Best resources for researching psychology programs?

[PsychCrab]

Hi everyone, 

Now that I've convinced myself that my forties is not too old to finally pursue a clinical psychology Ph.D., I'm ready to research programs to hopefully winnow down to a handful that could be right for me. What are the best resources? I'm considering buying a subscription to the APA's Psychology Graduate School Online Search Tool and am curious what other resources might be out there. I'm less interested in rankings than I am in the balance of research / clinical, faculty, and philosophy. 

Also, I'm looking for resources that cover programs outside the U.S.

Wanted to get an overview before I spend any money on one resource! Thanks in advance. 

[PsyDuck90]

Honestly, the best thing is to look at the recent research that is of interest to you, and then look up where those people are located. From there, look at the school. The Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology is also a good book to purchase. When you say "outside of the US," do you mean Canada or elsewhere? Be mindful that training done in a country other than the US or Canada may not allow you to obtain a clinical license to practice psychology in the US. If that is not a concern, then no worries! However, if you want to practice (or teach in most clinical grad programs), you will need to be licensed. 

[psychedpsyched]

@PsychCrab Not exactly what you're asking but...One things I highly recommend is making a spread sheet with all the information that is important to you in choosing a grad program: location, cost, average GPA/GRE of admitted students, licensor rate, faculty and their interests, cost of living, application requirements. Log EVERY school you look at, even if its just the name of the school and faculty and why you didnt like it. You will look at SO many schools and lose track of the info, especially on ones you DONT like. I could have saved myself so much time looking up the same schools multiple times months later if I had also logged the ones I didnt like early one. I also found it helpful to give each school an impression score of 1-10, just by gut instinct on how much I loved the school. This was helpful later one when narrowing schools down without having to look up all the information again. 

The more systematically you can do it the better, while I agree that starting with findings faculty of interest is a good place to start, that can get cumbersome to search through. If you can either find or make list of the faculty before you dig into your search it might be efficient and productive.

Best of luck with your search!!