<p>Alright so I graduated from College earlier in the year. I ranked high in academics and was a member of many honor societies. My problem is I don't have any research experience. I have tried applying and calling up many institutions but no luck. I want to go for clinical psychology. I am lost what do I do.</p>
<p>You need to get research experience. There’s no substitute for that.</p>
<p>Clinical psychology is very competitive; even students who have 2 years of research experience in college often work for 2-3 years after college as a lab manager for a psychology lab. These jobs usually come available in the late spring, as this year’s crop of lab managers get accepted to grad school and quit their jobs. My psychology lab has had four lab managers since I began as a grad student; the first three have successfully moved onto PhD programs in our field. (The fourth still works here, but that is his intention as well.) So you may want to try to look for these kinds of positions; they are mostly available at large research-intensive universities.</p>
<p>Another option is working for a public or private firm that has research-related jobs. I’ve seen lots of non-profits looking for research associates; usually the jobs require an MA but many of them don’t. Think tanks (like RAND or Mathematica) also hire bachelor’s level social science researchers to do research tasks. Another option is testing agencies like ETS, ACT, or Pearson; they often hire BA-level social scientists with strong stats skills. Sometimes hospitals or medical institutions (especially academic medical centers) will hire BA-level people to do research support work.</p>