average applicant vs. SDN applicant

[bcliff]

I believe that SDN's members represent some of the most highly motivated applicants when it comes to PhD admissions. The WAMC thread and the exchange of ideas and experience on this site as a whole has armed everyone applying to clinical psych PhD programs with a wealth of information. Given that SDN is my primary source of information in regards to clinical psych admissions information, when I see a clinical PhD program boasting a 3% acceptance rate with an average of 300+ applicants, I get pretty bummed out because I imagine every applicant as being equally competitive, but I know that can't be the case.

Most clinical PhD programs accept fewer students per year than the average medical school, but at the same time MD programs weed out their applicants with vigorous prerequisite coursework and the MCAT, while PhD programs have essentially no necessary prereq's and a less intimidating GRE. Just like with law school, there is really nothing in place to prevent someone from applying to a clinical psych PhD program with little to no forethought.

All of this is to help me ask the question, how many students applying to PhD programs are 'competitive' and how many stand no realistic chance of being admitted to a PhD program either because of a lack of research experience, poor fit, low GPA, low GRE scores, no psych coursework/psych GRE, or any number of other things. I can't imagine that all 300+ applicants at these clinical PhD programs graduated with a perfect GPA; have spent the past x number of years working as a research assistant; and have a bazillion publications and conference presentations under their belt (if that's the case, then I might need to up my game a little more). Just trying to keep my sanity in the months leading up to applications

As always, thanks for your input!

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[Lisa44201]

Well, look at your cohort. My undergrad cohort consisted of five of us in the Honors program (requiring independent research leading to an Honors thesis) out of a total of 50 or so in the major. Out of those five, three got into PhD programs, and the other two (myself being one of them) got into Master's programs. Some of the people in the regular cohort got into PhD programs without having that research experience under their belt, but not a lot of them; some went on to FSPS programs, and some disappeared off into the sunset somewhere.
I would like to tell you that only the competitive students make it to the interview round.... but I'm not sure that's entirely true. I will tell you that being prepared for application season goes a long, long way; personally, my application the second time around was very different than my first, and it paid off. Do your homework w/r/t where you're applying to, ask professors to read your SOP to make sure it reads well, and be a prepared applicant.

 

[PHD12]

In terms of percentages, clinical psychology is more competitive than any other field out there. Many programs that I applied to had 1-3% acceptance rates because they were in/near cities. Lower than top medical schools and even harvard law school admissions. However, this doesn't say anything about the applicant pool, which is going to vary at any graduate program and med school does weed folks out earlier. You have to get used to the insane competitiveness of clinical psychology, which will continue during practicum search, internship, postdoc, and job search.

However, I do believe that strong applicants (high GPA, good GRE scores, research experience and publications) who are strategic, end up doing well in the admissions cycle. The people that I know that were strong applicants did get into a funded program (maybe not their top choice). A good friend of mine only applied to two top funded PHD programs that accept about 1% of applicants (think BU/UPenn) because she was geographically limited. She got into both with full funding package and approx 27k stipend for all years. She graduated from top state school with a 3.95/4.0, undergrad honor's thesis, 2 years of research experience at NIH, and many publications/conference presentations (about 5 publications, but she wasn't first author on all of them).

 

[EmotRegulation]

As a current faculty member at a PhD program who reads through applications, I can tell you that at least half the people who apply have absolutely no chance of admission here (and while I think we have great training, it's not what I would call a highly competitive program, in large part because we're not in a major city). It's probably more than that, actually. Many many people who apply have no research experience, and/or talk explicitly about how they want to "help people" (side note: helping people is not a bad thing, but many faculty will automatically veto someone if the personal statement suggests pure clinical interests). Many also have low GRE scores and less-than-stellar GPAs (e.g. below 3.0). From reading these applications, it seems clear that these people do not have good mentoring around applying to PhD programs, and have never read these forums here at SDN.

In short, there are usually plenty of great applications--it's still competitive--but the 300+ numbers are just not indicative of the "real" competition.

 

[cara susanna]

Since I'm applying for internship this year, I've actually been curious about SDN internship applicants vs. the rest of applicants. Like, do SDNers represent your average applicant or do they tend to be really high quality?

 

[PHD12]

Since I'm applying for internship this year, I've actually been curious about SDN internship applicants vs. the rest of applicants. Like, do SDNers represent your average applicant or do they tend to be really high quality?

Good question. When I went on internship interviews (only APA programs) and was involved in the internship selection process, I can tell you that the applicants that make it to the interview stage are very high quality overall. Be prepared for that when you go on interviews. Our internship program definitely had a tough time weeding out people once they got interviews and would have been happy with almost any of them. However, it does work because each person also applied to 20 programs.

 

[LucidMind]

Since I'm applying for internship this year, I've actually been curious about SDN internship applicants vs. the rest of applicants. Like, do SDNers represent your average applicant or do they tend to be really high quality?

That's actually what i'm doing my dissertation on!

 

[Sanman]

IMO, two types of people would choose to frequent SDN, those that are overachievers and those that are unsure if they would make even the bottom cut. So, imagine that more than a few in that thread will be overachievers.

 

[bmedclinic]

Since I'm applying for internship this year, I've actually been curious about SDN internship applicants vs. the rest of applicants. Like, do SDNers represent your average applicant or do they tend to be really high quality?

I suspect that the majority of SDN posters are high achievers. I'd consider myself a high achiever generally, but not necessarily compared to my cohort. I'd also suspect that many people lurk, and never post or at least dont post very often because they read others posts and feel "out of their league". If you'll recall the last round, we had something semi-similar with CAPIC in CA and people who were getting non-APA/non-APPIC internships.

Heck, I got an APPIC (non-apa) accredited internship and I think I was the only person who posted that on here. Clearly, that's not the norm.

 

[Shooter]

I suspect that the majority of SDN posters are high achievers. I'd consider myself a high achiever generally, but not necessarily compared to my cohort. I'd also suspect that many people lurk, and never post or at least dont post very often because they read others posts and feel "out of their league". If you'll recall the last round, we had something semi-similar with CAPIC in CA and people who were getting non-APA/non-APPIC internships.

Heck, I got an APPIC (non-apa) accredited internship and I think I was the only person who posted that on here. Clearly, that's not the norm.

Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Shooter]

Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[MCParent]

Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Are you poking around the site archives from up to three years ago to find things to have fits about? Seriously?

Can we please ban this person? This is clearly board spamming.

 

[Shooter]

Are you poking around the site archives from up to three years ago to find things to have fits about? Seriously?

Can we please ban this person? This is clearly board spamming.

@MCElvain, you're having a tough time being dismissed, because of your made up 'internship crisis'... There's no such thing.... Your FAILED @OccupyImbalance fantasy was designed to treat the symptom, not the problem....it merely contributes to the whole scheme.

BTW: Have you considered the "ignore" or "block" button? Banning this account is one possibility to censor speech, but again...there are thousands of new emails accounts available....again you're fixing the symptom...not the actual problem.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

"Made up" internship crisis...uh-huh. So the many articles and meetings about the disparity between total applicants and APA-acred internships were...not needed?

 

[MCParent]

"Made up" internship crisis...uh-huh. So the many articles and meetings about the disparity between total applicants and APA-acred internships were...not needed?

Clearly the problem is that APA accreditation exists in the first place. Bob's House of Discount Psychology and Matresses' unaccredited unpaid unsupervised internship was just fine.

 

[Lurking Oracle]

"Made up" internship crisis...uh-huh. So the many articles and meetings about the disparity between total applicants and APA-acred internships were...not needed?

So, if the internship crisis was made up, that must mean that everyone matched. Yay!