Can I get into a Psyd program with my resume?

[rmsanc14]

I am a Incoming senior at Arizona State University, looking to get a PsyD (can't get into a phd program) which PsyD programs would I be able to get into?
take this into account: I am a Male and my ethnic background is hispanic
Major: Psychology
GPA: 3.45 currently, by the time I graduate 3.5+
Psych Gpa: 3.25 currently, by the time I graduate 3.3-3.4+
Last 60 credits: GPA is 3.6-3.7
Research experience: 3 semesters by the time I graduate as a Research assistant in a clinical psych lab
Clinical experience: Currently: 1 year interning at a non profit visitation center for families
Letters of Recommendation: I don't think these will be too great in my opinion, id say below average
GRE: haven't taken yet
I am taking a year post grad to work full time in a clinical setting (Hospital, mental health center), and also try to get some more research experience.

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[futureapppsy2]

With a year of additional experience and a good enough GRE, you'll be competitive for funded PhD programs, IMO.

 

[rmsanc14]

in your opinion, which funded doctorate program would be easier to get into a PsyD funded program or a PhD

 

[penpenclown]

If I'm not mistaken there are very few PsyD programs that are funded.

 

[sfgucadoc]

Why not hedge your bets? Apply to solid PsyD programs and a few PhD programs that you feel are within your reach. Also consider counseling psychology PhD programs. In most states, the license is the same whether you're a clinical or counseling PhD/PsyD. A friend went through a counseling psychology PhD program and did his internship at a university counseling center. Then he did a post-doc in SMI at the VA. My point is you can use a post-doc to deepen your experience in an area or broaden your expertise into other areas, like my colleague.

Best of luck to you.

 

[beginner2011]

Letters of Recommendation: I don't think these will be too great in my opinion, id say below average

This is something that is far more under your control than most of the other components of your application, and also has the potential to make your application substantially stronger. If it's important to you to get in to a funded program over an unfunded program (hint: it is), communicate with your supervisors that their professional opinion of your work is important to you and you'd like to know what you can do to improve it.

They want you to succeed, and they want to write positive recommendations for you, help them do this and help yourself.

 

[R. Matey]

(can't get into a phd program)

Agree with @sfgucadoc and @futureapppsy2. I don't think your stats preclude you from applying to balanced scientist-practitioner Ph.D. programs. An unfunded PsyD program has a long term negative financial consequence. I'd think twice about it before taking the plunge.

 

[rmsanc14]

This is something that is far more under your control than most of the other components of your application, and also has the potential to make your application substantially stronger. If it's important to you to get in to a funded program over an unfunded program (hint: it is), communicate with your supervisors that their professional opinion of your work is important to you and you'd like to know what you can do to improve it.

They want you to succeed, and they want to write positive recommendations for you, help them do this and help yourself.

Which professionals or professors look the best when getting a letter of Recommendation? and what should each of them focus on when writing the letter? Thank you for our help

 

[beginner2011]

Which professionals or professors look the best when getting a letter of Recommendation? and what should each of them focus on when writing the letter? Thank you for our help

The safest bet is to have psychologists in academia writing your recommendations.

The more similar the role/status is of your recommenders to the people who you will be reading the letter of recommendation the better.

 

[deleted343839]

Which professionals or professors look the best when getting a letter of Recommendation? and what should each of them focus on when writing the letter? Thank you for our help

At least one letter should come from a research supervisor. Other good letter writers are professors who have taught you in multiple courses and undergraduate research thesis supervisors. Some features of strong LORs:

- "I've known Mx. Applicant for [=>2 years]"
- Description of the applicant's reliability, conscientiousness, dependability - preferably with one or two compelling examples
- Evidence that the applicant has gradually assumed more and more complex responsibilities or learning tasks, including examples of progressively more independent and effective thinking, problem solving, and/or increased productivity over time
- Evidence of the applicant's interpersonal skills and ability to function as part of a team
- A meaningful endorsement of the applicant's ability to succeed in graduate school

Length will vary with different writers, but when I write letters of recommendation, my really glowing ones are 1 1/2 to nearly 2 pages.

 

[psych.meout]

If I'm not mistaken there are very few PsyD programs that are funded.

There are some that are fully funded, but they're as competitive as funded PhDs and generally have research expectations on par with scientist practitioner programs.

 

[VirginiaIsForLovers]

What everyone else said.... Can you get into a PsyD program, definitely! If you browse through the forum you'll probably notice there are more repeatable PsyD forums (i.e. University based, some- or funded, good match rates, APA accredited), then you have so not so good ones (i.e. for profit, low match rates, not accredited, high debt, large class sizes).

Don't look at it as "what's easier" but more so which programs match your research, theoretical orientation, or model of training. Also, look into Counseling Psychology programs, you end up with the same license (Clinical Psychologist). When applying years ago, I had no clue you could pursue Counseling Psychology and become a Psychologist! Don't underestimate the strength of your letter's either, you have a year to cultivate relationships with letter writers. You can also use that time to reach out to folks you want to potentially work with if you were to pursue a PhD.

But to answer your question, yes, you can get into many PsyD programs. When I applied years ago, I looked for accredited programs that had cohorts less then 25 students and university based - I didn't know anything about internship match rates. I was accepted to 4 university based programs, even one of them was fully funded. My credentials were okay, some better then others (Overall GPA: 3.2; In-Major: 4.0; Last 60 credits: 3.7-3.8; GRE: 1150/1600; Writing 5; 1 year of qualitative research; semester of TA'ing). I didn't choose the fully funded program because the program I went to felt like a better fit for me at that time (personal life, etc). Really happy with my decision besides the debt I accumulated. Had good training, started my clinical work early, matched at a good APA-Accredited internship. Debt is manageable since I am half way done with PSLF, happy with my job, pay is good, and don't see myself leaving the public sector.

 

[futureapppsy2]

, Debt is manageable since I am half way done with PSLF, happy with my job, pay is good, and don't see myself leaving the public sector.

Please don't count on PSLF working out, I've seen people who should have qualified get completely screwed over by, for example, a rounding error 2 cents. Don't assume that you'll get the loan forgiveness, even if you do everything by the letter.

 

[Sanman]

What everyone else said.... Can you get into a PsyD program, definitely! If you browse through the forum you'll probably notice there are more repeatable PsyD forums (i.e. University based, some- or funded, good match rates, APA accredited), then you have so not so good ones (i.e. for profit, low match rates, not accredited, high debt, large class sizes).

Don't look at it as "what's easier" but more so which programs match your research, theoretical orientation, or model of training. Also, look into Counseling Psychology programs, you end up with the same license (Clinical Psychologist). When applying years ago, I had no clue you could pursue Counseling Psychology and become a Psychologist! Don't underestimate the strength of your letter's either, you have a year to cultivate relationships with letter writers. You can also use that time to reach out to folks you want to potentially work with if you were to pursue a PhD.

But to answer your question, yes, you can get into many PsyD programs. When I applied years ago, I looked for accredited programs that had cohorts less then 25 students and university based - I didn't know anything about internship match rates. I was accepted to 4 university based programs, even one of them was fully funded. My credentials were okay, some better then others (Overall GPA: 3.2; In-Major: 4.0; Last 60 credits: 3.7-3.8; GRE: 1150/1600; Writing 5; 1 year of qualitative research; semester of TA'ing). I didn't choose the fully funded program because the program I went to felt like a better fit for me at that time (personal life, etc). Really happy with my decision besides the debt I accumulated. Had good training, started my clinical work early, matched at a good APA-Accredited internship. Debt is manageable since I am half way done with PSLF, happy with my job, pay is good, and don't see myself leaving the public sector.

What does half way done with PSLF mean? You are either done or not. From my understanding, you have no idea if you have done all the right things until you hit the 10 year mark. Am I misinformed about this?

 

[WisNeuro]

What does half way done with PSLF mean? You are either done or not. From my understanding, you have no idea if you have done all the right things until you hit the 10 year mark. Am I misinformed about this?

You are correct. Also, votes matter. If a certain thing happens this November, PSLF will almost certainly come up on the chopping block in funding bills. I'd hardly want to leave my financial future almost wholly up to the whims of the DOE and Congress.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

What does half way done with PSLF mean? You are either done or not. From my understanding, you have no idea if you have done all the right things until you hit the 10 year mark. Am I misinformed about this?

This is pretty much it, yep. You're able to re-certify your employment every year, and they did change it at some point in the past couple years (?) to track the number of qualifying payments. However, I don't think either of these things is a formal guarantee that you'll qualify once you apply.

 

[VirginiaIsForLovers]

Please don't count on PSLF working out, I've seen people who should have qualified get completely screwed over by, for example, a rounding error 2 cents. Don't assume that you'll get the loan forgiveness, even if you do everything by the letter.

What does half way done with PSLF mean? You are either done or not. From my understanding, you have no idea if you have done all the right things until you hit the 10 year mark. Am I misinformed about this?

You are correct. Also, votes matter. If a certain thing happens this November, PSLF will almost certainly come up on the chopping block in funding bills. I'd hardly want to leave my financial future almost wholly up to the whims of the DOE and Congress.

This is pretty much it, yep. You're able to re-certify your employment every year, and they did change it at some point in the past couple years (?) to track the number of qualifying payments. However, I don't think either of these things is a formal guarantee that you'll qualify once you apply.

I agree, it's definitely not a guarantee. I am hopeful the programs will continue, and since I've been making qualified payments at least I'll be grandfathered in somehow. Don't get me wrong, I WISH I didn't accrue any school debt. If am living with this debt anyways, and I work for a qualifying organization, I midas well try for PSLF- there's also TEPSLF too. The program is also getting much better in terms of people getting their loans forgiven, and what's really nice it is unlike 20 year forgiveness plans you won't experience a tax bomb once it's forgiven.

I still have to apply for forgiveness once I get to 120 qualified payments, so when I say I am halfway done, I meant I am 60 qualified payments in. Every year when you submit an ECF, they update your number of payments that count towards forgiveness. I do wish they made this process easier since you have to make sure they are federal direct sub- unsub- loans. You have to meticulous with your payments (paying exactly what you owe each month, not under or overpaying, otherwise it goes into late payments or over-payment status), make sure you're with Direct Loans as your servicer, that they are counting your payments correctly, and submit ECF's yearly. There are some tricks that have been really helpful too... maxing out 403B contributions and HSA and submitting my pay stub instead of tax return so my monthly payments are low (10% cap).

I plan at some point to do my own audit by writing a FOIA request. With that recent CARES act they took PSLF into consideration and our $0 payments over the next 6 months count towards forgiveness. I was pretty fearful that Trump would have gotten rid of but, I guess not. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful they will keep this around for a while.

Shoot, just realized I hijacked this thread and made it about PSLF... my apologies.

 

[Sanman]

I agree, it's definitely not a guarantee. I am hopeful the programs will continue, and since I've been making qualified payments at least I'll be grandfathered in somehow. Don't get me wrong, I WISH I didn't accrue any school debt. If am living with this debt anyways, and I work for a qualifying organization, I midas well try for PSLF- there's also TEPSLF too. The program is also getting much better in terms of people getting their loans forgiven, and what's really nice it is unlike 20 year forgiveness plans you won't experience a tax bomb once it's forgiven.

I still have to apply for forgiveness once I get to 120 qualified payments, so when I say I am halfway done, I meant I am 60 qualified payments in. Every year when you submit an ECF, they update your number of payments that count towards forgiveness. I do wish they made this process easier since you have to make sure they are federal direct sub- unsub- loans. You have to meticulous with your payments (paying exactly what you owe each month, not under or overpaying, otherwise it goes into late payments or over-payment status), make sure you're with Direct Loans as your servicer, that they are counting your payments correctly, and submit ECF's yearly. There are some tricks that have been really helpful too... maxing out 403B contributions and HSA and submitting my pay stub instead of tax return so my monthly payments are low (10% cap).

I plan at some point to do my own audit by writing a FOIA request. With that recent CARES act they took PSLF into consideration and our $0 payments over the next 6 months count towards forgiveness. I was pretty fearful that Trump would have gotten rid of but, I guess not. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful they will keep this around for a while.

Shoot, just realized I hijacked this thread and made it about PSLF... my apologies.

No reason to apologize. I think that people often enter these programs with the goal of PSLF with little knowledge of the work and risk involved in participating for 10 years. It is nice to get a bit of transparency from someone going through the process. That said, I am always a bit skeptical on any of these programs until it has been established and a good number of people actually receive the forgiveness.