Fall 2019 Psychology PhD Applicants!

[psych2315]

Happy to have found this forum too!! I'm currently in a master's program for clinical child psychology - I'm in the process of applying to both PhD & PsyD clinical psychology programs for Fall 2019.

PhD Programs: Montclair State University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rowan University

PsyD Programs: William Paterson University, Kean University, Pace University & Yeshiva University

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice about getting in with pretty low GRE scores (147 on both V & Q) I've never been the best standardized test taker but I have multiple years of experience in both clinical & research positions, my GPA is a 3.8 & I have great recommendation letters. Any thoughts?

[JoePianist]

3 hours ago, aer621 said:

I'm so glad that I found this forum! I'm applying Psy.D. programs (and MSW as a backup)- does anyone know if you can apply to doctoral programs as a second year after getting an MSW? Or is that just for a masters in counseling? 

If you’re coming from a Master’s program in MSW or Counseling, you will more than likely start from square one when starting a Psy.D program. You might be able to transfer a few classes from your MSW or Counseling program, but that depends on each Psy.D program.

[JoePianist]

2 hours ago, psychmajor2394 said:

Happy to have found this forum too!! I'm currently in a master's program for clinical child psychology - I'm in the process of applying to both PhD & PsyD clinical psychology programs for Fall 2019.

PhD Programs: Montclair State University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rowan University

PsyD Programs: William Paterson University, Kean University, Pace University & Yeshiva University

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice about getting in with pretty low GRE scores (147 on both V & Q) I've never been the best standardized test taker but I have multiple years of experience in both clinical & research positions, my GPA is a 3.8 & I have great recommendation letters. Any thoughts?

Most doctorate Clinical Psychology programs expect applicants to score at least at the 50th percentile range on both the Verbal & Quantitative subtests (score range of ~155), and your scores fall a bit short of that unfortunately. In addition, your Analytical Writing score needs to be at least a 4.0

Some programs place less emphasis on GRE scores than others, but keep in mind that it may still hinder your application from being looked at since many programs use it to “weed out” applications at the start of the process. Aside from possibly re-taking the GRE with some guided help (if you already haven’t done so), lean heavily into your research & clinical experiences in your personal statement. Also, if you’ve taken any high-level math, engineering, or science courses (e.g., Calculus III, Physics), you should highlight this in your application too. It will also help if you can submit any Honors Thesis or first-author publications written by you as supplementary material. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by JoePianist

[psych2315]

31 minutes ago, JoePianist said:

Most doctorate Clinical Psychology programs expect applicants to score at least at the 50th percentile range on both the Verbal & Quantitative subtests (score range of ~155), and your scores fall a bit short of that unfortunately. In addition, your Analytical Writing score needs to be at least a 4.0

Some programs place less emphasis on GRE scores than others, but keep in mind that it may still hinder your application from being looked at since many programs use it to “weed out” applications at the start of the process. Aside from possibly re-taking the GRE with some guided help (if you already haven’t done so), lean heavily into your research & clinical experiences in your personal statement. Also, if you’ve taken any high-level math, engineering, or science courses (e.g., Calculus III, Physics), you should highlight this in your application too. It will also help if you can submit any Honors Thesis or first-author publications written by you as supplementary material. 

That's what I'm afraid of. My recommenders (professor's in the research labs I'm in) will be highlighting the publications I'm working on as well as other things. I also have about 4 years of clinical experience in multiple settings (private practice, community counseling clinic, summer social skills programs) so I will be highlighting all of that in my essay. Basically my GRE scores are the only weak point in my application but I'm still afraid its not enough.

[JoePianist]

8 hours ago, psychmajor2394 said:

That's what I'm afraid of. My recommenders (professor's in the research labs I'm in) will be highlighting the publications I'm working on as well as other things. I also have about 4 years of clinical experience in multiple settings (private practice, community counseling clinic, summer social skills programs) so I will be highlighting all of that in my essay. Basically my GRE scores are the only weak point in my application but I'm still afraid its not enough.

The only other route to bypass the GRE hurdle is if you know any faculty in your current program who has connections to professors at the doctorate Clinical Psychology programs you want to apply for. If that's the case, you can see if you can get introduced to these professors as potential mentors who can ensure your application gets reviewed beyond the GRE score.

Edited October 9, 2018 by JoePianist

[psych2315]

6 hours ago, JoePianist said:

The only other route to bypass the GRE hurdle is if you know any faculty in your current program who has connections to professors at the doctorate Clinical Psychology programs you want to apply for. If that's the case, you can see if you can get introduced to these professors as potential mentors who can ensure your application gets reviewed beyond the GRE score.

I'm currently in a master's program in clinical psychology & applying to the same schools doctorate program. I'm working under 2 professors in their research labs & they are writing my recommendation letters. One of them is the POI I'll be mentioning on my application. I'm hoping this helps.

[loffire]

40 minutes ago, psychmajor2394 said:

I'm currently in a master's program in clinical psychology & applying to the same schools doctorate program. I'm working under 2 professors in their research labs & they are writing my recommendation letters. One of them is the POI I'll be mentioning on my application. I'm hoping this helps.

I believe that a lot of this in influenced by who knows you. So I do hope that your POI knows who you are and your LOR writer has introduced you. That said, in some schools a grad comm culls many of the applicants even before the respective POIs gets to see the application materials. But fingers crossed, you have someone part of the process who views your application packet with favor

[psych2315]

48 minutes ago, loffire said:

I believe that a lot of this in influenced by who knows you. So I do hope that your POI knows who you are and your LOR writer has introduced you. That said, in some schools a grad comm culls many of the applicants even before the respective POIs gets to see the application materials. But fingers crossed, you have someone part of the process who views your application packet with favor

One of my LOR writers & POI are the same person. I've also discussed with them that I would like to continue working under them in the doctorate program. I'm hoping this helps me out since my GRE scores aren't good.

[loffire]

28 minutes ago, psychmajor2394 said:

One of my LOR writers & POI are the same person. I've also discussed with them that I would like to continue working under them in the doctorate program. I'm hoping this helps me out since my GRE scores aren't good.

cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool no doubt ?

Edited October 9, 2018 by loffire

[ResilientDreams]

Guys I have a blog now. If there's anything you want me to write about let me know. 

[PsychApplicantFall2019]

@ResilientDreams What is the blog called? I am interested in following it. 

[ResilientDreams]

10 hours ago, sendmeadvice said:

@ResilientDreams What is the blog called? I am interested in following it. 

It's called Straight Outta Undergrad (yes...I named it that... I'm sorry :p) and it's here on GradCafe! You can find it by clicking on the blogs section at the top of the page.

[ResilientDreams]

In other news, I submitted my first application today!

[rosesandrecords]

It has been a hot minute since I checked in here...happy to see people progressing on their applications!

I spent September studying for and taking the GRE Psychology subject test and retaking the GRE General test.  My standard GRE scores weren't as good as the ones I took two years ago (when I applied to Master's programs), so I sent my initial scores off to schools (157 V, 155 Q, 4.0 AW).  I'm still waiting to hear back my Psychology scores, since it was a written test and those take longer, but I felt good about it!

I also narrowed down my schools that I'm applying to: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, University of Washington, Loyola University Chicago, University of Texas-Austin, Boston University, University of Florida, and University of Miami.  All of those are clinical programs, except for UT, which is a school program.  I emailed and heard back from PIs at 3 of the schools when I was unsure about whether they were accepting students, so my name is out there!  If anyone has any insight to these programs or is applying there as well, feel free to reach out.

My plan is to spend October revising my personal statement, nailing down my 3rd recommendation letter (the other two are luckily locked down), and sending off transcripts.  I am SHOCKED that some people already have applications submitted-I still think I'm a month out from having anything fully submitted.  The second year of my Master's is proving to be much challenging than the first (currently juggling two research labs, my thesis, a class, and applications)!  Anyways, best of luck to everyone!!

[Yiyu Liu]

The third person applying for developmental psych PhD in this thread. I'm currently soooo stressed on my application. I just sent the first round of emails to PIs a few days ago. Currently haven't finalized my PS and hasn't even started to fill in the application. I have three professors who agreed to write LOR for me but I haven't asked them yet to start write them. I spent the whole summer and the early September on a very difficult EEG project (had to learn a lot of math, realize a very novel algorithm in code, do statistics, make posters and do presentations) that's why I started so late. It's only a month to the DDL I think I really have to speed up. 

More about me: I'm an international student, currently a senior undergraduate and apparently this is my first cycle of application (hopefully it's also the last one). I'm interested in the general mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (especially social-cognitive) and have a quite quantitative-heavy experience. 

List (all phd):  Stanford, UCB, MIT, Havard, Princeton, IUB, UCSD, Virginia, Cornell, Duke, NYU, BU, Illinois.

I know they are all very competitive programs and I didn't initially aim for that. But given my recent interest, I simply don't have more options. For some reason I would like to have a PI who is interested in the mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (which means he/she should be in the developmental track) but have extensive experience in programming (infact some of the PIs received their PhD degree in Math/Computer Science). And I really would like the program has rich devices (e.g. eye tracker, EEG cap for both infant and adult, neuroimaging devices). I reviewed tons of schools and found that only the school listed above features both quantitative-heavy PIs and rich devices in the developmental track. 

Things not so worried about:

1. My GPA and my undergraduate school (I'm in the top 2 University in China, it ranked only 30 on QS though). I have over 3.7 GPA general and near 3.8 major GPA (ranked top 8% in my program). Though it is far from excellent but I assume at least it will not get in the way. 

2. My general English Skill, I have 109 TOEFL which is beyond the requirements for international students whose native language is not English. 

3. My research experience. I worked in a lab of my home University for two years. I did a honors thesis and another small project there. That lab mainly do behavioral studies. I also spent over 3 months full time in a lab in US helping with all aspects of eye tracking (e.g. idea brainstorming, AOI coding, programming novel tools, general data analyzing) and established a very good relationship with the PI there. The summer in 2018 I worked in another lab in US doing a more independent EEG project (the one I talked above). Literally these experiences are very intense as I had to learn the technique in about a week and then start to program novel methods for data analyzing. I do have research experiences in addition to those listed above. 

4. My LOR. I have 1 letter from my home University. Though my professor is not that famous internationally but at least she published a lot of papers in top journals and is the best of the field in China. She knows me very well. The other 2 letters are from US, they are from the professors who have really established their name in the field in top programs. I believe they all should say quite positively about me. 

5. My Math and Computer Science skills. In addition to statistics in psychology (e.g. t-test, ANOVA, different kinds of regression) I have a few really advanced math courses. I also took a few CS courses. I usually program my own experimental stimuli and sometimes novel tools for data analyzing. 

6. My psych GRE (I ranked 99% on that two years ago) but I don't think it would be useful as I won't apply to clinical programs. 

Things worried:

1. My GRE. The first time I got 153 V 168 Q and 4.0 AW (I only looked through the OG and didn't really prepare for it). The second time I got 165 V 169 Q but only 3.5 AW. I don't think my writing is seriously bad but the thing is I don't have a taste at all for politic issues. This is a culture thing. I learned that American students really care about politics but this is not the case for Chinese students so I panicked when I saw the issue part and wasn't able to finish it.  I have no idea whether my high verbal and the writing score in the TOEFL test (I got 28 out of 30 on writing) could compensate for my low AW. I know people would consider my international status (most Chinese people got 3 , 3.5  or even 2.5 and they still got into programs in US) but 3.5 is not competitive anyway. I got this score a year ago and then I really practiced my writing skill. I wrote a lot of reviews, proposals and manuscripts in English. I don't know how I could reflect my effort in writing though.

2. My international status. Due to the current funding cut, some programs (especially UC systems) are not willing to recruit international students (the psych program in UCLA won't take any international students at all) as they have to pay double the tuition for any international students according to the policy in California. I don't know whether schools other than UC systems are in similar situation. 

3. Short of publications and presentations. It's another cultural thing. Chinese students don't have as much opportunities to go to conferences as American students. For instance I wouldn't know SRCD at all if I hadn't worked in the labs of US. I currently only have a 15 min talk given at a developmental conference in China. And I submitted two abstracts to SRCD in August. But the poster session will be next year. I also don't have a publication yet as I don't want to have a work published in low IF journals (IF<2) and I currently don't have the form of work which could be published in child development, plos one or cognition. So currently only a talk and two potential posters. 

4. my undergraduate status. Some PIs apparently would like to take students who had a master degree or served as a lab manager. They would like students to have post-bac research experience before applying. I don't like them to judge people on how many years they worked in the field though. I really tried to grasp any opportunity and made the best use of my time. But still, professors may judge me because I have less than 3 years of research experience. 

Hope everyone end up in where they should be and best luck of this application cycle! 

[ResilientDreams]

57 minutes ago, Yiyu Liu said:

The third person applying for developmental psych PhD in this thread. I'm currently soooo stressed on my application. I just sent the first round of emails to PIs a few days ago. Currently haven't finalized my PS and hasn't even started to fill in the application. I have three professors who agreed to write LOR for me but I haven't asked them yet to start write them. I spent the whole summer and the early September on a very difficult EEG project (had to learn a lot of math, realize a very novel algorithm in code, do statistics, make posters and do presentations) that's why I started so late. It's only a month to the DDL I think I really have to speed up. 

More about me: I'm an international student, currently a senior undergraduate and apparently this is my first cycle of application (hopefully it's also the last one). I'm interested in the general mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (especially social-cognitive) and have a quite quantitative-heavy experience. 

List (all phd):  Stanford, UCB, MIT, Havard, Princeton, IUB, UCSD, Virginia, Cornell, Duke, NYU, BU, Illinois.

I know they are all very competitive programs and I didn't initially aim for that. But given my recent interest, I simply don't have more options. For some reason I would like to have a PI who is interested in the mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (which means he/she should be in the developmental track) but have extensive experience in programming (infact some of the PIs received their PhD degree in Math/Computer Science). And I really would like the program has rich devices (e.g. eye tracker, EEG cap for both infant and adult, neuroimaging devices). I reviewed tons of schools and found that only the school listed above features both quantitative-heavy PIs and rich devices in the developmental track. 

Things not so worried about:

1. My GPA and my undergraduate school (I'm in the top 2 University in China, it ranked only 30 on QS though). I have over 3.7 GPA general and near 3.8 major GPA (ranked top 8% in my program). Though it is far from excellent but I assume at least it will not get in the way. 

2. My general English Skill, I have 109 TOEFL which is beyond the requirements for international students whose native language is not English. 

3. My research experience. I worked in a lab of my home University for two years. I did a honors thesis and another small project there. That lab mainly do behavioral studies. I also spent over 3 months full time in a lab in US helping with all aspects of eye tracking (e.g. idea brainstorming, AOI coding, programming novel tools, general data analyzing) and established a very good relationship with the PI there. The summer in 2018 I worked in another lab in US doing a more independent EEG project (the one I talked above). Literally these experiences are very intense as I had to learn the technique in about a week and then start to program novel methods for data analyzing. I do have research experiences in addition to those listed above. 

4. My LOR. I have 1 letter from my home University. Though my professor is not that famous internationally but at least she published a lot of papers in top journals and is the best of the field in China. She knows me very well. The other 2 letters are from US, they are from the professors who have really established their name in the field in top programs. I believe they all should say quite positively about me. 

5. My Math and Computer Science skills. In addition to statistics in psychology (e.g. t-test, ANOVA, different kinds of regression) I have a few really advanced math courses. I also took a few CS courses. I usually program my own experimental stimuli and sometimes novel tools for data analyzing. 

6. My psych GRE (I ranked 99% on that two years ago) but I don't think it would be useful as I won't apply to clinical programs. 

Things worried:

1. My GRE. The first time I got 153 V 168 Q and 4.0 AW (I only looked through the OG and didn't really prepare for it). The second time I got 165 V 169 Q but only 3.5 AW. I don't think my writing is seriously bad but the thing is I don't have a taste at all for politic issues. This is a culture thing. I learned that American students really care about politics but this is not the case for Chinese students so I panicked when I saw the issue part and wasn't able to finish it.  I have no idea whether my high verbal and the writing score in the TOEFL test (I got 28 out of 30 on writing) could compensate for my low AW. I know people would consider my international status (most Chinese people got 3 , 3.5  or even 2.5 and they still got into programs in US) but 3.5 is not competitive anyway. I got this score a year ago and then I really practiced my writing skill. I wrote a lot of reviews, proposals and manuscripts in English. I don't know how I could reflect my effort in writing though.

2. My international status. Due to the current funding cut, some programs (especially UC systems) are not willing to recruit international students (the psych program in UCLA won't take any international students at all) as they have to pay double the tuition for any international students according to the policy in California. I don't know whether schools other than UC systems are in similar situation. 

3. Short of publications and presentations. It's another cultural thing. Chinese students don't have as much opportunities to go to conferences as American students. For instance I wouldn't know SRCD at all if I hadn't worked in the labs of US. I currently only have a 15 min talk given at a developmental conference in China. And I submitted two abstracts to SRCD in August. But the poster session will be next year. I also don't have a publication yet as I don't want to have a work published in low IF journals (IF<2) and I currently don't have the form of work which could be published in child development, plos one or cognition. So currently only a talk and two potential posters. 

4. my undergraduate status. Some PIs apparently would like to take students who had a master degree or served as a lab manager. They would like students to have post-bac research experience before applying. I don't like them to judge people on how many years they worked in the field though. I really tried to grasp any opportunity and made the best use of my time. But still, professors may judge me because I have less than 3 years of research experience. 

Hope everyone end up in where they should be and best luck of this application cycle! 

Haha yeah, the schools with the fancy equipment tend to be the most competitive ones.

I think you have excellent qualifications. Your quant score on the GRE is particularly impressive and I envy it haha. Your math and computer science background is also an asset. I certainly don't have that. I don't think you have to worry about your writing score. You can always provide a supplementary writing sample to showcase your writing ability. And I also don't think not having publications will be a problem. Most applicants actually don't. As for being an undergrad...I am too! Same boat! The professors I contacted didn't seem to mind that I was an undergrad and none of them mentioned wanting someone with a master's or post-bac experience. Is that something you were told directly or something they implied?

Overall, I think international status is the only thing that you might actually have to take into consideration. 

[ResilientDreams]

I really need to start working on my other personal statements but for some reason I'm mentally exhausted.

[Yiyu Liu]

1 hour ago, ResilientDreams said:

Haha yeah, the schools with the fancy equipment tend to be the most competitive ones.

I think you have excellent qualifications. Your quant score on the GRE is particularly impressive and I envy it haha. Your math and computer science background is also an asset. I certainly don't have that. I don't think you have to worry about your writing score. You can always provide a supplementary writing sample to showcase your writing ability. And I also don't think not having publications will be a problem. Most applicants actually don't. As for being an undergrad...I am too! Same boat! The professors I contacted didn't seem to mind that I was an undergrad and none of them mentioned wanting someone with a master's or post-bac experience. Is that something you were told directly or something they implied?

Overall, I think international status is the only thing that you might actually have to take into consideration. 

I guess it really depend on the PI. In fact most of the PIs I contacted doesn't mind my undergraduate status but one implied that she prefer post-bac experience. I also have a friend applying to social psych who said that she has a PI require post-bac experience. In China's labs we don't have a position called "lab manager" or "lab coordinator" (yeah it's very different) thus I have no idea how important it is to have experience being a lab manager. But it is a good sign that at least most of the PIs we connected doesn't really mind our undergraduate status. 

The professors I worked with do suggested me really consider those private schools (usually more funding) and international-friendly schools. That's why in UC systems I only applied to UCSD(usually more international-friendly) and UCB (which I really would like to have a try). 

[Yiyu Liu]

1 hour ago, ResilientDreams said:

I really need to start working on my other personal statements but for some reason I'm mentally exhausted.

I think you are already really ahead so if you feel mentally exhuasted it doesn't matter you take a few hours off to get refreshed, like watching a movie or grab some delicious food somewhere. It's only a month from my first DDL and I still haven't started to fill in the forms. But I don't feel seriously bad as I know people who haven't got their school list yet. While it is not good to procristinate, taking time to get refreshed is not a waste of time at all.

As for the PS, I usually write a general description of my research experience (it may be adapted a little according to different programs though) and in the end list a few PIs that you would like to work with. To my understanding, it's necessary to describe what the PI's interests are and how they relate with yours (probably longer and more comprehensive compared to what you wrote in the email), and maybe why you like the general environment of this program. So a easy start could be read a few papers of each PI and then try to summarize their work and describe the overlap in a few sentences. Then when you really feel motivated to write the PS you could bring these clips together. Hope this helps

[loffire]

6 hours ago, Yiyu Liu said:

The third person applying for developmental psych PhD in this thread. I'm currently soooo stressed on my application. I just sent the first round of emails to PIs a few days ago. Currently haven't finalized my PS and hasn't even started to fill in the application. I have three professors who agreed to write LOR for me but I haven't asked them yet to start write them. I spent the whole summer and the early September on a very difficult EEG project (had to learn a lot of math, realize a very novel algorithm in code, do statistics, make posters and do presentations) that's why I started so late. It's only a month to the DDL I think I really have to speed up. 

More about me: I'm an international student, currently a senior undergraduate and apparently this is my first cycle of application (hopefully it's also the last one). I'm interested in the general mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (especially social-cognitive) and have a quite quantitative-heavy experience. 

List (all phd):  Stanford, UCB, MIT, Havard, Princeton, IUB, UCSD, Virginia, Cornell, Duke, NYU, BU, Illinois.

I know they are all very competitive programs and I didn't initially aim for that. But given my recent interest, I simply don't have more options. For some reason I would like to have a PI who is interested in the mechanisms of learning in infancy and childhood (which means he/she should be in the developmental track) but have extensive experience in programming (infact some of the PIs received their PhD degree in Math/Computer Science). And I really would like the program has rich devices (e.g. eye tracker, EEG cap for both infant and adult, neuroimaging devices). I reviewed tons of schools and found that only the school listed above features both quantitative-heavy PIs and rich devices in the developmental track. 

Things not so worried about:

1. My GPA and my undergraduate school (I'm in the top 2 University in China, it ranked only 30 on QS though). I have over 3.7 GPA general and near 3.8 major GPA (ranked top 8% in my program). Though it is far from excellent but I assume at least it will not get in the way. 

2. My general English Skill, I have 109 TOEFL which is beyond the requirements for international students whose native language is not English. 

3. My research experience. I worked in a lab of my home University for two years. I did a honors thesis and another small project there. That lab mainly do behavioral studies. I also spent over 3 months full time in a lab in US helping with all aspects of eye tracking (e.g. idea brainstorming, AOI coding, programming novel tools, general data analyzing) and established a very good relationship with the PI there. The summer in 2018 I worked in another lab in US doing a more independent EEG project (the one I talked above). Literally these experiences are very intense as I had to learn the technique in about a week and then start to program novel methods for data analyzing. I do have research experiences in addition to those listed above. 

4. My LOR. I have 1 letter from my home University. Though my professor is not that famous internationally but at least she published a lot of papers in top journals and is the best of the field in China. She knows me very well. The other 2 letters are from US, they are from the professors who have really established their name in the field in top programs. I believe they all should say quite positively about me. 

5. My Math and Computer Science skills. In addition to statistics in psychology (e.g. t-test, ANOVA, different kinds of regression) I have a few really advanced math courses. I also took a few CS courses. I usually program my own experimental stimuli and sometimes novel tools for data analyzing. 

6. My psych GRE (I ranked 99% on that two years ago) but I don't think it would be useful as I won't apply to clinical programs. 

Things worried:

1. My GRE. The first time I got 153 V 168 Q and 4.0 AW (I only looked through the OG and didn't really prepare for it). The second time I got 165 V 169 Q but only 3.5 AW. I don't think my writing is seriously bad but the thing is I don't have a taste at all for politic issues. This is a culture thing. I learned that American students really care about politics but this is not the case for Chinese students so I panicked when I saw the issue part and wasn't able to finish it.  I have no idea whether my high verbal and the writing score in the TOEFL test (I got 28 out of 30 on writing) could compensate for my low AW. I know people would consider my international status (most Chinese people got 3 , 3.5  or even 2.5 and they still got into programs in US) but 3.5 is not competitive anyway. I got this score a year ago and then I really practiced my writing skill. I wrote a lot of reviews, proposals and manuscripts in English. I don't know how I could reflect my effort in writing though.

2. My international status. Due to the current funding cut, some programs (especially UC systems) are not willing to recruit international students (the psych program in UCLA won't take any international students at all) as they have to pay double the tuition for any international students according to the policy in California. I don't know whether schools other than UC systems are in similar situation. 

3. Short of publications and presentations. It's another cultural thing. Chinese students don't have as much opportunities to go to conferences as American students. For instance I wouldn't know SRCD at all if I hadn't worked in the labs of US. I currently only have a 15 min talk given at a developmental conference in China. And I submitted two abstracts to SRCD in August. But the poster session will be next year. I also don't have a publication yet as I don't want to have a work published in low IF journals (IF<2) and I currently don't have the form of work which could be published in child development, plos one or cognition. So currently only a talk and two potential posters. 

4. my undergraduate status. Some PIs apparently would like to take students who had a master degree or served as a lab manager. They would like students to have post-bac research experience before applying. I don't like them to judge people on how many years they worked in the field though. I really tried to grasp any opportunity and made the best use of my time. But still, professors may judge me because I have less than 3 years of research experience. 

Hope everyone end up in where they should be and best luck of this application cycle! 

I am an international applicant and my awa score was 4.0 as well. It is something to be concerned about as an international student. But hopefully they'll notice your toefl scores. Another thing a POI mentioned during my skype call with her was to make sure your SOP is written really well and free of errors (best to get someone from america to help you read through it. We tend to use words or phrases that are grammatically correct but not commonly used in america that can be a bit weird for them). apart from that, maybe send in a written sample that proves that you can write well. All the best! fingers crossed for you (especially since you an international applicant like me ;))

[PsychApplicantFall2019]

I had chatted with a prospective faculty at a conference that I attended in September. We have been back in touch, and he has stated that he wants me to send him a project proposal. I am not at all ready for this. Definitely panicking. 

[psych2315]

Question....One of the clinical psych doctoral programs that I'm applying to requires a writing sample. I was wondering if you all think its acceptable to send one that was written by myself & 2 other classmates? Basically a co-authored writing sample.

Edited October 23, 2018 by psychmajor2394

[loffire]

17 hours ago, sendmeadvice said:

I had chatted with a prospective faculty at a conference that I attended in September. We have been back in touch, and he has stated that he wants me to send him a project proposal. I am not at all ready for this. Definitely panicking. 

There's time! you've got this!

[PokePsych]

5 hours ago, psychmajor2394 said:

Question....One of the clinical psych doctoral programs that I'm applying to requires a writing sample. I was wondering if you all think its acceptable to send one that was written by myself & 2 other classmates? Basically a co-authored writing sample.

I personally wouldnt do that, I think the point of a writing sample is showing your thoughts and skills. In a group paper it may be hard to distinguish what your contribution is and it may give of a signal that you don't feel confident in your own writing (or that it is not good enough)

[superglobal]

I screwed up my GRE yesterday. I want an opinion on whether this is still worth a shot. I'm an international applicant with a strong work background in the areas I'm applying in (3 yrs of work ex in trauma, juvenile justice and global mental health). I have a Master's in Clinical Psychology from a prestigious university in my country and some publications.

GPA - 3.89

GRE - 162V, 152Q and (probably) 6 AW.

I have strong letters of rec and hopefully a decent SoP. Need to know if the Quant score is enough to rule me out.