PsychProf

In my current department and where I trained people sometimes (rarely) get sent from clinical to experimental if they do not seem to be able to meet clinical expectations but I've never seen it happen the other way. I also think it's important to think about not just career interests but also job markets. I personally didn't want to do therapy and knew I wanted to be in academia but wanted the clinical degree to have flexibility because the academic job market is so tough. It's much harder to get an academic job as a social psychologist or health psychologist based on my (limited) observation, whereas clinical psychologists can work in traditional universities but also academic medical centers, VAs, etc. where they have some combination of training/research/clinical activities. Most of the people I know who got PhDs in experimental or social psych work in industry doing things like marketing stats or helping develop instruments for test publishers (which might be of interest to you, but is not clinically-relevant research). In my state you also need to be licensed to supervise graduate students clinically, so if you ever want PhD students you'd likely be limited to a non-clinical program in some states. On the plus side, I know folks with experimental psych training who do work in clinically relevant research and just have to employ clinical folks on their team. So it's possible if you want to be in an environment like an AMC with a lot of soft money and big research groups, but that lifestyle isn't for everyone.

Not everyone does preliminary interviews and the number is pretty variable. I personally interviewed fewer than a dozen in my preliminary interviews for a single slot. We usually shoot for about 4 applicants per slot to official interviews (so usually 4 applicants per mentor but if a mentor wants to take more than one in a year then they may invite more).

Mine is a mix. Some people have 3-4 applicants on a personal waitlist and will exhaust that if necessary. Some people only want to offer to one of their interviewees so if that person does not accept the slot opens up and another faculty member can have it (possibly taking 2 students if they've already extended another offer). It's definitely going to be school-specific. We tend to favor junior people and folks who have grant-funded slots to fill but it's really not a big fight and most people take a student most years.

I would say two weeks after the last interview date is enough time for them to have decided on initial offers. I'm interested to hear what kind of notification timelines folks have been given, though, because some schools may have longer processes or more red tape.

For folks stressing about whether to reach out post-interview- As a faculty member, I usually appreciate knowing who is still interested and eager to hear from us! Sometimes folks who we waitlisted are actually planning to accept elsewhere and don't necessarily notify us, so I actually think it has the potential to benefit you if you indicate that you are very interested and are hoping to hear positive news. Obviously give them until a little bit past when they said they might notify you, but don't worry about seeming TOO interested in a program. If it's going to be a no it will be a no, but if it's between you and someone who hasn't reached out for the next offer, then knowing that you are definitely interested could help! If there's an admissions coordinator you can ask them, or else your potential PI.

Hi all, I'm a faculty member in a clinical psych program and we're doing virtual interviews this month (just going to keep it vague ?). I'd be interested in hearing from applicants who have already done some interviews during this unusual season. What worked well? What didn't? What platforms are programs using and how did you like them? What do you wish there was more or less of? Did you have mostly one-on-one interactions or other stuff? Some of what we're planning is likely set in stone by now, but I'm still interested to learn from people's experience. For all we know, this won't be the last year we do this!

It’s not to be sadistic, I promise! We reject people we feel sure we won’t admit early-ish (Jan) but hold on to apps for 50ish more people than we invite to interview just in case we decide to go back into our pool and interview more. I don’t know if everyone does it this way, though. The waitlist folks aren’t notified of their status and may not get a form letter rejection until we complete our class (March-April).

I totally get the frustration and I’m sorry that’s been your experience. Just for the record- app fees don’t go directly to programs, at least at my university. They may go indirectly to programs via general grad school funding, but it’s not like we get them right into our budget. Believe me, I wish the fact that clinical gets like 7x as many apps as experimental in my dept made a difference in our within-dept resources...

A couple of people made similar comments so I'm going to do a general reply- I am trying to be sensitive to folks having different opportunities but also there are minimum requirements for at least some types of programs (like mine). If you want to serve people as a clinician you should strongly consider master's degrees. Many of the clinicians in my city are LCSWs or LPCs. This is a shorter and less competitive route, and you will be able to meet the mental health needs that we all know are out there. Clinical psych admissions processes absolutely do limit who becomes clinical psychologists, but many clinical psychologists go into research and admin positions. If you want to be a clinician there are many other options. I think this is probably going to come across as ruder than I mean, but this is not an easy path. If it was easy, many more people would have PhDs in clinical psychology. I switched majors and found a lab at my R1 undergrad that wasn't in my exact interest area (not clinical psych) but it was experience, and with my other credentials I was admitted to an R1 Phd program in clinical psych. Now this wasn't in 2020-21, but it wasn't in 1980 either. I did work during undergrad but it was more to support my lifestyle than my actual life so I don't claim to have that experience, but my students now do sometimes work nearly full-time on top of being in a lab as a volunteer and other things. They also sometimes start at a CC and transfer and are trying to catch up by joining a lab ASAP. It's not easy, but it's what's required if you want to go down this path. I also said this before but I'll say it again because I'm not sure people noted it- you do not need years of RA experience and tons of publications to get admitted. You need some, but the bar is not that unrealistically high at many places. At some top schools and some top labs, yes, but at other places a couple of conference presentations might be perfectly fine if other things fit well. I'm also a little unfamiliar with the concept of an R1 as out of reach for folks for personal (not academic) reasons. I know all education is getting expensive everywhere, but every state has a state university system and in-state tuition. I actually think of R1s as equalizers because it's not like you have to go to Harvard to get ahead. U of Illinois or U of Montana should be perfectly fine because there will be researchers on faculty there, and it seems like a better investment of loans or whatever you have to go to UW-Madison than UW-Parkside if you have aspirations beyond college in higher ed. And for folks who don't or can't meet the typical standards- hope is not lost. I did go to grad school right out of undergrad but then I twiddled my thumbs a little while there, stayed longer than I could have, went to a clinical internship that was not a great fit, and postdoc-ed for years before my TT position. If I had done everything right I could have had an easier time on the TT job market than I did. I got where I wanted to be, but I had to do it in a more roundabout way than I would advise. It's possible.

Yeah, I do get that. Unfortunately, I don't know how I would measure someone's research fit and aptitude without them having experience. I do count things like honors theses as positive, but I have wondered about the plight of folks from SLACs or non-R1 universities where the faculty aren't as research-active. This is also a diversity concern re: HBCUs where there is usually less research activity. My partner and I just happened to both go to R1 undergrads because of our interests in the overall experience (I changed my major to psych, so it wasn't like I had a long-term plan) and both continued our education immediately after. I would encourage my kids and any other kids to aim for an R1 if they think they might want to continue their education. There's just so many more opportunities. If you want to be a K12 teacher, work in marketing, be an accountant then I think you can get a bachelor's degree in a lot of places. But if you're going to need to use the undergrad time to gain experience for the next level, you're hindering yourself by going to most small or not research-focused schools. I think it's pretty challenging to get a paid RA position right now with COVID, and maybe it always is in some places (e.g., Mass General), but my experience hiring RAs at my postdoc at a med school in a big but not coastal city was that we got a lot of brand new college grads with backgrounds in psych or something similar and it really wasn't that competitive (and only paid like 25k, to be fair). I encourage folks to look for postings all over the country for these positions because although you might have trouble at the most reputable hospitals and med schools, there are people with grants in Arkansas, Utah, and Georgia, too. (no shade on those states, just not NY/New England or CA). It is true that geographic flexibility is important with something this competitive and I know that can be hard for some applicants depending on their family situation, but I'm not sure what to do about that.

I'm a faculty member in a clinical PhD program and I appreciate that applicants have worked hard to get their information together and are motivated to join the field, but there are a couple of common problems: 1) lack of $$- petition your state legislatures and such to fund higher ed better. Even if we wanted to take 10 students in a year we wouldn't be able to pay them all tuition remissions/stipends and we don't have enough faculty to supervise them all without a revolt (PhD students do take a lot of work). If we had 15 faculty and funding for 10-15 students/year that would be a different story. 2) the nature of a clinical PhD program- somewhat related to the above, students need a lot of hands-on time and attention in both research and other training. Supervisors don't want to have 12 students on their practicum caseloads in a semester (we usually have 5-7), the people teaching you advanced techniques in therapy or assessment don't want 20-person classes, etc. because it's a lot of work and it's not pedagogically sound. These aren't lecture classes for undergraduates that can be scaled from 80 to 100 students with little difference. Again, if we had more faculty, responsibilities would spread out, but simply adding some student funding to the budget doesn't offset these issues. It's intensive training. 3) applicants not understanding what it takes to be competitive. I reviewed dozens of apps for my lab this year and many were people who had decent (3.4+) GPAs and interesting personal statements. Many were from diverse or nontraditional backgrounds and could contribute to the field because of that. BUT, my program is an S-P clinical psych program and I am looking for people with research experience and with interests very close to mine so I can collaborate with them on research for 5 years. You may not think that is the correct way to run the system, but it's how the system is for R1 faculty who are not exclusively trying to train clinicians. I ended up making decisions based heavily on research experience/interests with some acknowledgement of diversity and inclusion issues. Everybody doesn't need to have 3 publications or years of RA experience, but doing a poster on campus one time (or not even that) just doesn't provide evidence that you have the chops to do the research component of your work in a PhD program. If you don't have that experience or don't want to get it then you should consider PsyDs or master's programs. That last point can be made across the board- clinical PhD programs have always been very competitive (dozens or hundreds of apps per spot) and it may be worse this year (my program's apps increased by 50%) but not all of those added apps were competitive for a clinical psych PhD program. Folks should make sure they are being geographically flexible, considering counseling or school psych PhDs if those might be a fit as they're less competitive on average, look into PsyDs that don't break the bank, and if you really only want to practice as a therapist just get a master's degree. The PhD won't make you much more money in a managed care system and it's a lot less investment of your time. Plus all the heartache of years of applications. I steer most of my undergraduate RAs into something other than clinical PhD programs because their interests don't really require a clinical psych PhD (and most of them over the years haven't built up the CVs to be competitive by graduation, anyway). I know it's easy for me to say all of that given my position in this process, but I really find that applicants seem misguided about how things work and what their realistic options are. I hope this is helpful for someone.