Psyched21

I would say, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. You can't assume anything until you hear definitively. In past years acceptances have come in well after the cut-off date as people sort out their placements. Good luck!

No doubt you've done this, but just in case not--be sure to check your portals for status updates. I found two notices in those (one rejection and one acceptance) for which I never received a separate email.

I've been able to spice this up with looking for vaccination appointments as well!

University of Houston has been radio silent this entire time--sometimes I wonder if the department even got my application, though it does say "submitted" on the portal. My person of interest ignored my introductory emails, the only one who reacted that way. It was my first choice at the beginning, so the complete lack of response was disappointing.

I've been thinking about this a lot. The funding for graduate study in clinical psychology is so often tied to funding for grants in individual laboratories. So long as that is the system, admit rates will be very low, in accordance with flow of grant money, and based on alignment of interests with grant needs. The APA needs to think long and hard about its requirement that licensing for clinical psychologists flow through these narrowly focused grant-based programs. For example, wouldn't it relieve a lot of pressure if more top universities embraced PsyD programs--with the support of mental health grant funding-- that trained outstanding clinicians, and stopped denigrating them as somehow less worthy than their academically focused counterparts? Imagine a medical school that looks down its nose at those who seek to treat patients, or a law school that turns away those who admit to wanting to represent clients. Yet this is the situation for many applying to psychology programs. So strange. The attempt to combine academia, scientific funding and professional licensing all under one roof has, it seems to me, created a great identity crisis and nearly insurmountable hurdles for most applicants.

I don’t believe that was accurate. I know someone who works at TC and said they were reviewing folders this week. I believe invitations don’t go out until early February. Perhaps the person meant to refer to counseling.

Yes, that would be fine with me. Thanks for checking.

Applying to these graduate programs has been an eye-opening experience. It seems that the training of future psychologists is governed by the narrow needs and interests of a few faculty members, rather than the pressing mental health needs of the communities. So many dedicated people, eager to devote their lives to clinical psychology, are not able to gain access to the profession because entrance is so tightly regulated. If medical school admissions were run this way, there would be almost no physicians. I think the APA should reconsider the academic model for training and licensing of clinical psychologists, for this system fails to serve interests of future practitioners and patients alike.