Best Psychology Graduate Program for my Experience and Interests

Graduate School
1

Hello Everyone, I really need some advice on which path to pursue for my specific background and experience.

I am going to be graduating this fall 2020 with the BA in Psych and minor in Cognitive Science. My experience:

  1. 2 years of working in a clinical research lab (no papers published, no honors thesis)
  2. 2.5 years of experience as a Tutor + this semester I am a TA
  3. internship at the inpatient unit for one semester and a 1 month internship as receptionist at a private practice
  4. no GREs
  5. Psych GPA 4.00, overall 3.89

My interests:

I do not hate research but I do hate programming. I like stats, and writing papers.
My ideal setting is between a good outpatient treatment program and private practice. I would like to primarily focus on delivering therapy but I am not opposed to teaching or research activities, as I have always been doing some kind of research on the side. I do not have a specific population that I want to work with as worked with adults generally. My research was focused on people with schizophrenia (which I love to research but these are not patients I want to work for therapy). I am interested in CBT and DBT, and I am interested in Borderline Personality Disorder and Personality Disorders in general. I want a comfortable salary of at least 75K and above. I was also thinking about trauma work. I am not that interested in substance abuse.

I am tormented between pathways and I really need to decide now.

  1. Clinical Psychology PhD–>I only like very few labs, and I do not want any programming
  2. PsyD–>perfect match in terms of program design but can be way too expensive. Plus they want a masters degree or alternative years of clinical experience.
  3. MSW–>if I defer for a year I actually can have an opportunity to get enough money saved to pay for the school due to another job opportunity that I have. I know it will give me enough flexibility to work where I want but I am just concerned about money for the future.
  4. DSW–>seems like a good option but i am not that interested in policy research per se…kinda need to find out a bit more about that degree

Another problem is that I have an alternative job offer in non psychology related field which will help me to save up for grad school, however if I take it i won’t be able to get clinical experience during that time.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help!!!

Thank you in advance.

2

To me, it sounds like you should take the job.

First of all, it’s really late in the application season already. Most doctoral programs have application deadlines between early December and early January, and students generally start working on them sometime between July and September of the year they want to apply. I would recommend not rushing it.

Second of all, it sounds like you are really interested in therapy and clinical work, and research is just kind of a bonus that you’re fine with doing but don’t necessarily crave or need. If that’s true for you, then I’d actually recommend against the clinical psychology PhD programs. They are very competitive; even students with strong stats like yours sometimes have to apply 2-3 cycles before they are admitted to a program.

Furthermore, most clinical programs are focused either equally on science and practice (the scientist-practitioner programs) or primarily on research and science (clinical science programs. You don’t have a well-defined research area, and it doesn’t sound like you are passionate about research (you just say you “don’t hate it” and that you “are not opposed” to it; to do well in a PhD program, you should at minimum really like research). Clinical psychologists do very little programming, so I’m not really sure what that statement is about, but that’s more or less irrelevant.

Based on what you say, a PsyD does actually sound like the perfect fit for you. But PsyDs are a little like MDs, in that they are professional degrees and thus you will be expected to pay for it with your own funds (savings, loans, etc.) Most PsyDs do not require a master’s degree or years of full-time clinical experience (although they do prefer if you have some volunteer clinical experience), so I’d poke around more at different programs.

An MSW sounds like the second-best fit, with a goal towards becoming a clinical social worker. You could also do a master’s in mental health counseling. Another option is a PhD in counseling psychology. They are typically fully funded and not as competitive as clinical programs. They still tend to focus on both science and practice, though, which may or may not be a problem for you (again, in a doctoral program, if you’re just lukewarm towards research you may be miserable). I’d check them out.

A DSW usually requires that you have an MSW and a few years of social work experience first, and a DSW won’t necessarily give you much over and above an MSW based on what you want, so I’d rule that out.

With all of that said, though, I think you may either need to revise your salary expectations or seek other fields. Psychologists (with doctoral degrees) do average about $80K per year, but that average is pulled up by researchers and industry psychologists; clinical and counseling psychologists make an average of $78K, which means that people just starting out don’t start there. Most other kinds of mental health therapists make less - ranging from $45-55K on average (check this out: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/psychologists.htm#tab-8). This varies a lot by location.