Doctoral Program Interviews with Writing Component?

[SilverHearted]

I was recently invited to Pacific University's PsyD interviews and I've decided to go. I know that many people here have negative views of the school, but attending is convenient for me and I feel like it will give me good interview practice, if nothing else.

However, I was surprised by the rundown of events for the interview day. Included among the typical activities was a "writing component" with the following description:

*There is nothing you need to do to prepare for the writing component. This activity is simply designed for us to obtain a sense of your impromptu, unedited, writing abilities and an additional opportunity for you to articulate your interest in the profession and Pacific University.*

Has anyone gone to Pacific's interview and done this? Or had a writing section at another program's interview day? What was asked and how did you feel about having to do it?

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[deleted656923]

This is my first time hearing about a doctorate Clinical Psychology program requiring an activity like this on interview day. I assume the activity’s purpose is as described — they want to evaluate how well you perform under pressure, as well as your own thought process unedited by others’ input. A good approach to this activity might be similar to how one would tackle a timed writing prompt on the GRE — take the first 3-5 minutes to read and think about the prompt, take 3 minutes to sketch out and organize your outline of main points, then use the rest of the time to write an essay that fleshes out those main points supported by examples or factual evidence

 

[denimfan]

I was recently invited to Pacific University's PsyD interviews and I've decided to go. I know that many people here have negative views of the school, but attending is convenient for me and I feel like it will give me good interview practice, if nothing else.

However, I was surprised by the rundown of events for the interview day. Included among the typical activities was a "writing component" with the following description:

*There is nothing you need to do to prepare for the writing component. This activity is simply designed for us to obtain a sense of your impromptu, unedited, writing abilities and an additional opportunity for you to articulate your interest in the profession and Pacific University.*

Has anyone gone to Pacific's interview and done this? Or had a writing section at another program's interview day? What was asked and how did you feel about having to do it?

This is not new. I had several programs test my writing ability during the interview when I applied 5 years ago. And they actually did not let me know in advance so I couldn't even prepare. They will give you a prompt and you will be asked to provide a response in allotted time. It might be good to brush up on some writing or do some free writing if you haven't been writing recently.

 

[WisNeuro]

Gets me thinking that we should start doing surprise writing prompts for internship interviews. There has been a little bit of a decline in writing ability in reports over the years in trainees.

 

[Justanothergrad]

I know faculty who do this. I did it once as well. The rationale was that (1) the stuff submitted highly edited and (2) it provides an opportunity for admissions decisions to be based on performance measures consistent with the literature (the interview itself is a poor predictor of job performance). As Denimfan said, I didn't tell folks in advance I would ask them to write.

 

[mypointlesspov]

Gets me thinking that we should start doing surprise writing prompts for internship interviews. There has been a little bit of a decline in writing ability in reports over the years in trainees.

One of my internship interviews had a writing exercise. They told us about it in a letter about two weeks before the interview, but didn't specify what the exercise would be. I don't want to share what it was for privacy purposes, but it was far easier than what I expected

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Gets me thinking that we should start doing surprise writing prompts for internship interviews. There has been a little bit of a decline in writing ability in reports over the years in trainees.

I'm pretty sure I know of a few internship sites that do this, yep.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Gets me thinking that we should start doing surprise writing prompts for internship interviews. There has been a little bit of a decline in writing ability in reports over the years in trainees.

I really enjoyed doing this during internship interviews. Same with the therapy role-plays, case conceptualizations, and test interpretations. It gave me a chance to showcase clearly what I knew. It felt so much better than decisions being made on 'tell me about yourself' questions

 

[MCParent]

What do people write about at doctoral interviews? I like this interview task but I'm not sure what I'd have a doctoral applicant write about. I wouldn't expect them to be able to do a case conceptualization, for example.

 

[Cheetah89]

At one of my doctoral program interviews I was asked to compare/contrast a therapeutic relationship with a friendship.

 

[denimfan]

One of the programs I interviewed at asked us to think about a recent controversy you have seen or read about and discuss whether you support or disagree with the issue.

 

[Justanothergrad]

What do people write about at doctoral interviews? I like this interview task but I'm not sure what I'd have a doctoral applicant write about. I wouldn't expect them to be able to do a case conceptualization, for example.

What my chair does is tell them about a week ahead of time to consider a research idea related to the lab and be prepared to discuss ways in which they would like to take their studies, with expectations adapted for level (BA v MA/MS). I did this last year and it gave me a pretty good sense of academic writing level from that task, as well as their investment in preparedness. Frequently people bring in notes about study ideas or something they are really interested in working on and hey, more power to them. While I was doing individual meetings with the applicants I let the other works work on it.

I'd like to do a non-research one, but I worry about the degree to which it translates to academic writing styles as much.

 

[StellaB]

Gets me thinking that we should start doing surprise writing prompts for internship interviews. There has been a little bit of a decline in writing ability in reports over the years in trainees.

I also did this at several internship sites, and if I were making decisions at my site, I would have interviewees do this as well, for the reasons stated above. It's impossible to tell how much editing has gone on with the submitted writing, and sometimes there ends up being a pretty big mismatch between what the interns abilities appeared to be and what they truly are.

 

[psychstudent5]

I didn't have this task at any doctoral, internship, or postdoc interview. Honestly, I think it's quite silly and is simply just another non-nonsensical (mini) hoop to jump through that has no meaningful implication.

 

[WisNeuro]

I didn't have this task at any doctoral, internship, or postdoc interview. Honestly, I think it's quite silly and is simply just another non-nonsensical (mini) hoop to jump through that has no meaningful implication.

How is getting a more accurate judge of someone's writing ability not meaningful? Especially if they are applying to work in a setting in which they will be writing many reports (assessment/neuro)?

 

[MCParent]

I didn't have this task at any doctoral, internship, or postdoc interview. Honestly, I think it's quite silly and is simply just another non-nonsensical (mini) hoop to jump through that has no meaningful implication.

Task based interviews give better data than traditional interviews esp when the interviews are high stakes and have obvious demand characteristics.

 

[WisNeuro]

Task based interviews give better data than traditional interviews.

I mean, only if you want to go by what the actual data says.....

 

[deleted343839]

I didn't have this task at any doctoral, internship, or postdoc interview. Honestly, I think it's quite silly and is simply just another non-nonsensical (mini) hoop to jump through that has no meaningful implication.

It isn't nonsensical. When you apply for faculty positions, people will definitely evaluate your writing, and sometimes job announcements will specifically request reprints. If you're applying to work in a clinical setting, it's important to write clearly and efficiently. Assuming that the form of the writing task aligns with the duties or training goals, it seems like a good way to distinguish candidates who are well matched in other respects. Writing is a reflection of thinking.

 

[GradStudent2020]

There was a writing activity at one of my internship interviews. I thought it made sense... it could give them an idea of our writing style and proficiency as well as our thought process working through the “prompt”.

That being said my handwriting is horrendous due to a wrist injury but I felt uncomfortable requesting access to a computer as it was expected to be handwritten.

 

[AbnormalPsych]

Curious, how long does the writing task take?

 

[mypointlesspov]

Curious, how long does the writing task take?

We were given an hour for the writing task at the internship interview. Three out of the six of us used the full amount of time.