When I took the exam before, I feel like at least 60% of the test or based on questions of theories, studies, or things that I had never ever seen before or studied. I would have increased anxiety while having self talk, thinking to myself why didn’t I learn these things in graduate school?

How do I get past this hump and answer sufficient number of questions to pass the exam? I know this may sound stupid, but it’s better to ask them than to keep it inside…

What is the trick, or the technique to narrow answer down at least three or two choices to give myself a better chance of passing.

Clearly when I say I have taken this test before, this means that I did not pass.

I am open to any ideas or suggestions, regardless of how off-the-wall, random or harsh they may be.

I’ve been reading more epistemology and clinical psychology lately, and I feel conflicted about how modern clinical psychology (and psychology more broadly) has evolved.

It seems like our dominant paradigm has moved closer to a medical model than to psychology’s original foundations. In some ways, our field is closer to biology than to medicine, because psychology was never just the study of “the brain and its functions” (cognition, emotion, behavior, autonomic responses). It was always about the whole human organism interacting with its context and with itself.

That makes me wonder: are newer research findings (not all of them, obviously) still valid if they’re derived solely from a pseudo-neurological approach? What if the brain in isolation is not a reliable source? Should we return to our roots and adopt a more radical “human ethology” approach, one that includes both private events and observable behavior? And should neuropsychology be a subspecialty of cognitive neuroscience?

I’d love to hear your opinions and insights.

TL;DR: Has psychology become too medical/neurological? Should we return to a human ethology approach, and should neuropsychology be part of cognitive neuroscience?

Hi everyone!

I know there are a lot of posts like this, but I feel like my situation is a little different from some I've seen on here, so I wanted to get some thoughts.

I am currently applying to Clinical Psychology PhD programs. However, I have a 2.98 undergraduate GPA. I am notapplying to programs that automatically disqualify applicants with an undergraduate GPA below 3.0.

A little background on my undergraduate GPA:

I attended a university where I experienced racism for being Hispanic. I was originally studying a different major that I hated. After being told by an academic advisor that Hispanic women shouldn't be in higher education, it took a toll on my self-esteem and academic performance. I reported the advisor, but unfortunately, nothing came of it.

I eventually transferred schools, but I continued to struggle with my self-esteem because of that experience. However, I switched my major to psychology and fell in love with education and learning again. Since switching to psychology, I've done pretty well academically and graduated with a 3.6 major GPA.

I am currently in a master's program in psychology and have maintained a 4.0 GPA.

A few things on my CV:

• Lab manager for a little over a year, worked on four research projects
• Currently completing my master's thesis, with plans to pursue publication once it's finished
• Six poster presentations
• Graduate certificate in psychological assessment (in progress)
• Graduate assistant for the psychology department
• Teaching assistant for a graduate-level research methods course
• Internship at my university's Office of Psychological Assessment
• Behavioral technician experience (six months)
• Member of Psi Chi and Phi Kappa Phi
• Recipient of a research travel grant

I know that my undergraduate GPA will be an uphill battle. Im looking for advice on what could make me more competitive. I don't have any publications, so I know that's a huge downside as well. Has anyone with similar stories been accepted?

Thank you so much for reading!

Hi all,

I saw another post asking about lived experience in several Clin psych programs and the responses were so helpful. The list didn’t have schools that I am interested in. I’m making a similar post here to see if there are any thoughts on the program culture of the following schools, or just things you wished you knew before committing to this particular program :

Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine Clin psych
UW Madison Clin Psych
DePaul University Clin Psych
Case Western Clin Psych
Ohio University Clin Psych
UW Milwaukee Clin Psych

Thank you so much for your input!

I’m not as impressive as other candidates but I’m still going to apply for next years PhD programs in clinical and counseling psychology. I just need help deciding who my 3rd letter of recommendation should be. My 1st is the professor that oversees my lab, my second is his post doc who works with him and us in the lab. My 3rd could be:
A professor at the state college I started my education at, the courses weren’t related it was environmental science. But I did well and I think I have the best relationship with that professor, we still keep in touch on social media after I moved to university.
A university employee with a masters that oversees independent research I do with rats. I think he used to be a PhD student but mastered out and now he works for the school.
A professor that taught conditioning and learning (with rat training) the prereq I needed in order to get into the rat lab. (Also is the employee that oversees my independent research’s mom)
A professor that taught course psychology of language we did one data collection activity. He is a notable professor and I did well in the course.
Thank you for your advice.

As the title says, anybody has any info on these schools:

Hofstra
Adelphi
St John’s
NSU
Gallaudet
Montclair (I know they have full tuition remission but what about stipend)

Or if anyone knows other R2 schools that has some funding please lmk as well
Thanks everyone!

For those applying for the match this year and working on your essays, if you have referenced the match made on earth guide it provides some essay prompts. I am curious if you interpreted this to mean each of these questions should be addressed within your essay, or if you interpret them as a selection of prompts/ideas that you could use to build your essay, not necessarily all of them. Finding it difficult to fit the restrictive word count while covering them all.

Thoughts?

Hi everyone! In the past I have only applied to PhD programs but this cycle I'm including one PsyD. Most of my experience is pretty research heavy with a little community and behavioural aide work. My research experiences have made writing my PhD SOPs more straightforward but I'm wondering how PsyD SOPs may differ from PhD ones and what areas/experiences I should focus on more.

I’m having a hard time narrowing my list and was wondering if anyone knows of red flags or problems at any of these (funding trouble, mentorship issues, program culture, anything):

Temple University (clinical science)
Florida International University (Clinical Science in Child & Adolescent Psych)
Kent State University (Clinical)
University of Toledo (Clinical)
Montclair State University (Clinical)
Miami University, Ohio (Clinical)
University of Georgia (clinical science)
University of South Carolina (Clinical-Community)
University of Kansas, CCPP (Clinical Child)
San Diego State University/UC San Diego JDP (Clinical)
University of Texas at Austin, SCCP (combined clinical-school)
Northern Illinois University (Clinical)
University of Connecticut, Storrs (Clinical)
Vanderbilt University (Clinical Science)
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Clinical-Community)
University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Clinical)
University of Virginia, Clinical
University of Virginia, Clinical-School (Education)
Fordham University (Clinical)
University of Houston (Clinical)
University of California, Irvine (Clinical)
Georgia State University (Clinical)

I'm a master's-level clinician working alongside clinicians with a range of educational backgrounds, and something I've been curious about is why differences in training don't seem to translate into more consistent differences in treatment outcomes.

Psychologists receive more extensive training in research methods, statistics, assessment, and clinical practice than master's-level clinicians, although obviously there's a lot of variability between programs and individuals. I've always respected psychologists for the depth of their training, particularly when it comes to understanding and interpreting research.

At the same time, my understanding is that research hasn't consistently found major differences in psychotherapy outcomes based on clinicians' professional backgrounds.

Why do you think that is? Is it largely a matter of common factors, like the therapeutic alliance, or do experience, individual therapist characteristics, and competence in delivering specific treatments matter more than the degree itself?

Obviously, there are excellent and not-so-great clinicians in both groups, so I'm not trying to argue that one is inherently better than the other. I'm genuinely curious about how we reconcile differences in formal training with what we see in outcome research. Am I missing something in how this literature is interpreted?

So, I’m currently a junior at the university of Illinois Urbana Champaign. I was originally an astrophysics major but this semester I switched to psychology because I wasn’t doing well in my classes (along with some mental health struggles, I got medication for earlier this year). I’m now doing much better mentally and I currently have all A’s in my psych courses. I plan on going with the cognitive neuroscience track because I want to go to grad school for a PsyD. I’m really interested in becoming a clinical neuropsychologist for multiple reasons. However, I’m concerned that with my past grades from my original major will not make me a good applicant even though my grades are much higher now. My current GPA with my old classes is a 3.19. After this semester I’m hoping it’ll go up a bit more. I’ve been applying to different clinical internships but have had no luck getting any emails or anything back. Does anyone have any places that I could apply to? I’m hoping that getting some clinical experience will up my chances of getting into a program. Along with that, I’ve done some cold emailing to different professors about joining their labs and they’ve all been extremely nice and said next semester I could maybe get in. I guess I just need some advice as to how what got you into grad school either a PhD or PsyD program.

Anyone on here get into a PhD program with an undergraduate GPA less than 3.0? If so, what did the rest of your application package look like? How did you overcome this hurdle?

hello! i’m writing here to see if anyone has any insight or a similar experience to me when it comes to switching to clinical psych from another field.

here are the top level bullets:
- I graduated from undergrad in 2012 with a 2.664 GPA, with a major in economics and double minor in math and sociology.
- Since 2012, i’ve worked in various roles in the financial services industry, primarily in investor relations at hedge funds, and most recently was a VP at an alternative asset fintech firm
- I am currently in my first semester in the Columbia Uni Psych post-bacc program (non-degree). it is meant to provide you with the pre reqs you need to apply to graduate programs and also research experience (not guaranteed but i’m trying hard to get my foot in the door).
- i anticipate i would be done with the pre reqs within 1-1.5 years, but still trying to work this out / hoping to meet my program advisor soon to talk through it.

That said, I am starting to get concerned that perhaps my undergrad GPA will be a major blocker for me in terms of admissions to PsyD programs. I aim to get a 3.5+ GPA in the Columbia program, along with research experience of at least a year.

It’s discouraging and a bit soul numbing to accept that my undergraduate GPA from 14 years ago, which isn’t at all a reflection on my current capabilities, could be the main thing that holds me back from pursuing this goal at age 35. I understand I will need to excel in the classes I take now, which I’m trying really hard in. However, based on stuff i’ve seen online so far, it feels like me doing this is a pipe dream that simply won’t be achievable due to the GPA. Just wondering if there’s anyone else who’s been in my position (a decade+ out from undergrad) who has successfully made the switch.

To be honest, my undergrad GPA was the main thing that has held me back from trying to make the switch all throughout my 20s, until I finally decided to just give the Columbia program a shot and got in. I explained the reason for my poor undergraduate GPA and also drew on my work experience to show growth, but I’m thinking maybe that won’t be enough for PsyD programs.

Hey y’all!

As I’m looking into applying to clinical psych programs in the next few years or so, I was curious about how peer support work is seen during PhD application season.

Overall, the certification is much more “social work” based and is based primarily off of lived experience. However, I work in two peer support positions that ended up keeping my personal experiences at a minimum and focus on the experiences of the people I am mentoring. I’ve also been trained in the past year on various skills (risk assessments/safety planning, motivational interviewing, harm reduction, trauma-informed care, urge surfing for substance use, etc) that would go hand in hand with clinical experience.

For context, I also have about 4 years of research experience in which I’ve presented several posters and am working on more (and hopefully at least a pub in the new few years), with more than a year of that being full time work. However, I also put ~25 hours of work into the peer support positions weekly too, so it’s definitely been a big part of my mental health work experience.

That being said, would I be shooting myself in the foot by mentioning it on my CV eventually? Especially with the research I’ve done, I know the importance of staying very impersonal in research settings and have no intention on ever letting my peer support skills bleed into those settings. But obviously there’s no GUARANTEE it’ll be seen that way on my CV.

I don’t know, it’s all mega confusing for sure 😭 but if anybody has thoughts I’d love to hear them!

She's my friend's sister who I got close with when I lived with them for a few months in their city. I was struggling then (still am now) and she suggested I see a therapist and told me how it has helped her immensely with her issues. Now that I'm living alone elsewhere in another country, I don't speak to her much only about once every 2-3 weeks.

So I wanted to know if it's ok for me to see the same therapist she does in this scenario.

Hi! I’m a clinic psych grad student. I have questions about how other university training clinics are run:

Are you allowed to call clients via a HIPAA compliant platform (usually have to pay for the compliant version) or do you have to physically go to the clinic to make calls?

Does your department offer, pay for, or encourage malpractice insurance for students?

What year in the program did you take Ethics? What did your course cover?

Do your supervisors conduct supervision via the HIPAA compliant version of Zoom? If so, are you allowed to share your screen to show therapy tape as long as you are in a private space?

Do you get courses in different types of therapy modalities/orientations or are you given a treatment manual to self study and let loose (w/ supervision of course)?

What is the process to sign up for a supervision group?

What kind of training and preparation do you get before taking your first client?

Is there supervision of supervisors or mechanisms to ensure good supervision or give feedback to supervisors?

What is the process for getting a new client?

How often are you getting quality direct supervision (aka full tape watch or live session observation)?

Do your supervisors do clinical work?

Are you expected to have a certain number of clients at the clinic at any given time? If so, how many?

TIA for your feedback! :)

Hi! I'm a final-year psychology undergrad from India, and my end goal is to become a clinical psychologist and eventually settle abroad. I have an 8.2 cgpa, 4 internships under my belt and I'm doing a capstone project on PMOS and mental health.

The UK and US are my top options right now, but I've heard quite a few negative things about both, especially when it comes to how competitive the field is, the cost of education, licensing, and finding a job after graduating. I'm also open to other countries and want to keep my options open for now.

A few things I want to know:

• Which country did you choose, and how has your experience been so far?
• What was your journey from undergrad to becoming a clinical psychologist like? Was it as straightforward as you expected?
• How difficult was it to get into a good programme? How much did grades, research experience, and clinical experience matter?
• How expensive was the whole process, including tuition and living costs? Were scholarships or funding options available?
• How difficult is it to get licensed and actually practise as a clinical psychologist in your country?
• How realistic is it to stay and work there after graduating? Have you had any issues with work visas or finding employers willing to sponsor you?
• What are the job opportunities and salaries like once you're qualified? Are they worth the time and money you put into training?
• What is the work culture and work-life balance like?
• Looking back, would you choose the same country and pathway again? Is there anything you wish you'd known before starting?
• Considering my few credentials lol... what are my strongest options right now in the UK and US?

I'd especially appreciate honest opinions about the downsides, things you wish you'd known beforehand, and whether you'd actually recommend this path to someone coming from India. I'm open to countries beyond the UK and US too, so I'd love to hear about your experiences elsewhere!

Thanks! :)

Hi everyone,

I’ve been studying for the EPPP using PrepJet, planning on taking the exam again in January. Are there any apps recommended by those who’ve taken the exam that they used to help supplement their study time? I’m hoping to look through questions on my phone with an app that’s trusted.

I’ve applied to Clinical Psychology PhD programs twice without receiving any interviews. I’m wondering whether my background is competitive enough.
My background:
● BA in Psychology (2.8 GPA) I struggled a lot in undergrad so I decided to go for my masters to get better grades.
● MS in Psychology (3.8 GPA)
● 2.5 years of clinical research experience in trauma surgery at Level I trauma centers
● Currently a clinical research coordinator developing research protocols, methodologies, and assisting with manuscripts and publications.
I understand trauma surgery isn’t psychology, but I’m interested in the psychological outcomes of traumatic injuries, particularly PTSD, depression, and long-term recovery. I’ve also noticed a lack of psychologists specializing in this patient population.
My goal is to become a clinical psychologist primarily focused on independent research with some patient care.
I do have a few publications and poster presentations that have psych elements.
Would my research background be considered relevant, or do I need more psychology-specific experience? What might be holding my applications back?