Would going for a PhD/PsyD be worth it? Would I even have a chance?

[89vision]

Hello,

I have now been working in the counseling field for a few years, and have started to get a better idea of my areas of interest. I work as an emergency services clinician, assessing individuals who are suicidal, homicidal, and/or psychotic and determine if they need to be in a psych facility against their will, as well as some outpatient counseling. I've realized more and more that I really love crisis work and risk/threat assessment. I've also been interesting in resilience and how this can mediate the risk of going into "crisis mode." 

 

I wasn't a great student in undergrad (3.2 GPA overall, 3.6 in psych), but I did do some independent research on social anxiety and self-regulation. I did do fairly well in my master's program (MS in counseling and human development), with an overall GPA of around 3.5-3.6. My GRE score was 1290, and the 5 years will be up soon, so I've started thinking about if a PhD/PsyD program may line up with my interests. I've also started realizing that I think I would enjoy supervisory work as well. I don't have much interest in research, and not really decided on teaching. It just seems with a masters in suicide/homicide assessments and crisis work, I may have limited options to move up, and it would be nice to have a wider variety of options. Even if I do decide to go for it, with my mediocre GRE/GPA scores, would I stand much of a chance? I did work through both undergrad and grad, and have experience in working with aggressive adolescent males in an inpatient setting, 2 years of crisis stabilization work, and 2 years of suicide/homicide assessments. Would this be enough to help make my application more appealing? 

Edited July 9, 2014 by 89vision

[Storyhill22]

I come from a family of 4 clinical psychologist, and just went through the application process myself. Personally, I think you have a really good shot. I didn't have as good of a GRE score (though my GPA was a bit higher) and got offers from several programs PhD programs. The single most mentioned thing in my interviews was my work outside of the classroom. I think people take for granted how important work in the field is for your chance of getting into a program. The biggest things you can do to increase your chances are to apply to programs where you match well with the faculty member and do your research on them. It isn't terribly hard to go through the process and my motto was let the programs decide if you have a good enough shot of getting in instead of trying to make the decision yourself.

 

Best of Luck making your decisions and possibly applying!