Fall 2019 Psychology PhD Applicants!

[xxxxxxxxxx]

Hiiiiiii everybody. Haven’t submitted my final application yet (For my #1 program)... but such is the life of a perfectionist. Like another applicant mentioned above, I’m having a hard time “letting go” looooool

PTSD/Trauma focus PhD Clinical Psych applicant here. Seen a lot of fellow applicants on here with similar interests (and exact programs) which is cool  ☺️

Already been at this rodeo several times, but this time around I’ve already chatted/interviewed via phone/Skype and in person with a lot of POIs in the last few months. They’ve also expressed genuine interest/awe in my lengthy experience and work, which was awesome. Let’s see what the universe has in store for us! ?

[socpsy]

2 hours ago, checkingmyemail said:

Hiiiiiii everybody. Haven’t submitted my final application yet (For my #1 program)... but such is the life of a perfectionist. Like another applicant mentioned above, I’m having a hard time “letting go” looooool

PTSD/Trauma focus PhD Clinical Psych applicant here. Seen a lot of fellow applicants on here with similar interests (and exact programs) which is cool  ☺️

Already been at this rodeo several times, but this time around I’ve already chatted/interviewed via phone/Skype and in person with a lot of POIs in the last few months. They’ve also expressed genuine interest/awe in my lengthy experience and work, which was awesome. Let’s see what the universe has in store for us! ?

I'm doing a research project on PTSD/suicidality from the social psych side of things! Trauma is so much fun, and I don't care if that sounds terrible.

Now that I'm done with my apps I'm just sitting here on Thanksgiving.. hearing crickets. Guess I have to wait for IRB to come through and then I'll be busy again.

Good luck!!

[Gofer1996]

Hi everyone,

Quick question that I wanted your opinions on—I submitted all of my applications and my LOR writers have submitted their letters as well. My research interests are broadly on the effects of adverse experiences growing up on one’s behavior. That being said, I think one of my letter writers may have used childhood maltreatment as my research interest which fits under the adverse experiences category, but is more defined then adverse experiences. My other two letter writers have used adverse experiences and trauma as describing my interests which I asked them to do, however the third may have used child maltreatment. I don’t even know how much time he focused on my research interests in the letter vs my experiences, but I wanted to know how much you think this will hurt my application if he used too specific terminology when describing my interests, if that is not what I explicitly stated in my personal statement. 

 

Thanks!

[xxxxxxxxxx]

4 hours ago, Gofer1996 said:

I wanted to know how much you think this will hurt my application if he used too specific terminology when describing my interests, if that is not what I explicitly stated in my personal statement. 

 

I think you'll be fine. As long as your interests are clear in your SOP and CV through solid experiences, potential faculty committees who are reading hundreds and hundreds of letters realize letter writers can make mistakes? Or are often writing multiple letters for multiple applicants? ?

[dancedementia]

On 11/15/2018 at 4:57 AM, Oluwachristabel said:

Is there a preferred CV format? Or number of pages or something? 

I currently work as a career counselor, and every time someone asks me how to write a CV I always direct them to this lovely page

https://theprofessorisin.com/2016/08/19/dr-karens-rules-of-the-academic-cv/

She's a little nitpicky, but I find the advice is pretty on point all around. Obviously if you're early career / not in a PhD program yet you won't have some of these items (e.g. professional appointments and university service), so you can leave those items out.

To everyone asking about # of apps, I applied to 12. I've had my apps submitted since early November and am just sitting here chewing on my nails every day. I know interview invites will probably not even go out until mid-December or early January (depending on deadlines), but that doesn't stop me from having mini panic attacks whenever I get a new email. Good luck, everyone!

Edited November 24, 2018 by dancedementia

[aokanlawon]

Submitted my first application today and it is just absolutely terrifying. Keeping a positive mindset though and I plan to just relax when all this is over. 5 more to go!

[Yiyu Liu]

I've submitted 10/14 of the applications and my recommenders have submitted letters for 11 schools. Starting to get bored of revising PS and filling the application forms over and over. 

[xChrisx]

6 hours ago, dancedementia said:

I currently work as a career counselor, and every time someone asks me how to write a CV I always direct them to this lovely page

https://theprofessorisin.com/2016/08/19/dr-karens-rules-of-the-academic-cv/

She's a little nitpicky, but I find the advice is pretty on point all around. Obviously if you're early career / not in a PhD program yet you won't have some of these items (e.g. professional appointments and university service), so you can leave those items out.

To everyone asking about # of apps, I applied to 12. I've had my apps submitted since early November and am just sitting here chewing on my nails every day. I know interview invites will probably not even go out until mid-December or early January (depending on deadlines), but that doesn't stop me from having mini panic attacks whenever I get a new email. Good luck, everyone!

Thank you for this. I followed most of her advice alread. Yay!

I submitted 3 of 4 applications for the Dec 1 deadlines. I have a bunch of deadlines for Dec 31 as well. I cut out a whole bunch of schools due to funding irregularities ? and some had additional monetary obligations I had not planned for *side eyes the university of tennessee - knoxville*. 

I'm trying to make sure all my recommenders submit the letter for December 1. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

[xxxxxxxxxx]

6 hours ago, aokanlawon said:

Submitted my first application today and it is just absolutely terrifying. Keeping a positive mindset though and I plan to just relax when all this is over. 5 more to go!

Are you applying to Clinical Psych PhD programs? 6 schools is a low number, the process is very competitive ?

Edited November 24, 2018 by checkingmyemail

[aokanlawon]

2 hours ago, checkingmyemail said:

Are you applying to Clinical Psych PhD programs? 6 schools is a low number, the process is very competitive ?

Yes, I am. I am trying to make sure I don't go bankrupt in this process and I am applying to one masters program. I also wanted to be able to focus on each school and be able to give each SOP my entire focus without having to sacrifice any application and miss anything. When I had 12 schools on the list, I found that I was having to keep up with alot and some of the schools were missing something with me that I was comfortable eliminating them. 

[xxxxxxxxxx]

57 minutes ago, aokanlawon said:

Yes, I am. I am trying to make sure I don't go bankrupt in this process and I am applying to one masters program. I also wanted to be able to focus on each school and be able to give each SOP my entire focus without having to sacrifice any application and miss anything. When I had 12 schools on the list, I found that I was having to keep up with alot and some of the schools were missing something with me that I was comfortable eliminating them. 

I guess it also depends on whether you’re applying to R1s/R2s/competitive laboratories and your clinical research interests. I know for every program I’m applying to (and several colleagues in the same position as I am this app round), it’s anywhere from 50-150 students who are applying to work with specific POIs, per institution. These aren’t the number of total apps received by each program, which usually range anywhere from 200-400+. 

Hope it works out for you! 

Edited November 24, 2018 by checkingmyemail

[aokanlawon]

8 minutes ago, checkingmyemail said:

I guess it also depends on whether you’re applying to R1s/R2s/competitive laboratories and your clinical research interests. I know for every program I’m applying to (and several colleagues in the same position as I am this app round), it’s anywhere from 50-150 students who are applying to work with specific POIs, per institution. These aren’t the number of total apps received by each program, which usually range anywhere from 200-400+. 

Hope it works out for you! 

I really didn't care about R1 or R2 or even the name of the school. Not that I don't care but I just want to work in a lab that merges with my research and enjoy my PHD experience(as much as i can ofcourse). Thankfully, most of the programs that are doing the work I am interested in get at the most 200 applicants in total. I don't even know how that worked out but it did and I am grateful that I have less competition. I checked all those other programs too but I was not excited about their research and I want to be excited about the research I will be involved in for the next 5 or so years.

[ResilientDreams]

38 minutes ago, aokanlawon said:

I really didn't care about R1 or R2 or even the name of the school. Not that I don't care but I just want to work in a lab that merges with my research and enjoy my PHD experience(as much as i can ofcourse). Thankfully, most of the programs that are doing the work I am interested in get at the most 200 applicants in total. I don't even know how that worked out but it did and I am grateful that I have less competition. I checked all those other programs too but I was not excited about their research and I want to be excited about the research I will be involved in for the next 5 or so years.

I am also only applying to 6 schools! I felt 6 was enough and I couldn't find that many more in my interest area that were in the geographic location I wanted. 

[PsychWannabee]

Hey everyone!

I am new to Grad Cafe, but I can't deny I have been going through this thread for a few months now. I'm excited to see other fellow applicants interested in childhood adversity/trauma as that is my area of interest as well! 

My question may come a tad bit late since most of my applications (12/15) are submitted already; however, it is still something that worries me significantly. I am applying to clinical psychology programs, and I am classified as an "international" applicant. In reality, I have lived in the U.S. my whole life, but I am undocumented. I am aware of the policies in place against discriminatory admissions decisions, but I'm still wary. Although I would dare say I have good qualifications, they are by no means the most impressive, and I am worried that my good qualifications would somehow be undermined by my residency status. Personally, if I were on an admissions committee, I would be hesitant to admit someone less than a genius into my program when there is a possibility they may not even be employable once they graduate from the program. I am employable now under DACA, but because of the current immigration climate, I may well not be employable in the U.S. upon receiving a degree.

TLDR; I guess my question is: Is it possible that my residency status as an undocumented student could hurt my chances for admission? 

Thank you for reading, and best of luck to you all! I have been very impressed with the qualifications of the people on this forum.

Edited November 24, 2018 by PsychWannabee

[xxxxxxxxxx]

31 minutes ago, PsychWannabee said:

TLDR; I guess my question is: Is it possible that my residency status as an undocumented student could hurt my chances for admission? 

 

Have you been able to browse through your interested POI(s) lab websites and see if they’ve accepted international students in the past? (Are DACA recipients even considered int’l?) 

Or, more importantly, did you raise this sensitive concern to programs/POIs before you applied? I know it’s a little late to do anything else about this as the deadline is 5 days away, but I think you would’ve been able to hash out some of these concerns earlier in the application process in regards to funding available based on residency status ?

I do also think that committees across programs may “play it safe” and feel discouraged to accept someone with this uncertain status, in comparison to other applicants, especially if it may create hassles regarding funding at the department/university level and if you won’t be able to pursue any opportunities in the U.S. upon the completion of the program.

BTW, I strongly disagree with this as a now-naturalized citizen myself (was an undocumented immigrant for over a decade), but that’s just my opinion on this. 

Edited November 24, 2018 by checkingmyemail

[aokanlawon]

4 hours ago, ResilientDreams said:

I am also only applying to 6 schools! I felt 6 was enough and I couldn't find that many more in my interest area that were in the geographic location I wanted. 

I am confident about my decision but this definitely boosted my confidence a little more even though we are applying to different concentrations. 

[PsychWannabee]

29 minutes ago, checkingmyemail said:

Have you been able to browse through your interested POI(s) lab websites and see if they’ve accepted international students in the past? (Are DACA recipients even considered int’l?) 

Or, more importantly, did you raise this sensitive concern to programs/POIs before you applied? I know it’s a little late to do anything else about this as the deadline is 5 days away, but I think you would’ve been able to hash out some of these concerns earlier in the application process in regards to funding available based on residency status ?

 

Some programs have accepted international students, and for application processes, DACA recipients are considered international. However, international students typically get some sort of documentation in form of a visa, something that I would be ineligible for. So, in a sense, true international students would be safer to accept than DACA recipients.

I had previously expressed this concern to one of my undergraduate professors in the field who has been on admissions committees, and they thought I was being absurd by being worried about my residency status affecting admissions. They said it shouldn't be a problem. Thus, I made the mistake of not contacting programs or POIs about this concern. However, I had one program go out of their way to contact me and assure me they had/would accept DACA recipients, and other graduate schools explicitly state their support for DACA recipients. For the latter, it is unsure whether they are referring only to students currently attending or if this support applies to prospective students as well.

I really should have asked programs before spending hundreds of dollars on applications.

[xxxxxxxxxx]

19 minutes ago, PsychWannabee said:

However, I had one program go out of their way to contact me and assure me they had/would accept DACA recipients, and other graduate schools explicitly state their support for DACA recipients. For the latter, it is unsure whether they are referring only to students currently attending or if this support applies to prospective students as well.

I think this provides some reassurance then. I’m glad you at least were able to get some information from the programs themselves prior to submitting your apps. I know it’s probably difficult to not worry about it, but this is out of your control ? Let’s hope the POIs you’re wanting to work with focus on your qualifications/achievements (in comparison to other applicants) vs this. In intervieweing/talking with promising POIs, I’ve been told it’s all about “fit.” If they love you, they will find a way to advocate for you. 

I really hope you get some interview invites!

[Alli92]

On 11/13/2018 at 2:18 PM, Kylar said:

Hi y'all!

Found this while freaking out on the internet so figured it would be a great idea to post my story as well

I have a bit of a unique application - 3.5 UG in engineering at an Ivy - and am applying for clinical PhD programs with a focus on forensics or PTSD/trauma. Research-wise, I worked in 3 labs over 4 years in school, with 1 first author pub, 1 third author pub, and 1 paper presentation at a conference, plus an honors thesis. Basically all of this is mathematical modelling/statistical analysis of qualitative/social science topics, which at least prepares me well for the "how" aspect of psych research. I'm taking two masters level classes online right now and doing well in them, but don't think this will factor significantly into my application. Work-wise, I've done some professional freelance writing, quantitative analysis interning for the government (_shady eyes_ lol), and have worked at a top hedge fund for the past year doing macroeconomic research and running some of their talent strategy. My GRE scores are in the top 95+% and will have strong LORs from professors I've done research with. Idk what else is relevant, but happy to answer any questions that help y'all predict my fate.

Applying to: Washington, Colorado Springs, Texas A&M, Alabama, Kentucky, USUHS, Harvard, John Jay, and Georgia. Trying not to have preferences right now since it's such a crap shoot.

That’s a great list @Kylar ! Who’s lab at Harvard and Georgia are you applying to? Richard McNally is really nice! I was in contact with one of his grad students to pick her Brain about his mentoring style.

[Alli92]

1 hour ago, aokanlawon said:

I am confident about my decision but this definitely boosted my confidence a little more even though we are applying to different concentrations. 

 @aokanlawon I’m applying to only 5 programs. I agree, I think focusing your attention on a couple of programs is the better approach. Which schools are you applying to ? I’m applying to Harvard , Bu, University of Houston ,University of Rhode Island (they don’t require the GRE &have a PI that focuses on trauma ), and Georgia State

[Jung&Psyched]

10 hours ago, aokanlawon said:

I really didn't care about R1 or R2 or even the name of the school. Not that I don't care but I just want to work in a lab that merges with my research and enjoy my PHD experience(as much as i can ofcourse). Thankfully, most of the programs that are doing the work I am interested in get at the most 200 applicants in total. I don't even know how that worked out but it did and I am grateful that I have less competition. I checked all those other programs too but I was not excited about their research and I want to be excited about the research I will be involved in for the next 5 or so years.

I think this is the most important thing; that you are focusing on a good fit and somewhere that you will be happy!  I honestly sought out programs that had fewer applicants to raise my chances.  Sure it made my list smaller once I factored in research interests as well, but I had to be realistic that I would not get into a top ranked school, and that is 100% ok with me!

[aokanlawon]

7 hours ago, Alli92 said:

 @aokanlawon I’m applying to only 5 programs. I agree, I think focusing your attention on a couple of programs is the better approach. Which schools are you applying to ? I’m applying to Harvard , Bu, University of Houston ,University of Rhode Island (they don’t require the GRE &have a PI that focuses on trauma ), and Georgia State

Wow, I had no idea those programs did not take GRE. I am so jealous and wish I had applied to University of Rhode Island. The reason they give for not requiring GRE is such a valid one and it makes me feel like that's a program I want to be in.

Edited November 25, 2018 by aokanlawon

[aokanlawon]

4 hours ago, liznlex said:

I think this is the most important thing; that you are focusing on a good fit and somewhere that you will be happy!  I honestly sought out programs that had fewer applicants to raise my chances.  Sure it made my list smaller once I factored in research interests as well, but I had to be realistic that I would not get into a top ranked school, and that is 100% ok with me!

Honestly, this is all you can hope for and just do your best to stay positive during this season

[xxxxxxxxxx]

7 hours ago, aokanlawon said:

Wow, I had no idea those programs did not take GRE. I am so jealous and wish I had applied to University of Rhode Island. The reason they give for not requiring GRE is such a valid one and it makes me feel like that's a program I want to be in.

They’re doing this to increase the number of applications from minorities, people of color, veterans, and women, which is awesome ☺️ We need to change the demographics in this field, and this is a first place to start.

However- They do not have funding for their grad students and the majority have taken out loans (My colleague interviewed with this PI over the phone a couple of weeks ago, he’s also applying to trauma programs) 

Lack of funding or any uncertainty for funding is a huge RED FLAG, esp. when there are so many amazing programs who do waive tuition, provide awesome stipends/fellowships, and students are able to live on their stipends w/o taking out loans.

[Kylar]

18 hours ago, Alli92 said:

That’s a great list @Kylar ! Who’s lab at Harvard and Georgia are you applying to? Richard McNally is really nice! I was in contact with one of his grad students to pick her Brain about his mentoring style.

Messaged you ?