Fall 2019 Clinical Psych Interview Invites

[dancedementia]

1 hour ago, Pearl95 said:

Sorry if this post is off topic, but I had my interview at William James, I thought it went well but I'm personally still iffy on the program in regards to the large cohort size (100 students per year) and honestly the location (so. much. traffic.). I'm just looking to talk about it with anyone else who interviewed there, feel free to reply or DM. 

I interviewed there, I also have three co-workers/acquaintances who went through the program and used to live in Boston. PM me!

[rayray15]

I've been accepted to a few schools but am waiting for scholarship offers before I make my decision. Do you know how soon after acceptance we're supposed to hear about the scholarship offer? Is it appropriate to ask schools how much scholarship money you can receive or leveraging other offers to get more scholarship money? 

[Hopingfortheverybest]

Anyone know when we’ll hear back from University of Denver Clinical Child PhD?

Edited March 5, 2019 by Hopingfortheverybest

[thissucks]

If anyone gets an informal offer from UMKC please let me know! I know the interviews just happened but I'm so anxious! 

Edited March 5, 2019 by thissucks

[InfiniteLoop]

6 hours ago, rayray15 said:

I've been accepted to a few schools but am waiting for scholarship offers before I make my decision. Do you know how soon after acceptance we're supposed to hear about the scholarship offer? Is it appropriate to ask schools how much scholarship money you can receive or leveraging other offers to get more scholarship money? 

Yes - curious about this as well.

[psychology_student_]

1 hour ago, InfiniteLoop said:

Yes - curious about this as well.

of course it's appropriate, just ask whatever you're wanting to know in a polite and professional manner

[ClinicPsychPhd]

I'm applying to grad schools next application cycle and I was wondering which clinical programs people have interviewed at or have come across that is more focused/has more of an emphasis on clinical experience than it does on research. All help is greatly appreciated! 

[dancedementia]

Just now, ClinicPsychPhd said:

I'm applying to grad schools next application cycle and I was wondering which clinical programs people have interviewed at or have come across that is more focused/has more of an emphasis on clinical experience than it does on research. All help is greatly appreciated! 

Short version: You'd be looking at PsyD programs if you want the clinical experience

Long version: Get a copy of the Insider's Guide to Clinical and Counseling Psychology Programs. It rates each program on a scale of 1-7, with 1 being heavy emphasis on clinical and 7 being heavy emphasis on research. You can judge programs on that scale.

[psychology_student_]

56 minutes ago, ClinicPsychPhd said:

I'm applying to grad schools next application cycle and I was wondering which clinical programs people have interviewed at or have come across that is more focused/has more of an emphasis on clinical experience than it does on research. All help is greatly appreciated! 

That is a very broad request of programs. In America, and as stated above, traditionally PsyD programs have more of an emphasis on clinical experience, but this is such a general request in a program that there is no way you could find specific programs that are truly more focused on practice.

All doctoral programs emphasize practice to the point that their graduates are prepared to pass the EPPP to become licensed psycholgoists. Pass rate metrics would be the closet measurement you could use to objectively see which programs most emphasize clinical experience, and even then this would be a horrible way to judge how much programs emphasize practice. All programs "emphasize" clinical experience, hence upon graduation they become clinical psychologists (and most states term psychologists coming from counseling programs as "clinical").

[hopefulgrad2019]

1 hour ago, ClinicPsychPhd said:

I'm applying to grad schools next application cycle and I was wondering which clinical programs people have interviewed at or have come across that is more focused/has more of an emphasis on clinical experience than it does on research. All help is greatly appreciated! 

Even the most “clinical focused” PhD programs will be a 50/50 split. Clinical psych phd’s are being trained to be researchers primarily so you’d be better off with a PsyD. 

[dancedementia]

36 minutes ago, hopefulgrad2019 said:

Even the most “clinical focused” PhD programs will be a 50/50 split. Clinical psych phd’s are being trained to be researchers primarily so you’d be better off with a PsyD. 

Not necessarily. See: Harvard, Temple, Yale. Basically, all the original APCS programs haha. You are definitely much more engaged in research, with clinicals almost as an afterthought. Granted, these programs have connections to great clinical placements so the caliber of training is not deficient in any way. You just won't be engaged in clinical training until later, and your research commitments come first. I'd say more like 70/30 split.

[hopefulgrad2019]

1 hour ago, dancedementia said:

Not necessarily. See: Harvard, Temple, Yale. Basically, all the original APCS programs haha. You are definitely much more engaged in research, with clinicals almost as an afterthought. Granted, these programs have connections to great clinical placements so the caliber of training is not deficient in any way. You just won't be engaged in clinical training until later, and your research commitments come first. I'd say more like 70/30 split.

Temple is more research focused than clinical, they don’t have a 70 clinical/30 research split. I can’t speak for Harvard or Yale. 

My original comment was saying even the most clinical focused programs wouldn’t have research taking a backseat to clinical. 

[psychology_student_]

If you wanted a school with a more "clinical" focus, just to apply to the programs with greatest variety/number of practicuum opportunites. Otherwise, finding schools with such a focus would be a really hard thing to quantify/do. I just don't think a school that is labeled scientist-practitioner would focus on the clinical side of their training significantly more or less than other scientist-practitioner program. If you just want clinical work, I'd advise pursing a terminal Master's.

[dancedementia]

4 hours ago, hopefulgrad2019 said:

Temple is more research focused than clinical, they don’t have a 70 clinical/30 research split. I can’t speak for Harvard or Yale. 

My original comment was saying even the most clinical focused programs wouldn’t have research taking a backseat to clinical. 

I meant 70 research/30 clinical hah. Sorry, I misinterpreted your original comment in the opposite direction of what you meant!

[ASDadvocate]

8 hours ago, ClinicPsychPhd said:

I'm applying to grad schools next application cycle and I was wondering which clinical programs people have interviewed at or have come across that is more focused/has more of an emphasis on clinical experience than it does on research. All help is greatly appreciated! 

What are your interests? You will also likely want to look for programs with clinical opportunities that match your population of interest or your theoretical approach interest. Some programs lean more heavily on certain populations (especially if they have special access to the population due to geographic location; ex. rural v. urban populations) or have faculty with more expertise or interests related to specific approaches or theoretical values (ex. CBT). If you want more breadth of training, then a generalist program might be best. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by ASDadvocate
Examples added

[ASDadvocate]

I have a question regarding waitlists. Has anyone been waitlisted pre-interview and heard from the school? I'm interested in knowing about the process for waitlists before an interview. I'm assuming if any admitted students decline, they may then go into the post-interview waitlist? And then if those don't work out they go into the pre-interview waitlist? Or maybe the pre-interview waitlist is in case they have interviewees decline an interview? Not sure what to think. The program I was waitlisted to is one of my top programs and it has better funding options than the other top program I've been admitted to.

[Clinapp2017]

2 hours ago, ASDadvocate said:

I have a question regarding waitlists. Has anyone been waitlisted pre-interview and heard from the school? I'm interested in knowing about the process for waitlists before an interview. I'm assuming if any admitted students decline, they may then go into the post-interview waitlist? And then if those don't work out they go into the pre-interview waitlist? Or maybe the pre-interview waitlist is in case they have interviewees decline an interview? Not sure what to think. The program I was waitlisted to is one of my top programs and it has better funding options than the other top program I've been admitted to.

That is generally my impression of how this works (coming from the other side of the process now).

[ASDadvocate]

14 minutes ago, Clinapp2017 said:

That is generally my impression of how this works (coming from the other side of the process now).

Gotcha! If and when they get to me on the waitlist, would the expectation be that I would get an admission offer or would they want to do an interview prior? Ha! This sounds delusional since it looks like it's pretty much impossible, especially given the caliber of the program. But I guess it doesn't hurt to ask!

[Clinapp2017]

Just now, ASDadvocate said:

Gotcha! If and when they get to me on the waitlist, would the expectation be that I would get an admission offer or would they want to do an interview prior? Ha! This sounds delusional since it looks like it's pretty much impossible, especially given the caliber of the program. But I guess it doesn't hurt to ask!

They'd contact you for some sort of interview (phone or skype is likely if you live far away). 

[ASDadvocate]

Just now, Clinapp2017 said:

They'd contact you for some sort of interview (phone or skype is likely if you live far away). 

Thanks for the info!!

[LondonBoy]

On 3/3/2019 at 1:30 AM, ninjasub2 said:

No, I had one interview offer. Even if I had 6 interviews offers and didn’t end up getting an acceptance, why would you try and belittle that person into thinking there must be something wrong with them if they weren’t accepted? Like I said, I just want PURE numbers here. If you’re not going to help out with that situation, don’t waste your time replying. 

I wasn’t belittling you. If that were the case, (that you had 6 interviews and no offers) I was going to be shocked, and agree with you that something underlying must be present, because you would clearly be a strong candidate if you managed to get 6 interviews. No need to get defensive or snappy. The situation I wrongly perceived was unheard of—for me at least—and made me panic. I only received one interview myself, and so thinking you were saying that you had 6 interviews, and had no luck with any of them, frankly, scared me. I was thinking that I don’t stand a chance. 

Sorry about the misunderstanding. Best of luck. 

[psychology_student_]

2 hours ago, LondonBoy said:

I wasn’t belittling you. If that were the case, (that you had 6 interviews and no offers) I was going to be shocked, and agree with you that something underlying must be present, because you would clearly be a strong candidate if you managed to get 6 interviews. No need to get defensive or snappy. The situation I wrongly perceived was unheard of—for me at least—and made me panic. I only received one interview myself, and so thinking you were saying that you had 6 interviews, and had no luck with any of them, frankly, scared me. I was thinking that I don’t stand a chance. 

Sorry about the misunderstanding. Best of luck. 

That many interviews and no offers is not uncommon at all. It looks like I'll end up with only 2 acceptances from 9 interviews myself.

[dancedementia]

6 hours ago, personallycentered said:

That many interviews and no offers is not uncommon at all. It looks like I'll end up with only 2 acceptances from 9 interviews myself.

As another data point, same. 9 interviews 3 offers, and at higher yield programs only. 

[elle94]

On 3/1/2019 at 8:19 AM, ninjasub2 said:

This is a genereal question for anyone that was accepted into a program this year:

what were your GRE scores?

how many years and what kind of research experience did you have?

any publications or independent projects?

trying to plan so I definitely make it in next cycle ?

Hey, I had 5 interviews and was accepted to 4 programs. Three of those acceptances happened after being first alternate on the waitlist for a while. I was a non-psych undergrad. I spent 1 year in a psych lab in undergrad. After I graduated, I joined a lab at a R1 university where I had the opportunity to work on several research studies. I spent 2 years at this institution before applying. In those two years I presented data at 5 national conferences and published a first author paper in a highly ranked journal. I did my best to develop my research interests through literature review, and by reaching out to people I felt were doing interesting things. My GRE scores were average at best Q: 50th V: 80th AW: 82nd. I took it once and studied for about 2 months. Psych subject test felt like a huge waste of time. I took it two years in a row and ended up with a score in the 60th percentile. I studied for about 1.5 months.

^^ all of this sorta matters but at the end of the day, it comes down to your ability to articulate your research interests and explain why those things are interesting to you. The "why" is arguably more important than the "what". Your statements should tie your experiences together and explain how those skills translate into the work you may be doing in the lab you are applying to. In all of my statements, I added a few sentences about possible projects/ research questions I may want to ask with the available data in that lab (This is why reaching out to potential PIs before applying is important. Introduce yourself, tell them your interests, and ask what current projects they are working on and what projects may come up in the future. Use this information to inform your statements. (obviously, try not to ask questions that you can find the answers to online)). 

Personalize your statements to the PI and the work that they are doing. When prepping for interviews, I took that personalizing step even further and came up with 2-3 mini projects/research questions I could see myself working on in each lab. PIs want someone who is eager and actively thinking of ways they may fit in the lab, and projects they may be able to work on in the lab. Do not apply to labs you don't fit in. Once interviews are done, the only thing that matters is fit.

I hope this is helpful. I'm totally open to providing more info if anyone has questions! 

[elle94]

On 3/7/2019 at 1:24 PM, ClinicPsychPhd said:

I'm applying to grad schools next application cycle and I was wondering which clinical programs people have interviewed at or have come across that is more focused/has more of an emphasis on clinical experience than it does on research. All help is greatly appreciated! 

Uconn is very flexible with this. They don't look down on folks who want to do more clinical work. They are very supportive of whatever path you choose. This was the only interview I had where I was asked clinical questions.