To sum up my history,I am a current junior and have 3.8 GPA. I have worked in 3 labs with about 2 years of lab experience and counting(in three very different types of labs). I am looking to get a Ph.D in clinical psychology and have two areas of interests, both kind of unrelated. Developmental psychology or children's psychology and severe mental illness(MDD, SZ, AX). I was wondering how do i even start the search for schools? Also is it wrong to apply to different programs in different areas?
Where to start when looking at schools?
- Thread starter Dirkwww
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Hi Dirk! You're definitely on the right track-- Nice work with the lab experience so far. Keep it up. 🙂
I'm a little confused by your question... Maybe you can elaborate on your two areas of interest? What do you mean by developmental psychology? That's a huge field, and developmental psych *programs* typically do not provide clinical training.
That said, there's no reason you cannot conduct child research in a Clinical Program. Depression in children, for example, is a really popular area and there's been some really interesting work done by a variety of labs. There are also a number of clinical psych faculty who do at least some research with typically-developing children, studying things that would normally fall in the developmental psych domain (like language development and understanding of emotions).
I hope this makes sense! Feel free to clarify your original areas, and then we may be able to help more. It's not wrong to apply to different areas. Searching for schools is easier once you have your area of research interest figured out, because then you can look at who is doing work in that area and apply based on specific mentors.
I'm a little confused by your question... Maybe you can elaborate on your two areas of interest? What do you mean by developmental psychology? That's a huge field, and developmental psych *programs* typically do not provide clinical training.
That said, there's no reason you cannot conduct child research in a Clinical Program. Depression in children, for example, is a really popular area and there's been some really interesting work done by a variety of labs. There are also a number of clinical psych faculty who do at least some research with typically-developing children, studying things that would normally fall in the developmental psych domain (like language development and understanding of emotions).
I hope this makes sense! Feel free to clarify your original areas, and then we may be able to help more. It's not wrong to apply to different areas. Searching for schools is easier once you have your area of research interest figured out, because then you can look at who is doing work in that area and apply based on specific mentors.
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A good way to start is looking at journal articles that interest you. Then look into the PI's and if they are at a program that might work for you.
A big question you will need to figure out when deciding on a school (although probably not until the interview phase) is whether you will have access to an appropriate sample to conduct your research. If you have to go out and find your own sample of kids with severe mental illness, you will be in grad school forever. I had a friend who became interested in autism later on in her doctoral program. Because this wasn't how she selected her program, she was forced to recruit her own sample and it delayed her graduation by 1-2 yrs. You don't want to be in that situation!
Good luck,
Dr. E
A big question you will need to figure out when deciding on a school (although probably not until the interview phase) is whether you will have access to an appropriate sample to conduct your research. If you have to go out and find your own sample of kids with severe mental illness, you will be in grad school forever. I had a friend who became interested in autism later on in her doctoral program. Because this wasn't how she selected her program, she was forced to recruit her own sample and it delayed her graduation by 1-2 yrs. You don't want to be in that situation!
Good luck,
Dr. E
good points, the two areas of interests don't have to be directly connected. I have worked in Labs that look at both and both areas interest me, so do a thesis on either topics would really interest me (as do both populations) so they do not have to be combined.
To look for schools, I found it helpfult to look at articles as well as a guide to clinical psychology programs (I don't remember what it is called - but it is something along the lines of Guide to Clinical Psychology Programs)
I have also PMd people here who are interested in my area and exchanged school ideas with them.
I have also PMd people here who are interested in my area and exchanged school ideas with them.
Looking into specific programs as a junior! Great time to start! There were a few things I looked at when looking at programs:
1) Is site APA accredited? It may not be a great indicator of quality, but the APA's list on accredited programs is a great place just to start browsing, and accreditation may be important to your future internship site.
2) Where is this school? If you look only at schools in NYC or Chicago, it's going to be an extremely tough battle. I would argue that most top tier research institutions are in the middle of the country.
3) Who is teaching there? This may be the most important factor in your application process. Your research interest should align with at least one if not more faculty members there. Child clinical psychology is actually a big focus at some programs (University of Vermont comes to mind right away), so look at the faculty there and see if they are studying something that interests you. Or go to some conferences and shake hands with professors presenting on topics that get you really excited.
If your school doesn't have a copy of this book, ask for it for your birthday!
http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Grad...rograms+in+clinical+and+counseling+psychology
1) Is site APA accredited? It may not be a great indicator of quality, but the APA's list on accredited programs is a great place just to start browsing, and accreditation may be important to your future internship site.
2) Where is this school? If you look only at schools in NYC or Chicago, it's going to be an extremely tough battle. I would argue that most top tier research institutions are in the middle of the country.
3) Who is teaching there? This may be the most important factor in your application process. Your research interest should align with at least one if not more faculty members there. Child clinical psychology is actually a big focus at some programs (University of Vermont comes to mind right away), so look at the faculty there and see if they are studying something that interests you. Or go to some conferences and shake hands with professors presenting on topics that get you really excited.
If your school doesn't have a copy of this book, ask for it for your birthday!
http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Grad...rograms+in+clinical+and+counseling+psychology
