Three years post-application

[rubberduck]

It has been three years since I religiously used this website when I applied to clinical psychology programs and I thought I would revisit it. Here are some lessons I learned after three years into a clinical psychology PhD:

1. The interviews are just to confirm that you're normal. Professors have a ranked list based on stats and essays alone. They invite multiple people to interview so they can weed out which ones are normal and which ones aren't. Don't stress over any mistakes you think you made during Interview Weekend. Most likely, you were fine, you just weren't high on the list to begin with. 
2. Students who don't like the program don't go to Interview Weekend. So if you actually talk to a student who doesn't have good things to say about the program, that is a terrible sign. 
3. Your advisor is the most important thing, ever. At the program level, programs don't really care about students. The power of professors and administrators will always be higher than the rights or wellbeing of students. However, your advisor can defend and represent you, but if you can't rely on your advisor -- unfortunately, you're f*cked. I would take a friendly, reliable advisor over an advisor that's doing research I personally consider interesting every time. 
4. Cohorts are temporary, labs are forever. When you take introductory classes and have bonding/semi-traumatic experiences in those classes, you think that you'll be best friends with your cohort. You will, for a time, but you'll eventually start to drift as you all finish your courseload and that's okay. I don't want to advise people to ignore their cohorts, but prioritize the relationships in your lab first and foremost. Those people will stick with you and you'll end up sharing hotel rooms during conferences, so you might as well like each other.
5. Squatter's rights. Lab space, desk space, furniture, equipment. You get ownership as long as you continue using it. If you get access to a room in a building, don't ever give it up. If an item isn't nailed down and doesn't an item barcode or university number on it, it's fair game as long as you don't get caught. 
6. Befriend other faculty members for committee purposes. Once you find a nice person who agrees to be on your master's committee, ply them with compliments and baked goods and whatever it takes so that'll be on your candidacy and dissertation committees. 
7. The code to the printer is 1111. I don't why admin keeps using simple codes, but whatever. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by rubberduck
typo