Venting about this hellish application season

[Kelso123]

So I've heard from people that "every year gets harder" for getting into psychology programs (particularly clinical psych), but this year is just insane. I'm feeling so frustrated because I got waitlisted at the only school I got an interview from, and now I might not get into grad school this year despite applying to 15 programs. This is my second time applying to clinical programs, and this time I applied with 2 years of full-time research experience (plus 3 years part-time research experience), 3 glowing LOR including one well known PI, and a paper in revision which then was accepted for publication shortly after apps were due (I notified all my potential PIs right away) plus 1 paper under review and 2 in prep, plus 4 first authored posters and a dozen other posters I've worked on as second or third author. (My undergrad GPA was 3.95 so that also shouldn't be an issue). My supervisors, an associate and assistant professor at an R01, were confident I would receive several offers this year with my CV and after looking over my personal statement as well. And yet here we are... 

I'm sure I'm not the only qualified applicant facing this. And I also know that people who are receiving offers are super amazing so no shade to them. It just sucks that funding is so down this year and there were suddenly so many more applicants. 

I'm feeling especially frustrated today because a grad student in one of the labs I work in was asking for my help with stats, and it's like if I can teach current grad students things they don't know and still not get into a program, what the heck?! Is it even worth it to keep trying to get into this field? I just feel so discouraged. 

Feel free to vent about this crazy app season or anything else psychology field / application related below. 

[PsychApplicant2]

I’m sorry ? there are so many qualified applicants that get screwed over in this process. I think this year, a make or break factor was that some PIs were looking for applicants who had direct research experience in their field rather than those who didn’t. It’s not the most fair thing, because it’s really difficult for applicants to get direct experience. I’ve heard this ring true for a lot of different applicants; this can be a make-or-break type of thing. I’m super nervous to apply next cycle ?

[DocPending]

It sucks how difficult it is to get an acceptance within this field. I mean 8-9 openings out of hundreds of applicants is insane. I applied to both clinical and counseling psychology programs to see if I could increase my chances but it is still crazy competitive. Other than feeling overwhelmed during the crazy application cycle/interview period is I have been annoyed by family members assuming how easy it is to get an acceptance. But don't give up and keep trying! It can be frustrating but in the end all of your hard work and frustration will be worth it!

[Kelso123]

3 minutes ago, PsychApplicant2 said:

I’m sorry ? there are so many qualified applicants that get screwed over in this process. I think this year, a make or break factor was that some PIs were looking for applicants who had direct research experience in their field rather than those who didn’t. It’s not the most fair thing, because it’s really difficult for applicants to get direct experience. I’ve heard this ring true for a lot of different applicants; this can be a make-or-break type of thing. I’m super nervous to apply next cycle ?

Yeah that may have been a factor, although my 3 years of post-bacc research experience is in clinical psychology, and while it's not directly in the community-clinical area, I have worked on projects related to that so idk. 

 

1 minute ago, DocPending said:

It sucks how difficult it is to get an acceptance within this field. I mean 8-9 openings out of hundreds of applicants is insane. I applied to both clinical and counseling psychology programs to see if I could increase my chances but it is still crazy competitive. Other than feeling overwhelmed during the crazy application cycle/interview period is I have been annoyed by family members assuming how easy it is to get an acceptance. But don't give up and keep trying! It can be frustrating but in the end all of your hard work and frustration will be worth it!

Yeah totally, and I feel you with family members assuming it's way easier to get acceptance than it is. My mom's a doctor and she doesn't get the difference between getting into med school (40 - 50% acceptance rate) and clinical psych (7 - 12% in a "normal" year) is so vast. Thanks for the encouragement ❤️ 

[Psyched21]

I've been thinking about this a lot. The funding for graduate study in clinical psychology is so often tied to funding for grants in individual laboratories. So long as that is the system, admit rates will be very low, in accordance with flow of grant money, and based on alignment of interests with grant needs. The APA needs to think long and hard about its requirement that licensing for clinical psychologists flow through these narrowly focused grant-based programs. For example, wouldn't it relieve a lot of pressure if more top universities embraced PsyD programs--with the support of mental health grant funding-- that trained outstanding clinicians, and stopped denigrating them as somehow less worthy than their academically focused counterparts? Imagine a medical school that looks down its nose at those who seek to treat patients, or a law school that turns away those who admit to wanting to represent clients. Yet this is the situation for many applying to psychology programs. So strange. The attempt to combine academia, scientific funding and professional licensing all under one roof has, it seems to me, created a great identity crisis and nearly insurmountable hurdles for most applicants.

[EileanDonan]

Well, this has been existentially crushing. Has anyone else been officially roundly rejected? I guess I'm not really surprised that I'm going to be third-rounder, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating, especially since admissions may be just as bad next year. What's stopping me from having to do even a fourth round at this rate? There really is no end in sight for this circus, and I wish we could stop vying so much for the ringmasters' approval.

[Psyched21]

23 hours ago, texaspsych21 said:

I just want to add to my comment that the profession, through this process, is wasting talent and potential at a time when society needs so many more resources in this field. It makes me very sad.

 

[JakiraJakira]

On 2/26/2021 at 10:02 AM, texaspsych21 said:

I've been thinking about this a lot. The funding for graduate study in clinical psychology is so often tied to funding for grants in individual laboratories. So long as that is the system, admit rates will be very low, in accordance with flow of grant money, and based on alignment of interests with grant needs. The APA needs to think long and hard about its requirement that licensing for clinical psychologists flow through these narrowly focused grant-based programs. For example, wouldn't it relieve a lot of pressure if more top universities embraced PsyD programs--with the support of mental health grant funding-- that trained outstanding clinicians, and stopped denigrating them as somehow less worthy than their academically focused counterparts? Imagine a medical school that looks down its nose at those who seek to treat patients, or a law school that turns away those who admit to wanting to represent clients. Yet this is the situation for many applying to psychology programs. So strange. The attempt to combine academia, scientific funding and professional licensing all under one roof has, it seems to me, created a great identity crisis and nearly insurmountable hurdles for most applicants.

I think the biggest issue is that psychology is not a high demand field (in terms of job outlook which is 3% or average) whereas social work, mental health counseling and many adjacent fields related to mental health clinical work are in high demand.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the job outlook of adjacent fields at 8% for school counselors, 22% for marriage and family therapists, 13% for social workers and 25% for Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors. All of these are well above average job outlooks. 
 

Schools are therefore focusing on fields that are in demand and desperately need practitioners whereas fields like clinical psych (which don’t have enough internship sites for many more PhD or PsyD students) are only growing slowly. 
 

The talent may be wasted but I think what the field of psychology needs to do a better job at is convincing applicants that they don’t need to get a PhD or PsyD to do what they want. There are so many other routes to be a mental health clinician and reducing our field to only a few options means that it will be so much more competitive and grueling. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by JakiraJakira

[Oxford_comma2]

The thing is— getting a masters costs money. You get paid to get a PhD (even if it’s not much.) 

[raindr0p]

13 hours ago, Oxford_comma2 said:

The thing is— getting a masters costs money. You get paid to get a PhD (even if it’s not much.) 

Totally. This has been a huge factor for me. My plan was to apply to clinical master’s programs if I didn’t get in anywhere this cycle. The program I liked the best was at Boston University and would’ve required me to take out over $100,000 in loans. The idea of taking on that much debt was slightly horrifying... I think it would have caused me years of financial stress. I now have one offer from a PhD program that isn’t a perfect research fit by any stretch (it wasn’t my top choice), but it’s fully-funded and a lot of its graduates have gone on to clinical careers (even though it’s a research-heavy clinical science program). It’s really no question for me now...I could not fathom paying for a master’s instead even if I already knew I were more interested in clinical work than in research. Anyway, if it were easier to become a therapist (social worker, mental health counselor) without owing thousands of dollars in tuition, I’m sure more people would go that route.

[JakiraJakira]

2 hours ago, raindr0p said:

Totally. This has been a huge factor for me. My plan was to apply to clinical master’s programs if I didn’t get in anywhere this cycle. The program I liked the best was at Boston University and would’ve required me to take out over $100,000 in loans. The idea of taking on that much debt was slightly horrifying... I think it would have caused me years of financial stress. I now have one offer from a PhD program that isn’t a perfect research fit by any stretch (it wasn’t my top choice), but it’s fully-funded and a lot of its graduates have gone on to clinical careers (even though it’s a research-heavy clinical science program). It’s really no question for me now...I could not fathom paying for a master’s instead even if I already knew I were more interested in clinical work than in research. Anyway, if it were easier to become a therapist (social worker, mental health counselor) without owing thousands of dollars in tuition, I’m sure more people would go that route.

That is fair! A couple of other people I know decided to get their masters in psychology at an in-state public university rather than apply to private universities out of state. They will only have to take out like 30-40 k in loans for living and tuition. 

My fiancé was accepted into an out of state MSW program and with financial aid it will come out to 30-50k depending on how much loans he takes out for living expenses. With the Public service loan forgiveness program owing 50k in loans while not optimal is not a hopeless situation if you can afford it through federal loans. Other people in his psychology graduating class were able to do similar things in state (mainly at Ohio State and UC) going to MSW, mental health counseling and school counseling programs. 

I just wish it was easier for the people who do want to do clinical research, supervision, training and therapy to get a doctorate in psychology. That is why I wish psychology undergraduate programs would advocate more for other career options (my university pushes heavily towards clinical and counseling psych and does not address options that don't have psychology in the degree name).  A professor of my fiancé who wrote them a letter of recommendation asked why they did not want to pursue a degree in psychology. He said "I want to be a therapist for children who have severe mental health issues and know that I can do that with a clinical social work degree". 

It just depends on what you want! Wishing everyone the best on their future endeavors.