Seeking some advice...

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psygeek04

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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!!!

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psygeek04 said:
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!!!

Well to start off, I would like to congratulate you on your switch to psychology, not because I am biased towards the field like many of us in the forum are, but because of how much courage it took to follow your aspirations of working with and/or studying kids and their families. I've always believed that it is best to be happy with one's profession, otherwise all the years of work can be miserable. It's not about money or prestige (to some); it's about doing what you love.

With regard to your application for the fall of 2007, I think all in all, your not in as bad of shape as you might think you are, in my opinion. It sounds from your description you have pretty good research experiences and exposure, which is a definite plus. With regard to your cummulative gpa, if possible or allowable by the programs you apply to, you might discuss in your Statement of Purpose when applying to school why you had a bad semester. However, don't dwell on that, rather, use your poor semester gpa to show how far you've come, how resilient you are, how motivated you are, and how important it is/was for you to be in the field of psychology compared to music, etc. Again, it is important to check, however, that your personal statement to school X doesn't have any restrictions or prompts for you to follow, as the aforementioned information about yourself may not be appropriate.

I wouldn't worry too much about your GRE score, as you are already around an 1100 without preparing for it, and with preparation like you mentioned you plan to do, you'll improve upon that score pretty significantly.

What about clinical experience? Indeed, PhD programs like to see research experience, but they also don't mind clinical experience by any means, particularly for schools that you are looking for (equal emphasis schools). Volunteer with kids, get a paid job working with kids with disorders, etc. This type of experience could be used to help bridge the gap between practical and conceptual psychology, although the two domains are very similar, yet also different, depending upon contexts.

With that, best of luck to you. In my opinion, don't be discouraged about your situation, as it is often a blessing to be able to know that you don't want to do career X for a living (teaching music). Some people don't know what they want to do with their lives; consider yourself lucky that after your journey, you know what you want to do with your life and career. Chase it down and go for it. If for some reason you do not get into a PhD program right away, like many, many students, look into getting a master's and use that as a stepping stone into a PhD program. If you are willing to do this, one way or another you can get to your dream job, even if you're not directly admitted into a PhD program right away (which there is no shame in, in my opinion, especially when considering the competition level).

In my opinion, DO NOT count yourself out!
 
First of all, I commend your decision to follow your desire to pursue a career in mental health-obviously you went with your heart and that can be hard! =) With reagrd to your question, I'd like to suggest what some other folks in this forum have recommended-get you hands on a copy of Graduate Study in Psychology, the APA book on graduate programs. That way you can assess different programs' self-ratings of their emphasis on clinical vs. research training, and find a good match for what you want to do. Also, you said that you definitely want to attend a clinical psych program, but that you don't want to do a lot of research (if I understood correctly). In my experience of the application process, a lot of programs explicitly state that they emphasize research, consistent with the scientist-practitioner model, and that those who wish to enter careers as therapists may want to reconsider applying. Have you thought about applying to Psy.D. programs? You might be happier in a program that focuses more on therapy than on research. But either way, kudos to you and good luck! I'm also applying to clinical Ph.D. programs for 2007, so we're in the same boat!
 
alienarms said:
First of all, I commend your decision to follow your desire to pursue a career in mental health-obviously you went with your heart and that can be hard! =) With reagrd to your question, I'd like to suggest what some other folks in this forum have recommended-get you hands on a copy of Graduate Study in Psychology, the APA book on graduate programs. That way you can assess different programs' self-ratings of their emphasis on clinical vs. research training, and find a good match for what you want to do. Also, you said that you definitely want to attend a clinical psych program, but that you don't want to do a lot of research (if I understood correctly). In my experience of the application process, a lot of programs explicitly state that they emphasize research, consistent with the scientist-practitioner model, and that those who wish to enter careers as therapists may want to reconsider applying. Have you thought about applying to Psy.D. programs? You might be happier in a program that focuses more on therapy than on research. But either way, kudos to you and good luck! I'm also applying to clinical Ph.D. programs for 2007, so we're in the same boat!

I just re-read your post and had missed the part where you said you liked research-my bad! Never mind me! =)
 
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