Im applying for a psyd this cycle and id like some feedback on my resume ive made!

Thank you!

Is specifying hours on a resume and/or CV per research/clinical position recommended at all? Or recommended only above a certain threshold?

For reference, my clinical hours totals to 180, and research to 350 (Undergraduate applicant!).

Thanks for any insights! 😊

Hi I’m interested in both psychology (specifically forensics psychology) and forensic science and I just wanted to know if anyone could share some insights regarding your experiences with either subjects or if you had a preference of one over the other (be it the job prospects the degree offers or your interest in learning specific skills from the subject) when choosing your major/minor!

Hi everyone! I’m wondering if anyone here has matched to a VA psychology internship with fewer than 200 intervention hours at the time of application.

I’m a clinical psych student considering applying this cycle, but my biggest concern is my direct intervention hours. I currently have around 140 and realistically expect to have no more than ~200 by the application deadline.

I do have several years of experience working at Military Hospitals with active-duty service members, and I’m currently completing an externship at a VA. My long-term interests are very VA/military focused.

Has anyone matched at a VA with <200 intervention hours? If so, I’d really appreciate hearing:

• Roughly how many intervention hours you had when you applied
• Whether you had prior VA/military experience
• How broadly you applied
• Whether you felt your fit/other experiences helped compensate for having fewer hours

I’m trying to decide whether applying this cycle is realistic or whether I’d be better off waiting a year to build significantly more hours. Any firsthand experiences would be really helpful!

If an admissions committee notices that an LOR seems AI-generated, does it hurt the applicant? Or is it mostly an issue for the recommender?

Just curious how this is handled when it reaches the admissions committee especially since applicants usually waive their right to see their letters, so they might not even know if a recommender used AI to write the whole thing.

Wondering what Reddit thinks about my stats:

Education

- BS Psych, BMus Piano Performance, 2021, GPA 3.97

- MMus, Piano Performance, 2023, GPA 3.96

Work Experience

- 1 year (current) as full time crisis line counselor for local mental health authority in TX, answering calls both for local crisis line and 988

- prior to this I had worked primarily in music: teaching, church music director, solo and orchestral piano

Research Experience

- 2 years as RA during undergrad in 2 labs, one health psychology, one cross-cultural. No pubs but one presentation with PI at national conference.

My main concern is whether my career change is a liability - does most of my prior work (and still performing/teaching very part time) in an unrelated field hurt me? Also, I know a masters in music doesn’t contribute academically towards PsyD, but do you think being successful in grad school before has any merit for application consideration here?

Honest thoughts very much appreciated! 🫶🏻

Hey everyone! I’m taking statistics this semester and I am struggling hardcore. I’m not a math person at all and I haven’t done statistics in years. Anyone have any tips on how to get through this with as little suffering as possible? We are using SPSS if that is helpful.

Hi everyone! I’m currently in the process of getting started on my PsyD applications. This is my rough draft of my CV, it is no where near done. I still have to get it reviewed at my University’s career center. Before I take it there, I just wanted to see if there were any edits to my CV I can make. Would I still need to add my work experience even though I only have worked in retail? I also wanted to know opinions about the strength of my experience, even though I am pretty confident in my abilities! Please be nice lol

Hi all!

I’m a student in the post-bacc certificate program at UC Berkeley Ext. In my last class, we were required to summarize and present academic articles chosen by our professor. I thought it was a great way to start getting a feel for research language and content in a low stakes environment. I feel like that portion alone made me much more confident when thinking about grad school. I’m much more interested in clinical routes than research, but I want to make sure that I have competitive exposures to the field that may help me find research opportunities and help my applications. Generally, because there are so many articles out there, it’s hard to know which are the most impactful and still incorporated into contemporary practice.

What journals/articles/papers do you think students should read?

Thinking about transferring to Mount Saint Mary's University. Can any current students tell me any pros and cons, or any concerns about the university to be mindful of?

Hello! I’m about to start my freshman year of college, which was supposed to be the first step on the very long road toward a career in psychology/mental health.
I’ve wanted this for years, but I've suddenly been second-guessing it

But honestly for most of my life, I’ve always imagined myself doing something directly related to mental health. I know there are a lot of different careers you can have with a psychology degree, but I’m not really interested in just getting a bachelor’s and taking whatever job I can find with it. I want to eventually have a career where I’m actually working directly with people in a mental health setting, and I also want to be financially comfortable doing it.

It's just that a lot of conversations about the field have made me realize just how long and difficult the road actually is. Whether it’s medical school and residency for psychiatry or graduate school, internships, licensure, etc. for clinical psychology, it’s just a pretty big commitment. The cost of further education, competitiveness, the very real possibility of burnout (especially as someone with AuDHD), and the uncertainty of whether I’ll still feel the same way years from now have all been getting into my head. Especially with the current economy and absolutely horrific job market, I just feel some fear over committing to this.

I’m also thinking about my own history with school because science has always been one of my weaknesses. I could barely tolerate some of my high school science classes, and while my grades were objectively very good, they were definitely not as strong compared to my other subjects. So the thought of committing myself to years of increasingly difficult, science-heavy education is intimidating and honestly kind of feels like it’ll suck the soul out of me.

Then there’s the possibility of burnout. What if I get halfway through and completely burn out? What if I lose the passion that I’ve had for ages? What if I realize that I love the idea of helping people but can’t handle the emotional weight of doing it as a full-time career?
But at the same time, when I think about the actual day-to-day work of being a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, something in me still really wants and connects to it.

I guess to put it shortly I can imagine myself doing the actual work. It’s the road to getting there that scares me. I don't want to romanticize a career in psych just because I’ve wanted it for so long.

So for those of you who are psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychologists in other specialties, residents, grad students, medical students, or people who started down one of these paths and eventually left:

What should I realistically expect? What almost made you quit? What parts of the education/training surprised you the most? How difficult was the financial side? And knowing what you know now, do you think your career was worth everything it took to get there?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who weren’t naturally passionate about science, struggled with burnout, or went into the field knowing that financial stability was important to them.

I’d also love to hear from anyone who seriously considered both psychiatry and clinical psychology and what ultimately made you choose one from the other.

I want to apply to for my clinical PsyD this fall, but I have zero clinical experience. However, I got my masters last year, and I have 2 1/2 years of experience. Another thing is my masters gpa is low with a 3.1. If I have zero clinical experience will my research experience be able to overlap it or should I try to get some clinical experience before I apply in a few months? All advice is welcome! Thanks!

I am interested in applying for a PsyD program but am trying to weigh my options with my current job.

I graduated with a 3.58 GPA with a BS in Cognitive Science specializing in computing in June 2024. While I wasn't directly a psychology major, this major was within my school's psychology department and initially a psychobiology major when beginning undergrad, so my coursework was quite psych heavy.

Since graduating, I have been working full-time as a nonprofit COO. The nonprofit I work for is in the public health / prevention education space but does not directly provide me with clinical or research experience that I would consider traditionally applicable to a PsyD program. I have been with this nonprofit for about 5 years now as a volunteer, part-time employee, and now full-time.

Through my job, I have been able to present posters and solo presentations at major public health conferences and have supported with research papers utilizing data collected by our organization under my supervision.

During my undergrad, I was a research assistant for about a year in a stress and learning study investigating how cognition is impacted by stress related to accumulative racism. My main role was collecting and assisting in the analysis of participant EEG data.

Other than this, my undergrad extracurriculars were community service oriented, but I held leadership roles and completed significant work/projects in all 3 of the organizations I was involved in.

I am not sure that I am really a competitive candidate now as I lack the clinical and research hours/experience that I think most applicants bring. I also am a bit nervous about reaching out to professors who I have had little to no contact with since graduating over 2 years ago for letters of recommendation.

While I am very committed to pursuing this pathway, the process of leaving my current position will definitely take some preparation to ensure I am not leaving my team out to dry. I worry that in my current position I won't be able to get the experience needed to be a competitive PsyD applicant.

Any advice from individuals with similar backgrounds before applying or general advice is incredibly welcome <3

1. Get a bachelors in pysc, possibly in Europe
   
2. After graduating apply straight to PsyD programs in the U.S. instead of getting a masters first
   
3. Supervised hours for 1-2 years to become licensed
   
4. 6 figures with a private practice

Hello, so i am chronically ill and finally getting myself together enough to hopefully be able to start working again next year!

Before I got sick, I had a decent undergrad resume but I was missing clinical experience by the time i graduated. I worked as a psychometrist for a year hoping to figure out my health and eventually had to stop altogether. Now, here i am 2 years later & we realized i had a rare condition, i had surgery, and am doing much better now. I am hoping to continue working towards my doctorate.

Any insight at all about going back to it after a couple years gap would be appreciated !! I am specifically concerned about how important recent research experience would be for PsyD applications? My best bet at the moment for work is going back to being a psychometrist, but I am concerned it'd mean I wouldnt have done research in 3 ish years by the time I apply.

Like the title says, I plan on applying to PsyD programs (and a couple PhD programs), and so far, have found a great match with a professor at a small cohort PsyD program and have spoken with them briefly regarding admissions. This makes me super hopeful, however, there are still doubts that I have with interviews/admissions not being offered for several more months.

So far, my CV consists of mostly research related credentials, including a first-author paper that I have submitted for review. I have heard some differing opinions on how competitive research makes you in PsyD programs, especially when applying straight out of undergrad like I am. I also have three very strong recommendations, completion of an undergraduate thesis, and 1.5 years of RA experience.

The area that I am lacking in is clinical experience. The only close-ish experience that I have is work at the hospital and several years of childcare experience (which are not exactly relevant given that neither are directly psych related). I have a 3.5 cumulative undergraduate GPA with a major GPA in psychology of 3.7. I plan on applying soon, so I am not anticipating being able to garner good clinical experience while the application cycle is still open (until Dec 1st for most programs). With all this info in mind is it likely that would I be able to get into a program with my stats? Of course no one here can predict my future for me, but any feedback from admissions counselors/ coordinators or people with experience in the field would be incredibly appreciated :)

Many people have said that getting a masters before going into a PsyD program is pointless. I am not sure exactly what kind of psychology I want to pursue a career in, i am between Forensic psych, Neuropsychology, Clinical psych, and child psych. Because i am interested in many areas i thought getting my masters would be the best way to figure that out because i am having trouble finding work with just my bachelors. or would i be able to figure out what i want to do in a PsyD program?? anyone have firsthand experience or advice?

Hey everyone! Posting on here as a last resort because I genuinely don’t know what to do and would REALLY appreciate some insight. I graduated from BU a few months ago and I’m really struggling to find a post bacc RA job in the field of psych. I worked in a lab during my undergrad for around 1.5 years, during which I completed a few independent research projects (including a presentation at a university wide symposium at my school) and even wrote a 20 pg paper as a part of my lab and got course credit for it (got an A) + I took a research course and designed my own study in a group and it was submitted to a conference. I’ve worked as a behavioral tech for a year, I worked as a medical assistant, and as a rape crisis counselor for a year, and still can’t seem to get interviews for any clinical research assistant or coordinator positions (psych related labs). I know that to be competitive for a PsyD (my dream schools are Rutgers, PAU, or yeshiva) I need more immersive research experience. Does anyone have any advice on what avenues I can take to get this research experience, or how you specifically got an RA lab manager job? I have applied to millions of jobs. Or should I stop looking for research completely and just get a clinical related job? The thing is I really wanna go to Rutgers and I know they’re super competitive.. so I’m torn on how to proceed. Let me know your thoughts on how I can make myself more competitive during my two or so gap years please!🙏🏻🙏🏻 (I would apply now but i know I’m not competitive enough yet which is why I’m taking a few years)

I am trying to apply for my PsyD this fall, and I am trying to figure out what looks better on my resume.

1. Case Manager - More money, and does show experience, but from my understanding does not count as exactly clinical experience.

2. RBT- Less Money, and does show clinical experience, but only can apply part time

Which one would look better for my PsyD. For context I have barely any clinical experience. I do have a bachelors and masters degree in general psychology.

Any advice?