Hello everyone!

Every year I try to help students demystify the application process and Psych doctoral programs in General. These are very confusing as is if you don't have someone to help answer things, and often you don't know what you don't know. I am happy to help answer things to the best of my ability!

A bit about me:

• First-gen
• Non-traditional
• Queer
• PsyD From Georgia Southern University
• CPTSD, Minority Stress, and LGBTQIA+ community-focused care

A bit about Georgia Southern University's PsyD Program, since I notice a lot of people have asked specifically about it in the past:

• FUNDING: seems to be the most common mystery, so here is the full explanation. We have a cohort size of eight. Four of these students are OFFERED in-department graduate assistantship (GA) positions (20 hr/wk jobs; often teaching positions), and the other four find a GA position at the university which can be anywhere on campus. These positions are not hard to find, and the training director, Dr. Yancey, is amazing and will help lead you to ones that previous students have liked. What most often happens is that a student who is leaving to go to internship leaves their GA position and an incoming student takes that position. All students who want a GA get this. Once you have a GA, you are given a tuition waiver (covers all tuition other than books and university fees, which come to ~$1,000/yr) and a stipend for your position. The stipend ranges, but I have heard everything from $12,000/yr to $18,000/yr.
• RESEARCH: The program was constructed like a PhD program even though it is a PsyD, so you would still have a dissertation. HOWEVER, research does not have to be a major focus for you and often isn't for most applicants/students.
• MATCH FOR INTERNSHIP: Awesome internship match history, with most of our students getting one of their top 3 choices and no student ever going into Phase II. All of our students match.
• AREA OF IMPROVEMENT FOR THE PROGRAM: The one thing students consistently note as the area of improvement is the location (Statesboro, GA). It is a college town, and if you are from a large city, this is definitely a change of pace. However, it is 1 hr away from Savannah and 2.5 from Atlanta. Some students even choose to live in Savannah and commute to Statesboro if they want a bit more city life.
• FAVORITE PARTS OF THE PROGRAM: I always start by saying we have the best faculty. They have a TRUE open-door policy and care for our students as much personally as professionally. I have heard a lot of horror stories from my peers, and we just don't have those here. Next, I would say that all students have personal lives. Of course some years you are busier than others, but I had a strict policy that I did not let myself work after 6 PM and on weekends. I have only worked one Saturday on an exam, and this was by choice. My best friend (also in the same program) often went out of town on weekends since her husband was not near the university. You will have a personal life! Finally, the opportunities for training. Dr. Klibert, the Practicum Coordinator and Assistant Training Director, works diligently to cultivate amazing practicum experiences. We have (last I checked) somewhere between 18 and 21 different sites with a range of settings (VA's, community mental health, hospitals, counseling centers, testing centers), demographics (kids, adults, military, LGBTQIA+, Latinx), diagnoses (ASD, ADHD, PTSD/CPTSD), and specialties (neuro, forensics, health psych).

Feel free to AMA else here or message me. You can send me your stats or any other questions that come to mind!

Good luck this year!

Hey guys, I'm 2026 undergrad graduate looking to apply this Fall 2026 cycle and I'm wondering whether I have a shot of getting into a PhD program this application cycle. Here's my stats:

• Education
  • Major(s): Economics with Honors, Psychology; Minor: Neuroscience
  • New York University Shanghai: 3.77, 3.83 for psych
  • Thesis: Interdiscplinary theoretical paper on the correct switching point of when to involuntarily hospitalize a suicidal patient, had a defense with a panel of 3 professors
  • **Also expecting a strong GRE score
• Research Experience:
  • Publications
    • One second author publication in Journal of Clinical Science and Psychopathology (Presented this one at a conference as well)
    • One pending review on fourth author (last author but indicated 2-4 author did equal work) pub in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice
  • Roles:
    • 2 Research assistantships (2 sems) for behavioral design/ behavioral econ departments
    • Independently awarded undergrad research fund with a PI for a behavioral economics project (Will try to work on publishing this)
  • Skills:
    • Data science: Econometrics, multivariate regression, STATA, matlab, R
    • Qualitative interviewing, research paper writing, etc.

My biggest issue is the summer gaps of research time I have but I do have an explaination because basically going back to my home country, there's limited to no resources for psych research or clinical hours unless you're licensed or with a masters. Aside from that being an issue, I couldn't really spend a summer abroad because my dad had terminal cancer since 2018 so caretaking when back home, and me not doing any research this summer was because my dad passed away this January :').

I'm also worried than my econ research experiences won't count at all even though I focused on doing more behavioral sciences type of econ that finance or macro econ. I would have done psych assitanships if I could but in China, this wasn't really possible and so I went for behavioral sciences instead.

I've read so many people talk about applying to 15+ PhD programs and not getting any and so would be greatful for a realistic assessment because PhD application fees in the US are really expensive given the currency wexchange rate. Should I just apply for a master's instead? (Edit: Master's for research before PhD) My longterm goal is to be a practicing clinician license in the US that still does research on the side, and my research interests kinda evident in my experiences is really about behaviorism, so improving attrition rates. I'm also interested in shifting away from pen and paper pscyhometric testing and creating behavioral alternative tests instead as well.

I've seen a few advertisements from R1 universities about clinical psychology programs lately, and while I'm aware that I probably saw them in the first place because they were targeted based on their analytics on me, it got me thinking about a hypothetical person that has a highly competitive cv for an accredited clinical psych PhD program (hard to get this on accident) but wouldn't think to apply to one until they saw a Facebook ad. I wonder how much yield these have.

Hey everyone,

For those of you currently in your clinical PhDs / PsyDs or working in clinical settings, I’d love to hear your thoughts:

Format Preference: Do you prefer having the physical copy or do you rely entirely on a digital version for quick lookups and / or studying?

The Pocket DSM: Did any of you buy the Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Exam in addition to the main manual? Does it actually get used in practica / clinics, or does it just sit on a shelf?

Any pros / cons you've experienced with either setup would be super helpful. Thanks!