Clinical or Developmental Psychology PhD or Masters?

[caitlinalobdell]

Hello,

 

I am hoping for a little bit of guidance/some opinions from all of you brilliant and experienced folks out there.

 

I applied this year to clinical psychology PhD programs. My ultimate career goal is to do research to study developmental psychopathology in an interdisciplinary approach utilizing information on risk and resilience through Bronfenbenner's ecological model of development to inform the development of empirically supported prevention and intervention curricula that would likely be implemented in the school setting. I also want to look at mental health through public health and public policy domains to determine what it would take to implement some sort of nationwide mental health screening questionnaire given annually in the schools to identify children who need some extra support and what areas that they need support in (i.e. academic, social, familial, psychological, etc.). .

 

 

I know this is an idealistic goal, but I do truly believe that implementing something like this could potentially ameliorate psychopathology from a large number of our nation's population, opening up valuable services and resources to effectively manage care for those with ailments that are not preventable. Also, our nation needs to remove stigma from mental illness, and I think as a nation acknowledging mental illness in our youth as a public health problem would help to remove some stigma. I believe all children (even adults!) could use extra support in some arena of their life, so implementing something like this in school would not single out individuals, because everyone would participate. The first step in de-stigmatize mental illness is to acknowledge that it is a problem.

 

So, my main dilemma is whether I should apply for clinical psychology PhD programs, developmental psychology PhD programs, community psychology PhD programs, or a master's program in either experimental/clinical/developmental or public health next year? I have found POIs that are doing research that is interesting to me in all of these areas/types of programs so I had trouble deciding which direction to take. This year, I decided to apply for clinical psychology PhD programs because I believe that in order to tell others how to provide mental health treatment (i.e. my goal to develop prevention/intervention curricula) that I should be adequately trained in service delivery. However, I do not have any interest in clinical practice as a career, but I also don't want to close myself off from opportunities only available to clinicians. However, I’m starting to doubt whether this was the best choice.

 

I participated in a program in high school called running start that allowed me to attend community college during high school to earn both high school and college credit. By the time I went to college, I already had 43 transferable credits from this program, which was great, but I still wasn't sure where I wanted my career to go. I started undergrad with the idea of pursuing pre-med/pre-dental (like most undergrads did at my school!) however after taking chemistry, I realized that I hated it and was weeded out of the pre-med track! Thus, my first quarter's grades weren't so great. My second quarter, I took psychology 101 and instantly knew that I wanted a career in psychology and I decided to become a psychology major – the only problem was that I hadn’t taken any other psychology courses in college yet (I took one from my actual high school from an absolutely HORRIBLE teacher that almost deterred me from the field), so I was now rushed to be able to meet degree requirements in a short period of time.

 

This led me to take classes in psychology  that I was not very interested in due to limited availability. When I’m not 75-100% excited about a topic (e.g. chemistry: 2.3, motor development: 2.8, personality: 2.5) I don’t perform as well as I do in classes I am really excited about (e.g. psychobiology: 3.9, research methods: 4.0, research lab class: 3.9, motivation: 4.0). I was also, at the time, estranged from my parents and I was paying for college all on my own with a combination of student loans and working 20 hours a week until 12PM – 1AM at night, while typically taking a course load of 17-18 credits. I ended up graduating with a cumulative GPA of 3.51.

 

I strongly considered applying to developmental psychology PhD programs because I know I don’t want to do clinical work, however the issue is that among my psychology courses, I received a 3.3 in my developmental psych. course, and I only received a 2.8 in a motor development class - the only two developmental psych classes I’ve taken and 2 of my lowest grades. Both of these classes were more focused on normal development as opposed to abnormal (which I am more interested in). I took the motor development class before I was officially accepted into the psychology major so I didn’t have a very many options of classes to take, but I needed to take a psychology class that quarter to be able to graduate in time as mentioned above. I must also note that during the time I took both of these classes, I was struggling with the transition to undergrad and my pretty severe chronic depression recurred. I started to isolate myself socially, making it difficult to get up in the morning [or afternoon for that matter] to go to class, I couldn’t concentrate well enough to study very effectively, and I couldn’t build relationships with peers at school or with my professors. There are two quarters where this was especially challenging and my grades those quarters show that. (3.0 & 3.2 GPAs those quarters). All other quarters (except for my first quarter when I was taking pre-med classes) I received a 3.5 or higher.

 

Here goes rant #2 regarding my GRE scores!

 

V=156 [old:550] (69%ile)

Q=154 [old:690] (60%ile)

Comb: 310 [old:1240)

AWA=4.5 (73%ile)

 

Due to a snafu at the testing center with my ID (the DMV accidentally switched my first and middle name on my driver's license! Which I awesomely did not realize until then). So I had to rush home and back to the testing center to get my passport in under 30 minutes and by the time I sat down to take the test I was completely frazzled. UGH. I was also working on adjusting my anti-depressant/anxiety medications at the time which I think really through me off. I was taking a medicine called propranolol, which is a beta blocker that is typically used for high-blood pressure, but my doctor had read some studies indicating that it can also be beneficial to those with anxiety/PTSD (which I also have..) so I tried it. The main purpose of it is to control the physical symptoms of anxiety (e.g. sweating, rapid breathing, heart rate, etc), which it definitely worked for, but it also made it really hard to recall information from memory. I spoke to some others about this drug after experiencing this (I have been out of school for 2 years, so I just thought that my difficulty studying was because I was out of practice) and they had similar side effects, so I stopped taking it. Anyways, I was not emotionally stable when I took the GREs the first time.

 

So, due to this, I decided to take the GRE a second time and scheduled the test. I purchased a GRE prep program online through Magoosh, and started to significantly improve my practice tests. Then, I received the opportunity to author/present 2 posters at the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry annual conference as well as to start preparing a manuscript for publication. Preparing for these tasks took up the majority of my free time (I work full-time at hospital affiliated research institute in the center for child health behavior and development, where I have been for 3 years. I started as a student volunteer and now I am a project coordinator on a large, multisite, NIH funded R01 study; I have worked on 4 different studies here and have very good references from PIs with academic appointments in psychology/pediatrics/psychiatry. I also volunteer at a crisis phone line and have volunteered refugee youth). So, anyways, I actually performed worse the second time I took the test. I think my anxiety got the best of me coupled with extreme exhaustion from just returning from the week-long conference. I probably should have rescheduled the test, but there weren’t any more options for available tests that would be able to make it to schools in time for this year’s applications. So I was stuck using my first scores for my applications. Which aren’t too bad, but having a 3.51 GPA, I wanted to perform much better on the GRE to compensate.

 

If I don’t get in this year I plan to do the following to increase my likelihood of admission:

1. Retake GREs (Score in at least 80th %iles)
2. Contact POIs before applying to work with them
3. Take the Psychology GRE Subtest
4. Take a graduate level statistics class and/or an abnormal psychology class
5. Seek out more publication opportunities at work/in other labs with closer interests to mine?
6. Read more literature in my field.
7. Volunteer at a local organization that does outreach for homeless youth. I’ve been trying to volunteer here forever and not getting into grad school would be the motivation I need, I think.

 

Given that I already have a crap ton of student loans, I would need a funded PhD program. I could probably handle the debt of a master’s however, if I kept my current job (would have to gain admission somewhere in the Seattle area).

 

I had a really hard time trying to explain all of the above mentioned issues in my SOPs without sounding too whiny, so I ended up not really addressing them. I’m really wary to share too much personal detail about my mental health with those that I plan to work with, because I really don’t want them to think I am only interested in psychology because I struggle with mine. I am very passionate about my subject area and I know that I would excel in graduate school if I was given the opportunity, but I fear that I don’t look so great on paper and wont be accepted to a high caliber school that I desire (University of Washington, University of Southern California, UC Berkeley, University of Illinois in Chicago or Urbana Champaign, University of Virginia, to name a few).

 

I have done a lot of “soul searching”/therapy since undergrad, and I am in a MUCH better place than I was. I moved out of my parent’s home when I was 16 and was living out of my car for about a month. I supported myself financially throughout my junior and senior years while I was attending high school and community college concurrently (graduated high school with a 3.8 highschool/running start GPA). I feel if I share too much of my past that POIs will not be able to look past it and will think I’m too fragile to handle the difficulty of grad school if I struggled during undergrad, but these experiences did spark my current research interests, so  I mentioned the homelessness in my SOP my recommenders said that I did so tactfully, but now I am starting to worry that it was a mistake.

 

I will end this long-winded rant with the questions I have for you all (if anyone cared enough to read this entire rant):

 

1. Do you think my personal experiences would be worth focusing on for next years applications?
   1. If so, which aspects specifically (e.g. homelessness, supporting myself during adolescence/college, my struggle with mental health, etc.)
   2. If not, please provide reasons why (I’m just curious what others think)
   3. If not, how would you address my less than stellar GPA/GRE?
2. To which of the following types of programs should I apply (select all that apply):
   1. Clinical Psychology PhD
   2. Developmental Psychology PhD
   3. Community Psychology PhD
   4. Experimental/Clinical/Developmental psychology masters program (research based)
   5. Masters in Public Health
3. Just a shot in the dark, but if anyone knows of any PIs that are doing work similar to what I’m interested in developmental psychopathology and prevention science, could you so kind as to reply with the PI or school? (I’m looking into where else I might apply next year).

 

Thank you so much

C
 

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

I sent you a PM.

[PsychGirl1]

This is pretty much the longest post ever :-). I tried to get through it but mostly skimmed it (sorry).

 

I wouldn't go through a Psych PhD degree if you didn't want to work in research or academia within that specific psych field. It sounds like you want to do truly interdisciplinary work- so I would maybe consider doing a M.S. in Psychology (a research-based program) and then an MPH. Another good thing to do is to message people who are doing the types of jobs you want to be doing (for ex, if your undergrad college has a database of past graduates and their jobs who you can contact) and ask them for educational advice.

 

From a Psychology perspective, I'll answer your questions generally:

 

"Do you think my personal experiences would be worth focusing on for next years applications?

1. If so, which aspects specifically (e.g. homelessness, supporting myself during adolescence/college, my struggle with mental health, etc.)
2. If not, please provide reasons why (I’m just curious what others think)"

For Psych PhD programs: no. I would approach these as generally as possible, ex. "Drawing on my personal experiences and the experiences of people around me, I became interested how negative life events affected xyz" or whatever. Some people have different approaches, but in general, don't go there.

 

"If not, how would you address my less than stellar GPA/GRE?"

You have a year. Study and retake the GRE. Study, practice, study practice. You can get a lot of progress done in a year. If it's that important, pay for a prep course. GPA- I'd probably take some night or online courses over the next year (graduate-level) in things you are interested in. This can help boost your academic history and crediblity, plus might lend you some guidance with where you want to go next year. And work on developing skills- data, SPSS, SQL, etc.

 

Also, over the next year, maybe find two very different labs to volunteer in part-time- one with a public health focus and one with a mental health focus. And again, just keep talking and talking to everybody you can find- then at the end of the day, go with your gut.

[Lisa44201]

TL:DR.
You can still get a clinical PhD with an end-goal focus on research. You'd get clinical training, sure, but you can still do research.

Any research-based reason to having an eye on UIUIC, UVA, UCB, or any of the others? As in, are there people at those instututions who you would fit in well with? Or are you looking at the big name schools because they have big names? (Disclaimer: nothing against big name schools). Possibly the most important thing in a Psych PhD program - Clinical, Developmental, Cognitive, doesn't matter - is FIT IN THE LAB. If there are researchers in the big name schools whose labs you'd fit in well with, that's great; if you're looking at the name of the school and not the name of the researcher, you're setting yourself up for rejection letters.

I would go with no, don't share on the SOP. The SOP is the time to explain how your interests would make a good fit in Professor XYZ's lab.