don't think last October I would have been able to tell you that I would be this excited about Indiana since I initially was not sold on going there. I intially was worried about living there as a member of the LGBTQ community. But honestly it really has changed that much. Don't base your decision on what you felt a month or even 3-4 months ago because the more information we get about a program, a POI, funding, etc. the more things change. Best of luck on making your decision.

I've thought about it but since I applied with my fiancé and he got into MSW programs at the same universities I did it makes the most sense for me to take out a year of loans since the programs could find me funding by year 2 if I cant find it this year. Once he finishes his program, he plans on paying for all the expenses we have with his salary to offset some the costs of the PhD. I don't anticipate taking out more than 30k for my entire 4 years. I know people have said that we shouldn't pay for a PhD but honestly it might be a reality in our field to have to pay a little. Plus I already have some undergrad loans and if I continue paying towards the PSLF program all my debt will be forgiven meaning the 30k won't effect anything not even my minimum payment since you can qualify with an income restricted payment plan (obviously after the phd)

"Yeah, I'm waiting to hear from a couple now too. UNLV and Winthrop most notably. I'm just anxious because I need to start getting the wheels in motion to relocate." Same! Alot of the more "graduate" friendly places that aren't shared living (you could probably find roommates) in college town/areas go fast starting in January. I understand programs taking their time but it is still a tad bit inconvenient. My current problem is not knowing who will offer me funding (granted I'd probably go to my #1 if I don't get funding anywhere) and not wanting to commit until I know...