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Hi all,
I am glad to have found this site early enough for it to make a difference in my applications for next year! I need some honest advice, but I have a sort of complicated story so bear with me ...
I graduated in May of 2004 with my BS in Psychology from a rather small public university. The Psych program was very good though in that it prepared me well in the area of statistics and research methods. I also got my name on 2 poster presentations (including one at APA)and helped one other student with running participants in her senior thesis! I completed my own senior thesis project and had a ~3.65 (if memory serves me well) in my Psychology courses.
I was originally a music education major for 4 years and I had one bad semester (before switching to Psych) so my overall GPA is only a 3.23. You're probably now asking yourself WHY in the world I would change my major after 4 years! Well, I had a year left in the music program and I realized that I was miserable and did NOT want to be a music teacher... I was always more concerned with the kids' mental health instead of their musical ability! I made the decision (with the help of a career counselor at school) that i should go ahead and change my major now instead of getting a degree I didn't want. So... that is how I ended up in psychology, and I have never regretted the decision!
Now comes the weird part... while everyone was deciding where to go to grad school and what programs to apply to, I had a serious bout of low self-esteem and basically talked myself out of EVER getting into a clinical program. It was my ultimate dream, but I didn't think I had a chance. I really like research and such so I decided that I would go for my doctorate in Experimental Psych. So I applied and got accepted to two programs for the Fall of 2004. As you might guess, I was absolutely MISERABLE in the program. It wasn't anything like I wanted and I kicked myself for the entire year and just tried to finish with decent grades. I moved back home in May of 2005 and tried to find a job with a bachelor's degree in psych! *This wasn't easy!*
I finally ended up in a good job at the same university I graduated from. I work long hours but it's overall a good job that I think will help my resume somewhat.
Okay, and now after ALL of that I get to my real reason for posting...
I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been seeing a great therapist (C.B. orientation) for the past 4 months. He has helped me so much in my struggle to believe that I could actually get into a clinical program. I want so much to work with kids and adolescents and even adults (moms and dads), but I very much desire training in the research and 'scientific' side of clinical psych because I know how important it is to clinical application. For me, this means I should pursue a clinical PhD program with an equal balance of training in both practice and research. I don't care about ranks... I just want a program that's APA accredited and has faculty doing research that I find interesting! I have a decent GRE score from 2 years ago (1090) and i plan to take it again and actually prepare for it this time. I'm currently working with a psych professor at school on some gambling research and I'm about to start a professional literature review as well.
What else can I do to help my application for Fall 2007??? Am I wasting my time or do i have a chance?
Thanks to everyone for reading such an incredibly long post ... and good luck to all who applied this year!!!
I am glad to have found this site early enough for it to make a difference in my applications for next year! I need some honest advice, but I have a sort of complicated story so bear with me ...
I graduated in May of 2004 with my BS in Psychology from a rather small public university. The Psych program was very good though in that it prepared me well in the area of statistics and research methods. I also got my name on 2 poster presentations (including one at APA)and helped one other student with running participants in her senior thesis! I completed my own senior thesis project and had a ~3.65 (if memory serves me well) in my Psychology courses.
I was originally a music education major for 4 years and I had one bad semester (before switching to Psych) so my overall GPA is only a 3.23. You're probably now asking yourself WHY in the world I would change my major after 4 years! Well, I had a year left in the music program and I realized that I was miserable and did NOT want to be a music teacher... I was always more concerned with the kids' mental health instead of their musical ability! I made the decision (with the help of a career counselor at school) that i should go ahead and change my major now instead of getting a degree I didn't want. So... that is how I ended up in psychology, and I have never regretted the decision!
Now comes the weird part... while everyone was deciding where to go to grad school and what programs to apply to, I had a serious bout of low self-esteem and basically talked myself out of EVER getting into a clinical program. It was my ultimate dream, but I didn't think I had a chance. I really like research and such so I decided that I would go for my doctorate in Experimental Psych. So I applied and got accepted to two programs for the Fall of 2004. As you might guess, I was absolutely MISERABLE in the program. It wasn't anything like I wanted and I kicked myself for the entire year and just tried to finish with decent grades. I moved back home in May of 2005 and tried to find a job with a bachelor's degree in psych! *This wasn't easy!*
I finally ended up in a good job at the same university I graduated from. I work long hours but it's overall a good job that I think will help my resume somewhat.
Okay, and now after ALL of that I get to my real reason for posting...
I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been seeing a great therapist (C.B. orientation) for the past 4 months. He has helped me so much in my struggle to believe that I could actually get into a clinical program. I want so much to work with kids and adolescents and even adults (moms and dads), but I very much desire training in the research and 'scientific' side of clinical psych because I know how important it is to clinical application. For me, this means I should pursue a clinical PhD program with an equal balance of training in both practice and research. I don't care about ranks... I just want a program that's APA accredited and has faculty doing research that I find interesting! I have a decent GRE score from 2 years ago (1090) and i plan to take it again and actually prepare for it this time. I'm currently working with a psych professor at school on some gambling research and I'm about to start a professional literature review as well.
What else can I do to help my application for Fall 2007??? Am I wasting my time or do i have a chance?
Thanks to everyone for reading such an incredibly long post ... and good luck to all who applied this year!!!