2022-2023 Clinical Psychology Applications - Canada

[Kresen]

Would any of you mention any withdrawals/weak grades in the first semester of undergrad?

I have one W and a C- (both non-psych related) because I experienced the deaths of multiple close family members during my first semester of freshman year, but the rest of my academic history is pretty solid.

I was considering mentioning it briefly in my SOP, but wasn't sure whether I should or not because of word count restrictions and the rest of the transcript speaking for itself on my improvement. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[PeanutButterBread]

9 hours ago, Kresen said:

Would any of you mention any withdrawals/weak grades in the first semester of undergrad?

I have one W and a C- (both non-psych related) because I experienced the deaths of multiple close family members during my first semester of freshman year, but the rest of my academic history is pretty solid.

I was considering mentioning it briefly in my SOP, but wasn't sure whether I should or not because of word count restrictions and the rest of the transcript speaking for itself on my improvement. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Hi there! This is a good question and also something I asked my mentor about- I didn't have withdrawals but did have weak grades early on in my undergrad. I am also sorry to hear about your losses, that sounds very difficult.

My mentor told me there are multiple ways to argue that you will be successful in grad school (i.e. that your psychology gpa in particular is high, that your grades have consistently increased and you showed resilience, or in your case, you can specifically explain your situation and what impeded your academic performance). My mentor also said that the academic consideration section should not take up more than a few sentences in the SOP (but also depends on the word count of course).

Also, as you said, those grades were for non psych related courses (and it is only two?), so I don't think grad schools would focus in on that too much; they would surely be more concerned about your grades in upper year psych courses! I  hope this helped a bit and I wish you all the best for this application cycle!

[VanessaB]

On 10/23/2021 at 10:57 PM, Kresen said:

Would any of you mention any withdrawals/weak grades in the first semester of undergrad?

I have one W and a C- (both non-psych related) because I experienced the deaths of multiple close family members during my first semester of freshman year, but the rest of my academic history is pretty solid.

I was considering mentioning it briefly in my SOP, but wasn't sure whether I should or not because of word count restrictions and the rest of the transcript speaking for itself on my improvement. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

There's multiple ways you could approach this. Here's what I suggest. My recommendation is not to briefly explain the W or the C- unless the program(s) you're applying to specifically state they're using your cGPA calculation for anything related to the admissions process. If you mention the W and C- and they weren't noticed beforehand by a committee, that could unnecessarily draw attention to that part of your application. Although my situation was different (i.e., I applied with multiple undergraduate degrees), I had 4 Ws in my first degree (mostly due to changing majors and realizing it wasn't worth it to finish the courses) and a D in genetics class in my first degree as well. I never mentioned any of these in any of my applications, and it wouldn't been weird to do so since they were so long ago. Ultimately, I was successful with getting admitted to multiple programs and getting CGS-M. Given that you mention the W and C- were in your first semester of undergrad, I suggest using your limited word and/or page space for other things aside from explaining your W and C-.

[Kresen]

Thank you both so much for your detailed feedback! I really appreciate it. I am leaning more towards highlighting and focusing on my strengths, rather than unnecessarily drawing attention to my weaknesses.. it's been a while since I've been out of school, so it was nice to hear opinions from people more recently involved in academia ❤️ thank you so much

 

*edit* I tried to use the "quote" function, but I couldn't get it to work for some reason... thank you PBbread and Vanessa!!

Edited October 27, 2021 by Kresen
additional information

[lishlish]

Hi, if anyone has applied to Ryerson before, please let know. I have a question about their application process. Ty !

[PeanutButterBread]

On 10/27/2021 at 2:58 AM, Kresen said:

Thank you both so much for your detailed feedback! I really appreciate it. I am leaning more towards highlighting and focusing on my strengths, rather than unnecessarily drawing attention to my weaknesses.. it's been a while since I've been out of school, so it was nice to hear opinions from people more recently involved in academia ❤️ thank you so much

 

*edit* I tried to use the "quote" function, but I couldn't get it to work for some reason... thank you PBbread and Vanessa!!

It's no problem at all, happy to help

[wastedactionpotentials]

On 10/24/2021 at 12:57 AM, Kresen said:

Would any of you mention any withdrawals/weak grades in the first semester of undergrad?

I have one W and a C- (both non-psych related) because I experienced the deaths of multiple close family members during my first semester of freshman year, but the rest of my academic history is pretty solid.

I was considering mentioning it briefly in my SOP, but wasn't sure whether I should or not because of word count restrictions and the rest of the transcript speaking for itself on my improvement. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

My second and third year grades are filled with Cs and Ds due to unavoidable circumstances (deaths in my family + working full-time). I started seeking professional help to help me sort out my life and my last year's grades were okay for undergrad. I then went on to do an unrelated Master's in HRM to further boost my "last 2 years' GPA". All this while, I have also been gaining a lot of research and healthcare experiences. I am applying this year. I don't know what's going to happen. But for schools that look at the cGPA or for places that have a "GPA cutoff" for screening out purposes, I am thinking to mention it briefly in my SOP. 

[forpsych]

On 10/29/2021 at 7:49 PM, lishlish said:

Hi, if anyone has applied to Ryerson before, please let know. I have a question about their application process. Ty !

I applied in 2020 and made it through to an interview, so I could possibly help!

[Kresen]

Has anyone looked at the McGill CV form yet? They have a separate one for Counselling , and it's my first time looking at a designated CV "form" to fill out and I'm struggling to write the "top 3 responsibilities and top 3 accomplishments relevant to application" bit.. any tips on how to condense this and not make it sound like a repetition of the SOP?! ?

[prospectivegradstudent21]

hi! if anybody has applied to dalhousie for their msc program pls dm me! im having some trouble with their site, id really appreciate any help!

[carlrogersfan98]

On 11/4/2021 at 9:55 PM, Kresen said:

Has anyone looked at the McGill CV form yet? They have a separate one for Counselling , and it's my first time looking at a designated CV "form" to fill out and I'm struggling to write the "top 3 responsibilities and top 3 accomplishments relevant to application" bit.. any tips on how to condense this and not make it sound like a repetition of the SOP?! ?

Since they don't want you to submit an actual personal CV I literally just copy-pasted the three most "impressive" tasks/accomplishments I have/had from my actual CV for each of my jobs I'm putting there. I dunno if that's the correct approach but I also don't see why else I wouldn't. 

As for your SOP question, is that perhaps a sign your SOP is too much of a rehash of your CV? Your SOP and CV will inevitably have some overlap but you also don't want to be just merely listing your CV and then being like "this makes me a strong applicant because...". List a few key skills from your CV, but focus instead on what overall you've learned from those experiences, how it has prepared you for graduate training, why this influenced your career goals, etc!

[PeanutButterBread]

Is anyone else applying to York?

[Kresen]

That makes a lot of sense-- thank you for your useful advice! Did you bullet point anything, or just go to the next line and list the top responsibilities/accomplishments?

 

*edit: carlrogersfan98, this is in reply to you! the quote function isn't working for me again :')

Edited November 8, 2021 by Kresen
quote function not working

[carlrogersfan98]

7 hours ago, Kresen said:

That makes a lot of sense-- thank you for your useful advice! Did you bullet point anything, or just go to the next line and list the top responsibilities/accomplishments?

 

*edit: carlrogersfan98, this is in reply to you! the quote function isn't working for me again :')

No worries I tried to describe each of the top three responsibilities in one or two sentences on each line. So I did go a little more in-depth than my CV would for some of them, but I didn't write like an entire paragraph for each. IDK though. I really don't know what it is they want!

[okayidk]

Does anyone applying to OISE SCCP know if they just require answers to the faculty questions or a statement of intent in addition to that? On the website, the Application Steps page says: A statement of intent (also known as a plan of study or letter of intent) is not required. Instead, you must answer questions created by a program to learn more about you. Enter your response to each question in the text box provided. Do not upload a separate document.

But the APHD Application Tips page still has a paragraph talking about how the statement of intent is one of the most important parts of the application under the supporting documents section. I'm thinking they just forgot to update that page, but thought I'd ask if anyone here knew for sure!

[Kresen]

@carlrogersfan98

Awesome, that's what I did too pretty much 3 lines for every section. I did keep the "top 3 responsibilities" section italicized though, because for some reason the form had just that section in italics.. not sure if that was right though ? wish they had more detailed instructions haha. best of luck to you

[T.O.hopeful]

Hi everyone! This will be my second year applying for programs but first year also applying to the CGS-M award. Since the award only allows 3 programs to be listed and I'm applying to more than 3 schools, should I basically assume that programs I don't list as my top 3 for the CGS-M award are going to negatively rate my application/unlikely to accept me? Seems like every school website suggests applying for this external award but they only let you list 3 schools on the application...and I've previously won OGS, so I'm not eligible for this Just looking for some advice on whether I should not apply to much more than 3 programs if they're unlikely to consider me due to lack of external funding?

[carlrogersfan98]

On 11/9/2021 at 10:11 PM, T.O.hopeful said:

Hi everyone! This will be my second year applying for programs but first year also applying to the CGS-M award. Since the award only allows 3 programs to be listed and I'm applying to more than 3 schools, should I basically assume that programs I don't list as my top 3 for the CGS-M award are going to negatively rate my application/unlikely to accept me? Seems like every school website suggests applying for this external award but they only let you list 3 schools on the application...and I've previously won OGS, so I'm not eligible for this Just looking for some advice on whether I should not apply to much more than 3 programs if they're unlikely to consider me due to lack of external funding?

Not necessarily. On one hand, schools like to see you've at least applied, but on the other hand, grad schools make their admissions decisions before the CGS-M results are posted, so they have no way of actually factoring holding a CGS-M or not into their decision making process!

[psychcusuo]

Thank you so much for creating this forum! It would be such a big help for prospective applicants for clinical programs. 

I was wondering if anyone knows about the faculty question as a part of the UofT (OISE) application? The word limit is 1500 for each question while including 4-5 questions, but I thought this sounds oddly too long. Has anybody applied or been admitted to this program and know about what they would like to see from the responses for faculty questions in terms of the lengths?

[prospectivegradstudent21]

2 hours ago, psychcusuo said:

Thank you so much for creating this forum! It would be such a big help for prospective applicants for clinical programs. 

I was wondering if anyone knows about the faculty question as a part of the UofT (OISE) application? The word limit is 1500 for each question while including 4-5 questions, but I thought this sounds oddly too long. Has anybody applied or been admitted to this program and know about what they would like to see from the responses for faculty questions in terms of the lengths?

hey! i actually applied very late last night and noticed this as well, i found that i wasn't even close to reaching the word limit for a lot of questions (like what are your career goals, i could only reach like 300-500 words before i was satisfied with my answer). i also over thought about this application a lot and found that for me personally, if i felt i had explained everything that needed to be explained in depth, then that was it. i didn't end up adding in more or making it like "filler" if that makes sense!  i ended up not being too worried about maximum word limit as long as i answered the question, would love to hear from everybody else!

Edited November 12, 2021 by prospectivegradstudent21

[peachy59]

11 hours ago, prospectivegradstudent21 said:

hey! i actually applied very late last night and noticed this as well, i found that i wasn't even close to reaching the word limit for a lot of questions (like what are your career goals, i could only reach like 300-500 words before i was satisfied with my answer). i also over thought about this application a lot and found that for me personally, if i felt i had explained everything that needed to be explained in depth, then that was it. i didn't end up adding in more or making it like "filler" if that makes sense!  i ended up not being too worried about maximum word limit as long as i answered the question, would love to hear from everybody else!

In past years, it was 1500 words for the entire statement of interest, which encompassed all of the questions they asked. This is the first time it's been split up until multiple questions, so my guess is that they want a max of 1500 words for *all* answers and just didn't clarify that? Not sure though...  

[okayidk]

15 hours ago, psychcusuo said:

Thank you so much for creating this forum! It would be such a big help for prospective applicants for clinical programs. 

I was wondering if anyone knows about the faculty question as a part of the UofT (OISE) application? The word limit is 1500 for each question while including 4-5 questions, but I thought this sounds oddly too long. Has anybody applied or been admitted to this program and know about what they would like to see from the responses for faculty questions in terms of the lengths?

I think I remember reading somewhere on the website that if no word count is specified by the program for each question, the default is 1500 words! They also said they encourage applicants to be brief in their responses (I think this basically indicates that even though the word limit is super high by default, they don't want you to write too much)

[T.O.hopeful]

16 hours ago, psychcusuo said:

Thank you so much for creating this forum! It would be such a big help for prospective applicants for clinical programs. 

I was wondering if anyone knows about the faculty question as a part of the UofT (OISE) application? The word limit is 1500 for each question while including 4-5 questions, but I thought this sounds oddly too long. Has anybody applied or been admitted to this program and know about what they would like to see from the responses for faculty questions in terms of the lengths?

I'm actualy hoping to submit my application by the end of today and similar to what the other poster said, I'm not getting close the the 1500 work mark. The biggest section I have is 567 words. That said, my research interests section does include things I've taken from the literature, so I will likely add a small reference list at the end since I'll have the word count space to hold it.  

[prospectivegradstudent21]

hi! if anybody applied to or is planning on applying to concordia, please dm me! im having trouble with something on the application, thank you!

[carlrogersfan98]

21 hours ago, prospectivegradstudent21 said:

hey! i actually applied very late last night and noticed this as well, i found that i wasn't even close to reaching the word limit for a lot of questions (like what are your career goals, i could only reach like 300-500 words before i was satisfied with my answer). i also over thought about this application a lot and found that for me personally, if i felt i had explained everything that needed to be explained in depth, then that was it. i didn't end up adding in more or making it like "filler" if that makes sense!  i ended up not being too worried about maximum word limit as long as i answered the question, would love to hear from everybody else!

Yup me too! I found it odd that there were just those questions and no SOI, yet I also kinda liked it because it guided the specific detail you should discuss? It felt like a broken down SOI!