Questions for American Applicants from a Curious Canadian.

[LebaneseKafta]

Hello,

 

I've been browsing this forum in depth and I have a few questions for American applicants:

 

Why bother applying to Canadian Clinical schools (not trying to be rude just genuinely curious)?

Most Canadian clinical  schools get avg 200 - 300 apps and accept 10- 20 per year, only securing 1 to 3 spots for international students (at best). So why bother if chances are slim to none even if you are cream of the crop? I know for uOttawa they accept 20 with around 200 apps, 8 - 9 of those spots are reserved for french only stream, rest for English and 1 for international that is actually rarely filled.

 

I've noticed that most American applicants here apply to 6 - 10 schools. My question is how? in Canada, it's very difficult to secure a good ref to write you one or two letters, let alone 6 or 10!! Are the American school refs not need to be as detailed and concise (the schools here ask for at least one page single-spaced from ref, asking specific questions from each school)?

 

I've never met a fellow Canadian applicant that has ever applied to more then 5 (most is 3 - 4). Is it the norm in America to apply for 6 + graduate schools in general?

 

Has anyone here (American) received an offer from a Clinical Psych program in Canada? If so, how and how did you afford it? (if you accepted the offer and came).

 

 

This is for my CANADIANS applying to american schools. If accepted, how do you afford it (EG. not loans)?

 

 

Any information would be awesome as I'm very intrigued by how different the application process is between Canada and USA for the same field.

 

 

 

[Rose Tyler]

For the record, I'm not applying to Canadian schools because I don't want to move but...

 

Based solely on the odds of applicants versus acceptances, the odds of getting into an American clinical program are slim to none. I apply to programs because I think I'd be a good fit and I think I have a chance. If I applied to Canadian programs, it would be the same thing.

 

I'm applying to nine schools, only five of them doctoral, and my three referees are writing my letters for all of them. I think the difference is American schools don't generally ask for an entirely different letter for each school so the letter only needs to be written once and then sent to each school as required.

 

I think the norm of how many schools varies. I know one girl planning to apply for Fall 2016 that's only applying to one program because it's the only one she'd want to go to. I think a lot of people try to go for as many options as possible. How many that is could be limited by their area of research.

[Piagetsky]

Hello,

 

I've been browsing this forum in depth and I have a few questions for American applicants:

 

Why bother applying to Canadian Clinical schools (not trying to be rude just genuinely curious)?

Most Canadian clinical  schools get avg 200 - 300 apps and accept 10- 20 per year, only securing 1 to 3 spots for international students (at best). So why bother if chances are slim to none even if you are cream of the crop? I know for uOttawa they accept 20 with around 200 apps, 8 - 9 of those spots are reserved for french only stream, rest for English and 1 for international that is actually rarely filled.

 

I've noticed that most American applicants here apply to 6 - 10 schools. My question is how? in Canada, it's very difficult to secure a good ref to write you one or two letters, let alone 6 or 10!! Are the American school refs not need to be as detailed and concise (the schools here ask for at least one page single-spaced from ref, asking specific questions from each school)?

 

I've never met a fellow Canadian applicant that has ever applied to more then 5 (most is 3 - 4). Is it the norm in America to apply for 6 + graduate schools in general?

 

Has anyone here (American) received an offer from a Clinical Psych program in Canada? If so, how and how did you afford it? (if you accepted the offer and came).

 

 

This is for my CANADIANS applying to american schools. If accepted, how do you afford it (EG. not loans)?

 

 

Any information would be awesome as I'm very intrigued by how different the application process is between Canada and USA for the same field.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I plan to do all my apps in Canada because I'm dying to move there and it's the only immigration program I'd qualify for.  As far as the stats/acceptance rates, depending on which American schools one might be applying to, those stats are actually pretty good.  These are from 2011 I believe, but still gives you a good idea of what American school acceptance rates are like.  It also seems there's a greater variance in quality as far as American schools.   We've got some here that will accept anyone who can fog a mirror, and others like Yale and UNC-CH where it seems you'd be more likely to be struck by lightning and eaten by a bear at the same time than to actually get in.  I know that UNC-CH gets around 600 apps per year.

http://www.unc.edu/~mjp1970/Admissions%20Rates.pdf

I don't know about the letter-writing process since I'm not there yet, but 10 apps is a recommended and common number here.   I know that the Insider's Guide that a lot of us rely on heavily suggests 10, and some people do more.  

Has anyone here (American) received an offer from a Clinical Psych program in Canada? If so, how and how did you afford it?

I'd like to know the answer to that as well!

[psych face]

Personally, I didn't apply to anything in Canada, but only because none of my POI's are there.

 

However - I would love an excuse to both 1) leave the country (even though it isn't very far) and 2) live in a better environment (I'm currently sitting in one of the worst air quality cities in the country - I can taste in on my tongue sometimes - it's totally disgusting) also forgot another point- 3) the culture is different in Canada, most particularly lower crime rates and better overall attitude. There are plenty of good reasons to want to go there, unless you're addicted to the whatever of America.

 

Also, 10-20 acceptances in 200-300, isn't really that different from the U.S. The 20 out of 200 is 10%, which is definitely better. Most of the schools I applied to are about 3%-7% acceptance.

[Piagetsky]

I was pleasantly surprised to see that number from UOttawa.  I was sitting around searching and crunching the numbers for the schools not listed in the Insider's Guide last night.  Doesn't mean my chances are any better, but with the exception of UofT's SCCP, all of the schools where I plan to apply were in the 5-10% range.  I'd be curious to know how my international status factors in on that.  Noor123 gave some good information about a spot or two for international applicants.

[lewin]

I'm a Canadian and I applied to 11 schools (4 Canadian, 7 American), though not in clinical. You apply to that many places to minimize the odds of random error sinking your applications (e.g., advisors on sabbatical). Acceptance rate is 10 percent? In theory I should get in somewhere by applying to ten places.

 

I only applied to universities that offered full fellowships so that's how I would have covered the cost if I'd ended up in the U.S. 

 

Are your letter writers seriously giving you a hard time about sending out more than a few letters? That is not normal and I mention this so people don't think that Canadian profs are lazy or something. Most of the work is writing the original latter, the rest is just copy and paste. If you are organized and give your writers lots of time (i.e., a month) then they shouldn't complain (to your face). 

 

I agree with the person who said that there's more variance in quality among U.S. schools, probably because there are so many of them.

[spunky]

 

I've noticed that most American applicants here apply to 6 - 10 schools. My question is how? in Canada, it's very difficult to secure a good ref to write you one or two letters, let alone 6 or 10!!

 

uhm... i really don't think this is the case.i requested a total of 9 references from my profs (i applied to 3 programs and each needed 3 references) and they were submitted promptly and efficiently. maybe this is just your experience?

[lewin]

The people I know who only apply to 3-5 schools seem to do so because they're from Ontario and are scared to move too far away from home

Edited November 29, 2014 by lewin

[LebaneseKafta]

Thanks for all the information. In terms of references, all my references are more then happy to write them for me, but the issue is each school asks the ref to touch on different aspects of my work one way or another therefore each letter is vastly different from the other and each has to be at least a page long to be really considered 'very strong'. I know this because I sat with one of my referees who allowed me to pretty much write them for her for each one, and I can tell you that they were all very different. Prior to this experience I also thought I was the only one with this issue, but I noticed that most people applying to graduate schools tend to only apply to a few rather then more. Anyways, I guess it just depends, I might then consider applying to American schools if they offer entrance scholarships, funding, etc. to incoming students that are international, I have not done any research on any American schools so I guess I'll have to start soon.

 

I also tend to think that applying to too many schools at once reduces the quality of each application, as it decreases the amount of time you're able to fully put in the effort to individualize each application, I do think that admissions committee can pick up on that kind of thing. I may be wrong though obviously, I can only say from experience that I wrote each statement separately from each-other and I couldn't imagine doing that for 10 schools.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Noor123

[psych face]

Yeah, in terms of that, you can pretty much be assured that Americans don't write full custom letters for each school. There was a little area where I put in some specifics for this school or that, but it was generic otherwise. I think that's pretty normal.

Edited December 1, 2014 by psych face

[gradgoal]

Hello,

 

I've been browsing this forum in depth and I have a few questions for American applicants:

 

Why bother applying to Canadian Clinical schools (not trying to be rude just genuinely curious)?

Most Canadian clinical  schools get avg 200 - 300 apps and accept 10- 20 per year, only securing 1 to 3 spots for international students (at best). So why bother if chances are slim to none even if you are cream of the crop? I know for uOttawa they accept 20 with around 200 apps, 8 - 9 of those spots are reserved for french only stream, rest for English and 1 for international that is actually rarely filled.

 

I've noticed that most American applicants here apply to 6 - 10 schools. My question is how? in Canada, it's very difficult to secure a good ref to write you one or two letters, let alone 6 or 10!! Are the American school refs not need to be as detailed and concise (the schools here ask for at least one page single-spaced from ref, asking specific questions from each school)?

 

I've never met a fellow Canadian applicant that has ever applied to more then 5 (most is 3 - 4). Is it the norm in America to apply for 6 + graduate schools in general?

 

Has anyone here (American) received an offer from a Clinical Psych program in Canada? If so, how and how did you afford it? (if you accepted the offer and came).

 

 

This is for my CANADIANS applying to american schools. If accepted, how do you afford it (EG. not loans)?

 

 

Any information would be awesome as I'm very intrigued by how different the application process is between Canada and USA for the same field.

i'm canadian and I applied to 12 schools total...some in canada, some in USA. If i get into american schools I'll be hoping to get a fellowship and an entrance scholarship to help cover the cost. I'll probably end up getting a loan as well, but with the career at the end of the tunnel it will be able to be paid off relatively quickly