Practicum Interview

[clawless23]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hello all,

Currently, I am a first year Psy.D. student who is beginning to apply for a mental health practicum, which was basically explained to us as a way of socializing us to the field. I just received an interview invite from a hospital setting in which inpatient and outpatient individual and group therapy takes place. However, in the director's email she had stated to bring a writing sample, preferably a treatment plan or a completed case conceptualization. I was wondering if this was a normal thing to be asked of for the first practicum, as I do not have experience writing either of these.

Thanks!

 

[ResearchGirlie]

That sounds odd. Can you ask others from your program that may have already gone through their first interviews at that site? If they recommend writing samples then perhaps they have examples you could take a look at.

 

[happyhappyhappa]

Hi, there!
I am a 4th year student and all of my practicum sites required at least two redacted writing samples (a report, treatment plan or progress note) either before they granted me an interview or to be provided at the time of the interview.
In addition, I was asked by two sites to do an on-site writing sample that included reading a vignette and writing a progress note and treatment plan at the end of my interview.

I am currently applying for pre-doc internships and many sites asked for writing samples (mainly redacted assessment reports), so it is good practice to have a few of these handy, just in case you are asked for them.
🙂

I hope that this helps- I am sure that whatever you give to them will be AWESOME and that you will wow them in your interview!
Good luck!

 

[Pragma]

That sounds odd. Can you ask others from your program that may have already gone through their first interviews at that site? If they recommend writing samples then perhaps they have examples you could take a look at.

I think these are fairly common.

OP: You might just clarify that it is your first practicum experience. You shouldn't have any writing samples yet from clinical cases. Ask for alternatives that you could submit. The site may or may not take first year practicum students.

 

[psyunknown]

I think these are fairly common.

OP: You might just clarify that it is your first practicum experience. You shouldn't have any writing samples yet from clinical cases. Ask for alternatives that you could submit. The site may or may not take first year practicum students.

I had to do this for my first practicum as well, and I used a clinical write up that I did for one of my first year class that showed my treatment planning and concept. skills. You can ask if they would accept something like that.

Good luck.

 

[ResearchGirlie]

I think these are fairly common.

OP: You might just clarify that it is your first practicum experience. You shouldn't have any writing samples yet from clinical cases. Ask for alternatives that you could submit. The site may or may not take first year practicum students.

Interesting. I just applied for internship and only had to submit a writing sample for 1 of 13 sites.

 

[Pragma]

Interesting. I just applied for internship and only had to submit a writing sample for 1 of 13 sites.

I actually never had to myself. I just have heard of it from other people.

BTW, all you learn from a writing sample is how well their supervisor edited 🙄

 

[PHD12]

Hello all,

Currently, I am a first year Psy.D. student who is beginning to apply for a mental health practicum, which was basically explained to us as a way of socializing us to the field. I just received an interview invite from a hospital setting in which inpatient and outpatient individual and group therapy takes place. However, in the director's email she had stated to bring a writing sample, preferably a treatment plan or a completed case conceptualization. I was wondering if this was a normal thing to be asked of for the first practicum, as I do not have experience writing either of these.

Thanks!

Welcome to the competitive world of clinical psychology where you have to compete for unpaid practicum (check out the NYC externship forum)!

As others are saying, this is fairly common practice, especially if you are in a saturated city that gets 30-100+ applications ( I don't envy people in NYC). I remember being very surprised during my first year of graduate school when I learned about the requirements to apply for practicum (I'm coming from a funded PhD), including submitting reports, case summaries, 3 letters of recommendation and transcripts. There are even some practicums that require essays! Then you have to do this again for internship and again to get a post-doc. At least you will have several good reports and will be a pro at interviewing by the end of it all!

 

[Ollie123]

As PHD12 alluded to, I think this is much more common in saturated locations.

I've never had to submit a writing sample of that sort for practica and have been irritated at the handful that required a short essay. For the most part it has just been "Send me your CV and then interview". Of course, we are not a particularly saturated market which I think makes things much more flexible. Most sites have a relationship with our school/program and are really only taking students from our program. We're a research-heavy program so we only have a relatively small number of students in the first place, with only a certain percentage even doing external practicums (and typically for fewer hours) than many other programs. The only other school here is Argosy and they are generally not working with the same sites we are.

The upside is practice with the process - I'm sure internship interviews will be far less novel after all the practica interviewing. On the other hand, I'm happy to not have to devote time to stuff like that and frankly, I would be quite upset if after getting into a program I wasn't able to secure practica in my desired setting.

 

[PHD12]

As PHD12 alluded to, I think this is much more common in saturated locations.

I've never had to submit a writing sample of that sort for practica and have been irritated at the handful that required a short essay. For the most part it has just been "Send me your CV and then interview". Of course, we are not a particularly saturated market which I think makes things much more flexible. Most sites have a relationship with our school/program and are really only taking students from our program. We're a research-heavy program so we only have a relatively small number of students in the first place, with only a certain percentage even doing external practicums (and typically for fewer hours) than many other programs. The only other school here is Argosy and they are generally not working with the same sites we are.

I think this is another upside of going to a good PhD program vs. a PsyD program. PsyD programs tend to have larger cohorts and fewer relationships with sites. We definitely also had relationships with sites. I know that the VA system gets applicants from the local PsyD programs and weed out the vast majority of them, only picking the top 10% or so for practicum (they rarely interview any for internship). Many of the PsyD students are then left without placements or have to settle for placements that are akin to slave labor. This is why we encourage people on this forum to go to reputable PsyD programs (rutgers, baylor) if you are going to go the PsyD route at all.

 

[JeyRo]

I think I might start requesting writing samples myself. I have two practicum students currently (both from a professional program). I only found out later one of them is kind of a bad writer (is not a native english speaker), which is problematic when one is expected to write assessment reports.