PhD/PsyD Non-Canadian International Student Post-Ph.D Outcome

[VentureIntoNothingness]

Hi,

First time posting. So I am a non-Canadian International Student and recently got an offer from a APA-accredited, relatively reputable (US News 47th), US Clinical Psych PhD program. I am thinking whether I should turn down the offer since I have offers from other PhD programs that seem to predict better job prospects. I am seeking advice/insight regarding possible outcome for non-Canadian International students who successfully complete a program.
Here are some information I gathered: CPT can be used for predoctoral internship and there are non-VA internship sites that international students can apply to. So at least I can get out of the PhD program. There are cases where non-US citizen obtain TT positions after PhD/Post-Doc (which also implies that there can be post-doc opportunities for international students). So Tenure-track academic position may be available (however, those seem to have graduated from more prestigious programs).
I understand that post-PhD outcomes often vary case by case and heavily depend on the individual's productivity during grad school. But I wonder if anyone who's been through this/know more about this can give me some information regarding the post-PhD employment prospect (both academic/non-academic).

Much appreciated!

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[temppsych123]

Whether you're Canadian or non-Canadian, international students are going to have some hurdles when applying for internships, since no VA positions are open to you (this is a blanket policy for all VAs across the US and as I understand it there is no flexibility on this). Going to an APA-accredited program will help, and many sites are open to international applicants as long as you are in the US on a student visa (e.g., the site doesn't want to have to deal with getting you a new visa just for internship). Since you are still typically a student while you do internship (you can't graduate from a program without doing one usually), that shouldn't be a huge obstacle, but yes, it's annoying. Postdocs and faculty jobs aren't as a big of an issue, at least from my understanding, because most major universities have lots of international postdocs/faculty across departments and usually have offices to facilitate such visas.

Two questions to consider:

1) Is the country you're a citizen of a country that has major problems with the US (e.g., North Korea, Iran, etc.)? That might make your ability to get a student visa more difficult.

2) How is the training in clinical psych in your country and where do you want to ultimately end up? For example, let's say you're from Britain and you want to end up back there when you're done. In that case, training in the US isn't going to give you a lot of benefits. If you are from a country without a lot of clinical psychology training (I don't know a specific country and don't want to stereotype) and you want to ultimately work in the US or Canada, then yes, you're probably better off trying to go to a US accredited program and then a US internship than trying to get to the US at the postdoc or faculty level.

This is all second hand (I'm a US citizen at a Canadian school working with lots of Canadian students looking to cross the border), so YMMV. Good luck OP!