2021 Clinical Psychology Applicants CANADA

[clinical_psyc_hopeful]

2 hours ago, Hope466 said:

I am wondering if anyone has any insight into how GRE scores are being considered this year, given that they are not required for most institutions? Specifically, are you at a disadvantage if you do not submit them?

I emailed a few programs who were vague and most of them said that they will not be considered at all. I think its best to email each program

[+ve regard]

Hi all - I am a current PhD student at U of T (OISE) CCP...if you have any specific q's about this program, feel free to dm  Best of luck!!

[iamstressed]

Anyone know when Mac is opening up the application?

[UWOclinpsych]

So the Psy.D program at memorial is not taking a cohort on this year, in case anyone was interested in that program. 

[emsmith]

Hi, This seems like a dumb thing to ask, but what do people write in the "any other important information you want the admissions committee to know in evaluating your application" section of some of the forms? 

 

I'm tempted to write a couple of lines about how I'm completing a couple of required/suggested courses and I expect to have them done in the next few months - they should be on my transcripts "in progress" so I don't know if this is really necessary... My reasoning for writing it is to emphasize that I've done really well in the courses that I have finished in the last few months while working full-time, but at the same time I don't want to write additional information that will be boring or emphasize that those courses are not complete at the time of application (which could be a weakness if the other applicants already have those completed?)

People who have applied before /or have been accepted - did you find it helpful to add information here, or is it better to just leave it blank? 

[Mickey26]

3 hours ago, emsmith said:

Hi, This seems like a dumb thing to ask, but what do people write in the "any other important information you want the admissions committee to know in evaluating your application" section of some of the forms? 

 

I'm tempted to write a couple of lines about how I'm completing a couple of required/suggested courses and I expect to have them done in the next few months - they should be on my transcripts "in progress" so I don't know if this is really necessary... My reasoning for writing it is to emphasize that I've done really well in the courses that I have finished in the last few months while working full-time, but at the same time I don't want to write additional information that will be boring or emphasize that those courses are not complete at the time of application (which could be a weakness if the other applicants already have those completed?)

People who have applied before /or have been accepted - did you find it helpful to add information here, or is it better to just leave it blank? 

That's a great question! I personally never added anything in that section so curious to hear what other's have done!

I suspect that section is good for if you took time off to work and then decided you want to go to grad school, what the rational might be for that. Similarly, if you worked in an unrelated field and now want to do Clin Psych, a rationale there might be useful.  This is all speculation on my part though.

[Hope466]

Hi everyone,

Here with another question - I am wondering how common it is to get in or be interviewed by POI's you list as 2nd or 3rd, as well, as profs you email but get no reply from? 

 

Thank you

[Clin_psyc]

Will the institutions we list for our CGS-M award read our proposals? If we write a proposal that is in the same realm of what we plan to study but not exactly (e.g. Autism) in line with each school we apply too, can we submit the same proposal for OGS too?

[emsmith]

22 hours ago, Mickey26 said:

That's a great question! I personally never added anything in that section so curious to hear what other's have done!

I suspect that section is good for if you took time off to work and then decided you want to go to grad school, what the rational might be for that. Similarly, if you worked in an unrelated field and now want to do Clin Psych, a rationale there might be useful.  This is all speculation on my part though.

Thanks - that's a good point! 

I also have a couple of transcripts from international institutions with different grading schemes, maybe I could make a note of that there as well? 

I would love to hear if anyone else has used that section on an application, and what you think would be appropriate to add there

[LMoll]

10 hours ago, Hope466 said:

Hi everyone,

Here with another question - I am wondering how common it is to get in or be interviewed by POI's you list as 2nd or 3rd, as well, as profs you email but get no reply from? 

 

Thank you

I actually also have a question pertaining to this: If there is only one (or at most, 2) supervisors I want to work with at a given school, am I meant to add another name I really have no interest in working with? In other words-- when they say "list up to 2" or "list up to 3" do they really mean, "we want to see 2-3 names here"? Is it a bad call to be truthful and only put the one PI? Would love people's thoughts on this as well.

[Rapunzel116]

6 hours ago, LMoll said:

I actually also have a question pertaining to this: If there is only one (or at most, 2) supervisors I want to work with at a given school, am I meant to add another name I really have no interest in working with? In other words-- when they say "list up to 2" or "list up to 3" do they really mean, "we want to see 2-3 names here"? Is it a bad call to be truthful and only put the one PI? Would love people's thoughts on this as well.

I dont think so I have a few schools where im only listing one potential supervisor cause no other research areas match what I want to do. They want you to have a strong supervisor match so if you aren’t interested in people’s work I dont see a point or advantage to listing them. 

[freudianslipintogradschool]

On 10/23/2020 at 11:19 AM, Clin_psyc said:

Will the institutions we list for our CGS-M award read our proposals? If we write a proposal that is in the same realm of what we plan to study but not exactly (e.g. Autism) in line with each school we apply too, can we submit the same proposal for OGS too?

I’ve heard your proposal doesn’t have to be about anything you plan to study. E.g., you can basically propose something in an entirely different area

[Hope466]

On 10/21/2020 at 9:42 AM, Mickey26 said:

Unfortunately its very very unclear this app season. and every department is doing its on GRE thing (not required but accepted, not accepted at all, etc). Its best to email the department and ask (although I'm not sure how much insight youll get on weighting of GRE scores ? )

Thank you so much! Now that I am submitting applications, some of them don't even have a slot for submitting GRE scores. I just thought I'd let you guys know

Edited October 25, 2020 by Hope466

[emsmith]

2 hours ago, freudianslipintogradschool said:

I’ve heard your proposal doesn’t have to be about anything you plan to study. E.g., you can basically propose something in an entirely different area

How does that work if you received the funding? Since they make their decisions funding based on your proposal, don't you have to do what you said you were going to?

[emsmith]

I have another potentially silly question - what format are the SOPs supposed to be? I envisioned writing it like a cover letter - "Dear admissions committee, introduction to self, blah blah blah, outline your interests and experiences, etc, sincerely, applicant" but after googling tips all of the examples are in more of an essay format - "Ever since I was a child I wondered why my cat chased mice, this led me to wonder why people blah blah blah, now I want to be a clinical psychologist" 

What have people written in the past? Cover letter/essay/something different? Particularly people who have already been accepted into a program? I find the examples online seem cheesy, but maybe that's because I've been working for a few years and I'm approaching it in the wrong way? 

[freudianslipintogradschool]

48 minutes ago, emsmith said:

How does that work if you received the funding? Since they make their decisions funding based on your proposal, don't you have to do what you said you were going to?

Nope for the MA they understand that you have no idea where you’re going or who you’re going to be working with. Your CGS gets sent to multiple schools and you could theoretically apply to multiple profs at each school. So they don’t expect you to execute what you’ve outlined 

[PsycUndergrad]

1 hour ago, emsmith said:

I have another potentially silly question - what format are the SOPs supposed to be? I envisioned writing it like a cover letter - "Dear admissions committee, introduction to self, blah blah blah, outline your interests and experiences, etc, sincerely, applicant" but after googling tips all of the examples are in more of an essay format - "Ever since I was a child I wondered why my cat chased mice, this led me to wonder why people blah blah blah, now I want to be a clinical psychologist" 

What have people written in the past? Cover letter/essay/something different? Particularly people who have already been accepted into a program? I find the examples online seem cheesy, but maybe that's because I've been working for a few years and I'm approaching it in the wrong way? 

I wrote mine similar to a cover letter, just not in letter format. I focused mainly on describing my past research experience and skills and linking them to the POI’s research/what I wanted to research in grad school. I was accepted and a few people commented that it was strongly written, so I guess it worked. I’m not a fan of the cheesy anecdotes either. They seem unprofessional to me, like something that a high school student would write. 

[emsmith]

26 minutes ago, PsycUndergrad said:

I wrote mine similar to a cover letter, just not in letter format. I focused mainly on describing my past research experience and skills and linking them to the POI’s research/what I wanted to research in grad school. I was accepted and a few people commented that it was strongly written, so I guess it worked. I’m not a fan of the cheesy anecdotes either. They seem unprofessional to me, like something that a high school student would write. 

Yes, I agree it seems very unprofessional to me as well! Thanks for sharing!

[emsmith]

1 hour ago, freudianslipintogradschool said:

Nope for the MA they understand that you have no idea where you’re going or who you’re going to be working with. Your CGS gets sent to multiple schools and you could theoretically apply to multiple profs at each school. So they don’t expect you to execute what you’ve outlined 

Okay, that's reassuring to know! So going back to the original question, the schools (and possibly the supervisors) you apply to will read the proposal?

[freudianslipintogradschool]

3 hours ago, emsmith said:

Okay, that's reassuring to know! So going back to the original question, the schools (and possibly the supervisors) you apply to will read the proposal?

A committee at each school rates the proposals separately from your application. The people you apply to may be in the funding committee but not necessarily. You can think of funding apps and actual apps as two separate processes

[Kresen]

Hi again guys  How have you all managed to whittle down your SOIs..? Mine is insanely long and unfocused, and I am having a lot of difficulty trying to get it down to the bare bones and just say what needs to be said.

Also, if I am applying for a clinical program at University A but also submit an application for, say, experimental psychology at the same school, would that be frowned upon/not taken in a good way? There are a couple of schools with faculty that make me want to apply for the clinical and nonclinical programs.. just wanted to know what you guys thought  TIA

[emsmith]

13 hours ago, freudianslipintogradschool said:

A committee at each school rates the proposals separately from your application. The people you apply to may be in the funding committee but not necessarily. You can think of funding apps and actual apps as two separate processes

This is really helpful to know, thank you very much! I am less worried now about making sure my applications ticks the boxes of every supervisor I'm applying to from those schools - I was wondering how anyone could possibly write a cohesive proposal for 3 different programs! 

[PrettyFlyForACogSci]

9 hours ago, ENESKR said:

Hi again guys  How have you all managed to whittle down your SOIs..? Mine is insanely long and unfocused, and I am having a lot of difficulty trying to get it down to the bare bones and just say what needs to be said.

Also, if I am applying for a clinical program at University A but also submit an application for, say, experimental psychology at the same school, would that be frowned upon/not taken in a good way? There are a couple of schools with faculty that make me want to apply for the clinical and nonclinical programs.. just wanted to know what you guys thought  TIA

I would say it's not a great idea to apply to two different programs at the same school. Clinical programs particularly want focused students given the resources needed to support clinical students, so I would think that applying to two different programs demonstrates ambivalence/indecision in the committee's eyes. For instance, when writing your statement of intent for two different programs at the same school, the letters will likely differ in your long-term goals/educational goals because of the different program structures and career opportunities. I think that providing inconsistent information in the two statement of intents might be a kiss of death in the vetting process. This is just my opinion however!

[UWOclinpsych]

On 10/21/2020 at 4:29 PM, iamstressed said:

Anyone know when Mac is opening up the application?

Yeah I contacted them and you're just supposed to apply to the normal MSc option and there's a prompt in the application asking if you're applying to the RCT stream 

[Angela21]

Hello!

I am applying for PhD in Fall 2021 and realize I might be a bit late getting started (only started in October). Was wondering if anyone can help with a couple of questions  

1. I noticed that the GRE in the unis I checked is "recommended but not required", so that means I do not need to take it or submit a score?

2. Generally for Canada (Ontario) do you email the profs first before applying?

3. Does anyone have a reference or example of good Cover Letter and CV for PhD psychology? And is there a special format for Canadian unis?

4. I have research experience but no publications. How much would that affect my chances of getting into a PhD program?

5. Any guidance in applying for funding? I find it so overwhelming

Any advice/tips is more than welcome! Thanks in advance