Fall 2019 Psychology PhD Applicants!

[HaleyOK]

10 hours ago, checkingmyemail said:

Student Doctor Network has a wealth of resources (and experts in the field, specifically) who discuss (in detail) the reasons why most non-funded or partially funded programs, primarily “diploma mills,” are not a good or wise career choice.

As you may very well know: The majority of those programs have awful internship matching rates and licensure rates. Also, the majority of professors/faculty who receive/review apps for internships, externships, post-docs, etc. from such schools immediately throw their applications away (Again, I encourage anyone reading these comments to visit SDN and read the feedback from experts in the field regarding these topics). 

Your circumstances are understandable, and we all certainly come from different walks of life, myself included. That doesn’t mean you should make choices out of desperation regarding the quality of your graduate education. Good luck with everything!

Well now I’m panicked because I don’t know how to tell which schools are like this? Like what to look for with these schools? Are all PsyD programs in this category? I applied to two PsyD programs: George Washington and George Fox, both with high internship match rates from what I understand and doing great clinical work. I also applied to Umass Boston and U of Minnesota- Twin Cities for counseling psych PhD

Edited December 7, 2018 by HaleyOK
Edited for spelling

[brainwrangler]

1 hour ago, HaleyOK said:

Well now I’m panicked because I don’t know how to tell which schools are like this? Like what to look for with these schools? Are all PsyD programs in this category? I applied to two PsyD programs: George Washington and George Fox, both with high internship match rates from what I understand and doing great clinical work. I also applied to Umass Boston and U of Minnesota- Twin Cities for counseling psych PhD

Not all PsyD programs have poor match rates. You want to look at the APA-accredited internship rate and the eventual licensing rate, which they should have posted on their website. A non-accredited internship could be an issue for you in the future.

[Clinapp2017]

7 minutes ago, brainwrangler said:

Not all PsyD programs have poor match rates. You want to look at the APA-accredited internship rate and the eventual licensing rate, which they should have posted on their website. A non-accredited internship could be an issue for you in the future.

A good way to see it is generally anything below 80% match is a probably not an ideal place to be. Especially for the "diploma mill" places, you'll often see match rates even below 60%, which is bad considered there may be 20+ students in a cohort. 

 

I think funding definitely should also be a consideration unless you are independently wealthy. As a psychologist or researcher, odds are you'll have a relatively low salary at the beginning of your "real" career, and the ceiling is also low considering our extensive training (maybe 120,000-150,000 in a thriving PP or clinical setting, esp. in a high cost-of-living area). Having a lot of debt may mean you could be paying off large loans for 20+ years, which is not worth it for our line of work... it makes a lot more sense for medical docs b/c they can easily make 200-300-400k and beyond. 

 

Just food for thought. Debt is not fun. Try to avoid or minimize it. 

[justacigar]

15 hours ago, DevelopingThoughts said:

I got an email from the transcript services that Stanford still hasn’t retrieved my transcript from the link LOL ?

Did you request to get notifications when they were retrieved? I don't think I've seen anything like that for the transcripts I sent electronically.

[Lenina Crow]

2 hours ago, HaleyOK said:

Well now I’m panicked because I don’t know how to tell which schools are like this? Like what to look for with these schools? Are all PsyD programs in this category? I applied to two PsyD programs: George Washington and George Fox, both with high internship match rates from what I understand and doing great clinical work. I also applied to Umass Boston and U of Minnesota- Twin Cities for counseling psych PhD

According to George Fox's Student Admissions and Outcome Data, their APA-accredited internship match rate for the last few years is between 5% and 25%, which is pretty abysmal. Not going to an APA accredited internship will seriously limit your options as a psychologist. George Washington's is better (hovers around 75%) but still is not great.

23 minutes ago, Clinapp2017 said:

A good way to see it is generally anything below 80% match is a probably not an ideal place to be. Especially for the "diploma mill" places, you'll often see match rates even below 60%, which is bad considered there may be 20+ students in a cohort. 

 

I think funding definitely should also be a consideration unless you are independently wealthy. As a psychologist or researcher, odds are you'll have a relatively low salary at the beginning of your "real" career, and the ceiling is also low considering our extensive training (maybe 120,000-150,000 in a thriving PP or clinical setting, esp. in a high cost-of-living area). Having a lot of debt may mean you could be paying off large loans for 20+ years, which is not worth it for our line of work... it makes a lot more sense for medical docs b/c they can easily make 200-300-400k and beyond. 

 

Just food for thought. Debt is not fun. Try to avoid or minimize it. 

Cannot agree with this enough. And IBR might not be around forever, so banking on that is probably not a good idea.

Edited December 7, 2018 by McMurphy

[psychxgeekx]

I am so confused. I sent my GRE scores at the beginning of November. Then one of my schools I applied to says they have not received them on the portal, except on the ETS website it says they received them Nov 21. I call the graduate school to verify and they say its fine they have not received them to review applications, but they need it soon. I called ETS to see if it is an error on their behalf and they say its the grad school fault for not properly retrieving them. Any advice?

 

 

Edited December 7, 2018 by psychxgeekx

[petitebiscuit]

Me while all you clinical people are posting about your interviews....

[londonbnd]

19 minutes ago, psychxgeekx said:

I am so confused. I sent my GRE scores at the beginning of November. Then one of my schools I applied to says they have not received them on the portal, except on the ETS website it says they received them Nov 21. I call the graduate school to verify and they say its fine they have not received them to review applications, but they need it soon. I called ETS to see if it is an error on their behalf and they say its the grad school fault for not properly retrieving them. Any advice?

 

 

I'm in the exact same boat. I sent my scores a while ago and two schools are saying they have not received them. Did you call the admissions office to see if they were sent to the wrong department by accident? I just called for one program and the admissions office asked me to email a PDF report and they would mark it complete. Best of luck!!

[psychxgeekx]

Can you DM the person who got the interview at Purdue the initials of the POI for clinical psychology?

 

•  

Edited December 7, 2018 by psychxgeekx

[psycinfo]

Has anyone asked professors in their network to reach out to their colleagues that you are applying to work with to look out for your app? The PhD students at the university I work at are encouraging me to do this but I'm so nervous about asking them to do even more work for me after already writing and submitting LOR to 17 schools. I know that they would say yes but I'm still hesitant. 

 

For reference--I contacted everyone I applied to work with directly back in September and indicated that I work with x faculty, who is well known in the field and has worked with many of them. I got a lot of positive responses but nothing really concrete. My GRE scores are not strong (156V/158Q/4.0W). I know that if my app gets looked at my experience and letter writers will carry a lot of weight but I'm concerned that my GRE scores will prevent those things from being seen at some places. 

Has anyone had positive experiences from using their network to get them in the door per se?

Edited December 7, 2018 by SJK01

[dancedementia]

15 hours ago, checkingmyemail said:

...

I can understand your sentiment for sure. That said, I think different strokes for different folks applies here. There are some schools that on the surface appear very "diploma mill" ish but with proper connections and/or niches are fine. As an illustrative example, I'm applying to William James - notorious for lower internship match rates, an embedded internship consortium, and lack of financial aid. That said, for folks who are interested in working with lower SES populations in the Boston area, that particular institution has good connections with agencies in the area and can place you there easily starting in Y1. I know colleagues who knew exactly the niche they wanted to work with, and after graduating from that institution, were able to network their way into great jobs in the field. The EPPP is also not that difficult and, assuming the individual is competent, the institution should not have too large of a bearing on pass rates. Perhaps postdoc hours are the greater issue there, I wouldn't know yet.

Perhaps the end goal needs to be clarified. Sure, if you want to be a psychologist at Mount Sinai and TT at an R1, then by no means should you attend a partially funded and/or PsyD program. But if you're content working at a standard PHP in the city and having a little PP on the side, the circumstances definitely change. 

I guess I should also specify that I have a licensable masters, a job offer that will support me through my first few doc years, and a fiance about to finish med school, so my financial circumstances are much different than the straight-out-of-undergrad applicant.

[Kylar]

2 hours ago, petitebiscuit said:

Me while all you clinical people are posting about your interviews....

Yeah I haven’t heard anything from any of my programs and this describes my life all too well...

[petitebiscuit]

2 minutes ago, Kylar said:

Yeah I haven’t heard anything from any of my programs and this describes my life all too well...

I haven’t heard a peep from any schools. BUT somebody else heard from one of mine. They must have had our emails switched ???

[shockwave457]

This waiting game is killing me

[xxxxxxxxxx]

Just now, davidfreire20 said:

This waiting game is killing me

Same. I think what's most difficult for me is that individuals at my workplace/lab who are also applying this app round do not talk about it(?). Everyone is applying to similar schools, very similar interests, and clearly some individuals are much more competitive than others... And it's this weird, day-long, awkward silence in the hallways... 

I guess we can all not talk to each other from now until March? Lol what! People are so silly

[socpsy]

5 minutes ago, petitebiscuit said:

I haven’t heard a peep from any schools. BUT somebody else heard from one of mine. They must have had our emails switched ???

The struggle is real

[socpsy]

1 minute ago, checkingmyemail said:

Same. I think what's most difficult for me is that individuals at my workplace/lab who are also applying this app round do not talk about it(?). Everyone is applying to similar schools, very similar interests, and clearly some individuals are much more competitive than others... And it's this weird, day-long, awkward silence in the hallways... 

I guess we can all not talk to each other from now until March? Lol what! People are so silly

I know! If I didn't have this outlet to talk about it I would go insane since no one else seems to (outwardly) care.

[shockwave457]

Plus the rage I get every time I get some random email that is irrelevant giving me a mini heart attack every few hours 

[xxxxxxxxxx]

3 minutes ago, davidfreire20 said:

Plus the rage I get every time I get some random email that is irrelevant giving me a mini heart attack every few hours 

I literally got a "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" e-mail from a school's Graduate Admissions yesterday..... It was SO unnecessary. LOL

[xChrisx]

44 minutes ago, checkingmyemail said:

I literally got a "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" e-mail from a school's Graduate Admissions yesterday..... It was SO unnecessary. LOL

?????

[loffire]

4 hours ago, psychxgeekx said:

I am so confused. I sent my GRE scores at the beginning of November. Then one of my schools I applied to says they have not received them on the portal, except on the ETS website it says they received them Nov 21. I call the graduate school to verify and they say its fine they have not received them to review applications, but they need it soon. I called ETS to see if it is an error on their behalf and they say its the grad school fault for not properly retrieving them. Any advice?

 

 

Please bug the school/dept to make sure theyve received everything they need. Especially GRE scores. Usually if you give them a screenshot showing how your name is spelt on ets, your registration number etc + that bit showing when you sent the scores to which school and what code, they should be able to find it. This is important. Not trying to be a fear monger but some schools will toss applications if anything is missing when they convene for reviewing applications.

[loffire]

48 minutes ago, checkingmyemail said:

I literally got a "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" e-mail from a school's Graduate Admissions yesterday..... It was SO unnecessary. LOL

Theyre trying to break our spirits. Dont. Let. Them. Win... In retaliation i suggest imbibing copious amounts of spirits

[higaisha]

1 hour ago, checkingmyemail said:

I literally got a "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" e-mail from a school's Graduate Admissions yesterday..... It was SO unnecessary. LOL

I would revoke my application goddamn it LOOLLLLL

[aokanlawon]

1 hour ago, checkingmyemail said:

I literally got a "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" e-mail from a school's Graduate Admissions yesterday..... It was SO unnecessary. LOL

This happened to me today and my heart could not stop beating for like 10minutes straight. I might need therapy after this.

[xxxxxxxxxx]

2 hours ago, Oluwachristabel said:

?????

 

1 hour ago, higaisha said:

I would revoke my application goddamn it LOOLLLLL

They’re jerks doing this sh*t on purpose LOL.. 

 

53 minutes ago, aokanlawon said:

This happened to me today and my heart could not stop beating for like 10minutes straight. I might need therapy after this.

?

Edited December 8, 2018 by checkingmyemail