PsychMocha

Yes, I found that out in the interview process and after consulting a friend of mine who is a registered psychologist in Saskatchewan. The counselling programs at U of T only provides 250 hours practicum. It's not a program to train clinical work or therapy. All the MA counselling programs including Western, Ottawa, SFU etc.. are doing that except maybe Guelph (family therapy) and McMaster (clinical therapy). So when I got an offer from McMaster I took the acceptance and found out during my interview with Western that the counselling program wasn't what I was looking for. You do need some sort of education whether it's a college or university in psychology and some practical training to do professional counselling in specific fields and accreditation in certain provinces. It's a mess/ patchwork of different legal requirements from province to province. Some doesn't require at all while others do. You can hang your sign that you're doing counselling/therapy in Saskatchewan and no one will arrest you, but in Ontario it's a different story.

I had no trouble opening the qualtrics link. Check your pop-up blocking feature on your browser. It may prevent it from opening.

Guelph emailed me today and ask to complete a Qualtric survey how I want my refund back. It seemed that they realized they can't get away with taking our money and misleading us that they can keep it while cancelling the admission for 2022. Yeah, good job everyone! It seemed that enough of us complained to make them blink.

It may seemed that Mac Psychotherapy invites for first round admission is all sent out.

I just did an interview with Western University MA Counselling program this morning. It was a very positive and easy going interview. There were three professors interviewing and they didn't ask a lot of difficult questions. I realized after the interview and with with feedback from my friend who is a psychologist that the McMaster program is more suitable for me. I made my decision with the following rationale. 1. McMaster program has more intensive clinical placement and geared more towards clinical training. 2. McMaster program teaches a number of therapeutic modalities that can be applied right away during clinical practicum and Western program only teaches general theories and not specific therapeutic mode of practice. 3. I don't care about getting a PhD so I don't need to do a thesis program that takes up 20-25% of my course load time. I rather be studying practical therapeutic techniques. 4. Since I plan to return to Saskatchewan to register as a psychologist there (yes you can be a psychologist with a Master's degree in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta), getting training in clinical setting is more ideal vs. counselling type of setting. (St. Joseph Mental Health Center vs. School and University setting) During the interview one of the interviewer indicated that their offers of admission will come about approximately in two weeks. I told them that I have an offer from McMaster and would like to be able to consider theirs. I asked a bunch of question about clinical trainnings, the interviewer indicated to me that the McMaster program is more suitable for me because they are more geared towards clinical assessment and treatment vs. counselling. Therefore I decided to accept the McMaster University program's offer.

Ah... I'm on a student budget so I'm going to be looking for a place near West 5th street to walk to class instead of commuting. Driving from Toronto everyday isn't in the plan for me. I rather move and stay in Hamilton while studying.

I think the odds are that we're going to see each other in the September! Start by looking into graduate housing....

I only have until March 23 to accept McMaster's offer, I'm not sure Western will make a decision before then. Either way, I will go to the interview with Western tomorrow and see what happens. I'll probably wait until March 23 to make a decision after consulting some of my friends who are in the therapy field. It is my first time applying, I'm just finishing up my honours thesis this semester and won't have my graduation ceremony until June. I had lots of help in the application process from my professors, friends and colleagues. I wouldn't be able to do it alone. The competition was fierce!

Hello, I received an email from Susan this morning and McMaster notifying portal change of information. I checked it and found that the official admission offer letter was posted on my McMaster portal. It gave me a deadline of March 24, 2022 to accept the offer. I think I'm going to go to the interview with Western tomorrow and make my decision after! Tuition fees is a little heavy $3,780.00 per term with full-time supplementary fees of $998.16 per year. For anyone wondering, I was interviewed on the morning of February 14, likely one of the first candidates to be interviewed. Good luck everyone who had an interview. Looks like the offers are being sent out.

Yeah, I wonder why they decide to send that email instead of just sending an offer outright! Maybe people have been bugging them enough that they sent it out to alleviate their concerns. Sounds like the last step of sending out the offer is a rubber stamping process. For some reason, the news hasn't hit me yet since it's not a formal acceptance letter! I still have an interview with Western this Friday that I plan to attend.

I received the email at 8:30AM this morning.

I just received this from McMaster today. I don't know what this means and how much it impacts their final decision. I have been interviewed by two of their professors on February 14. Good morning, After careful consideration, our Admissions Committee feels that you are a strong candidate for our program and we will be recommending you to our School of Graduate Studies for final review and decision. Pending final approval from the School of Graduate Studies, a formal offer letter will be sent to you within the next 20 business days. You will have two weeks from the date of the official letter to either accept or decline our offer of admission. We would appreciate you letting us know your decision as soon as possible as it may impact the status of other applicants. We are excited to have you join us in September and look forward to working with you! Congratulations! Susan

I just got a refusal letter from Guelph for FRAN program. Apparently they decided to deny people and pretend like they didn't qualify instead of giving an honest answer that their program is not taking any students this year. That's very dishonest of them! Grrr.... now I'm pissed.

So U of Ottawa doesn't interview at all! Congratulations to the one who got picked for their program.

I submitted my complaint about Guelph as well. They took our money and mislead all the applicants. I applied 5 counselling programs so far OISIE, Guelph, Ottawa, Western and McMaster. Guelph is out, waitlisted for Ottawa and interview for Western and McMaster. I guess I won't hear anything from OISIE until late March. I'll probably kick myself pretty hard if i didn't pass any of the interviews.