How useful is previous experience as a Psychometrist for Clinical Psych PhD/PsyD programs?

[Neuropsychometrist]

I am currently a student in a MS program for psychology. I have a bachelors in Psychology, have done undergrad volunteer work in a lab and currently work as Psychometrist, among other things. My experience includes conducting full Neuropsych batteries for a private practice with a variety of patients (<1 year) and I am currently doing testing for a clinical research facility attached to a medical school in my home town. I'm also contributing to a manuscript that will be published at some point next year.

I keep hearing about how important/unimportant grades and GRE exam scores are, but what I would like to know is if neuropsych experience counts for anything amid so many strong applicants? One graduate student told me that it is very important and that it would give me a leg up, but I'm not so sure. My undergraduate GPA is very low, less than 3.0 but I have a 4.0 in my masters program.

I want to apply to both clinical programs with no neuropsych emphasis and programs with neuropsych concentrations. Will my work experience allow me to be a competitive applicant?

Edit: I am applying to mid-tier programs if that makes a difference.

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[bmedclinic]

I'm not in your shoes, but many years ago coming out of my masters program, I had a friend in my program who was literally in the same situation as you, as best I can tell. He also had the absolute worst GRE I've ever known of any psych grad student.. bad enough it was a shocker he got into a masters program at all. I dont know the specifics, but I know he worked his ass off with his mentor (while getting his MS, who I also worked with, but much less) and he got into an awesome neuroscience phd program. Not sure if he retook the GRE (though I doubt it, knowing more about him). I am fairly certain he had both great experience and great LOR indicating his drive and determination.

Per the GPA, I think if your masters gpa is good (like yours is) that most people are going to look at that and draw a few conclusions: 1) this guy can cut it, he's making it through his grad program and 2) they're going to wonder why your undergrad and grad program GPA's are so different. I had a little of that, but mine was due to maturity. I did pretty stupid bonehead things my first two years of college. I don't know that I'd necessarily put anything about that in a personal statement as much as be ready to speak to it at an interview. Just my take; I'm sure others will chime in here with better answers.

 

[Dr.Penguin9000]

I am currently a student in a MS program for psychology. I have a bachelors in Psychology, have done undergrad volunteer work in a lab and currently work as Psychometrist, among other things. My experience includes conducting full Neuropsych batteries for a private practice with a variety of patients (<1 year) and I am currently doing testing for a clinical research facility attached to a medical school in my home town. I'm also contributing to a manuscript that will be published at some point next year.

I keep hearing about how important/unimportant grades and GRE exam scores are, but what I would like to know is if neuropsych experience counts for anything amid so many strong applicants? One graduate student told me that it is very important and that it would give me a leg up, but I'm not so sure. My undergraduate GPA is very low, less than 3.0 but I have a 4.0 in my masters program.

I want to apply to both clinical programs with no neuropsych emphasis and programs with neuropsych concentrations. Will my work experience allow me to be a competitive applicant?

Edit: I am applying to mid-tier programs if that makes a difference.

I'm also applying for PhD programs this year, so I'm far from an expert, but I've read that it really depends on how the program uses the GRE and GPA. If it's a hard screen and you did not do very well on the GRE, you might get screened out despite having other good qualifications. Without a hard screen, you need to use your personal statement and LORs to basically make them ignore any less competitive aspects of your profile.

I also have a question of my own, if that's ok. Could you tell me a bit more about you work as a psychometrist, especially workload and frequency, what your battery is like, etc.?

 

[Neuropsychometrist]

Thank you so much for replying! That is reassuring to know that there are a few situations where work experience amount other things were helpful.

I used to work 4-5 days per week doing 4-6 hour batteries (not including scoring time) at the private practice. Full WAIS WMS, malingering screens, motor tests, cpt etc. scoring involved both computer and hand scoring, etc. qualitative observations etc. Most were TBI's, had a brain cancer patient once, many elderly pre dementia/Alzheimer's, epilepsy patients, stroke etc. it was fairly intense but very valuable. I've been working for a year doing screenings for research with patients who may have cognitive deficits affected by their disease. These batteries are very short 1.5 - 2 hours generally and are less sensitive.

 

[Neuroplast]

May I chime in on this discussion, I am currently applying for psychometrics positions and wanted to know how can someone go about doing that? Down here in south FL there are no advertisements of such positions and basically Im harrassing psychologists to see whether they are needing one. Would this be the way to go about finding this position? Thanks.

 

[onlyhuman703]

Apologies for reviving an old thread, but I have recently begun considering a career change from teaching to either clinical psychology or neuropsychology, and I'm wondering what type of experience I should seek to strengthen my application. I have been offered a job as a special education teacher (currently I am a core teacher), but I have also looked into being a technician in a private neuropsychology practice, or gaining more research experience (I only have about a year's worth, and it was mostly data entry). I'd appreciate any advice as to which would be most helpful/would best align!

 

[psych.meout]

Apologies for reviving an old thread, but I have recently begun considering a career change from teaching to either clinical psychology or neuropsychology, and I'm wondering what type of experience I should seek to strengthen my application. I have been offered a job as a special education teacher (currently I am a core teacher), but I have also looked into being a technician in a private neuropsychology practice, or gaining more research experience (I only have about a year's worth, and it was mostly data entry). I'd appreciate any advice as to which would be most helpful/would best align!

Do the research experience. You probably need more experience, but more importantly, you want this additional experience to be something more substantial than simply data entry, which doesn't count for much. You want to be involved in more conceptual aspects of the research that would better prepare you for grad school, e.g. Developing the protocol, working with subjects, data analysis, manuscript prep, etc.

 

[ellenew]

I worked as a psychometrist before going back to school for a PhD. It definitely helped me to adapt to more complex assessment cases. I will say though that I also had a lot of research experience and clinical work as well.