Written Assignment during interview

[Misssmith1234]

Hi!
a) I have an interview for School-Psychology (Psy.D.) program at Rutgers and Adelphi. They both stated that there will be a written assignment that must be completed during the interview. Does anyone know information about what you will need to write about?

b) Any tips for St. John's University- School-Psychology (Psy.D.) program interview?

Thanks in advance, and best of luck everyone!

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[summerbabe]

I remember having one during one of my interviews. A prompt was provided and maybe 30 mins of writing time. I can't remember the topic but I'm guessing it was probably pretty broad/open ended to get a better sense of writing quality and/or basic critical thinking abilities.

 

[psych.meout]

Making me do a writing assignment during the interview?

 

[WisNeuro]

Making me do a writing assignment during the interview?

View attachment 328778

Not much different than doing an oral vignette. Not sure why people get so freaked out about this.

 

[PsyDr]

St. Johns: used to be a lot of orthodox people there. If that’s still true it might be smart to dress to kinda fit in. Maybe mention you love covering other people’s groups on Friday evenings.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Not much different than doing an oral vignette. Not sure why people get so freaked out about this.

yup. I've used them. interviews are predictively worthless. at least it is a more valid metric. it removes the 100 edits from advisors on documents before I see them. I don't really care except to know where the student is at so I know what I'm getting.

 

[Misssmith1234]

I remember having one during one of my interviews. A prompt was provided and maybe 30 mins of writing time. I can't remember the topic but I'm guessing it was probably pretty broad/open ended to get a better sense of writing quality and/or basic critical thinking abilities.

Thanks!

 

[psych.meout]

Not much different than doing an oral vignette. Not sure why people get so freaked out about this.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

I remember when I was doing fellowship interviews, one site (kind of prestigious---but take that with a grain of salt), made us do a violence risk assessment based on a fake patient chart we were given with a timer above us. Felt like Men in Black. Anyway, I mustve done well cuz I got an offer. (protip, if you ever have to do this, just read the psychosocial, it's pretty much all you need, everything else is fluff).

 

[Misssmith1234]

I remember when I was doing fellowship interviews, one site (kind of prestigious---but take that with a grain of salt), made us do a violence risk assessment based on a fake patient chart we were given with a timer above us. Felt like Men in Black. Anyway, I mustve done well cuz I got an offer. (protip, if you ever have to do this, just read the psychosocial, it's pretty much all you need, everything else is fluff).

Interesting, okay thanks!

 

[Gepetto]

Years ago I interviewed with a PsyD program and the writing sample was very basic -- something like a "why do you want to come here/ why should we admit you" type essay. The goal was to see writing style-- nothing to do with clinical knowledge and vignettes, as has been suggested thus far. I think knowledge based writing samples are more common when interviewing for internships/postdocs, not ENTRY into a program where they expect they will teach you those skills.

 

[singasongofjoy]

Very much agree with Gepetto. How good someone's overall writing ability is can be the difference in hours and hours of additional time supervising/editing over the course of a semester per student. Use proper grammar, more formal writing style is probably a safer bet; search for typos, make sure your thought process is logical and well-organized with sufficient but not excessive detail. This thread is making me consider that the next time I take multiple students to supervise for practicum this might not be a bad idea. Some people make up for having mediocre writing by having excellent clinical or other qualities, so spending more superivion/instruction time on writing over the other areas is no big deal. But having multiple sub-par to mediocre writers at the same time is a drag.

 

[Misssmith1234]

Years ago I interviewed with a PsyD program and the writing sample was very basic -- something like a "why do you want to come here/ why should we admit you" type essay. The goal was to see writing style-- nothing to do with clinical knowledge and vignettes, as has been suggested thus far. I think knowledge based writing samples are more common when interviewing for internships/postdocs, not ENTRY into a program where they expect they will teach you those skills.

This is good to know!! Thank you very much!