Clinical Psychology - How competitive is competitive?!

peeps01

Hi there,

I realise that there are several threads relating to acceptance into a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, but I'm looking to get details of first hand experiences from people who've been through the process and come out the other end!

I qualified in 2005 with a 2:1 in Honours Psychology. Since then, I have gained approximately 3 years experience, as a social care worker in a residential setting with one of the leading organisations in intellectual disabilities in Ireland. For the last 18 months, I have been living and working in Australia as a Counsellor/Case Manager. This position involves the management of a caseload of 60 clients (at any one time), providing crisis intervention, developing and delivering motivational workshops and one-on-one counselling sessions with high-need clients. With my work position, I am also supervised by a Clinical Psychologist.

I intend to apply for several doctorate courses in clinical psychology in the UK and Ireland for start in 2011. I realise that entry into these courses is extremely competitive but being so far away, I'm keen to identify what I should focus on to maximise my chances of getting in. With that in mind, I'm currently doing a certificate in telephone counselling as part of a volunteer position with a national helpline. Is there anything else that anyone would recommend I do to increase my chances?

Also, has anyone ever heard of anyone doing a telephone interview for the postgraduate courses, and success or otherwise of doing so?

Thanks a lot in advance for any responses. Any help would be much appreciated!

The Black Oil

It's not an application process I'm familiar with (save for reading about it), but competitive is the word, alright.

The only thing that stood out for me with respect to your post was research experience, do you have any? Research assistant/posts and a Masters? You might get pulled up on that angle.

peeps01

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, research is an area I am lacking in. Since my degree, I have been trying to gain as much experience in a variety of settings and now I realise I should have obtained a masters as well as experience.

I am considering applying for a one-year postgrad but I'm still confused as to whether this is a prerequisite for all universities. UL's entry requirements only ask for a degree and one year work experience. Whilst I know this is more to do with the competition, surely work experience is as good as an extra year in a lecture hall? I am confident in my research ability and love statisitcal analysis but apart from my thesis, I have nothing on paper to prove this. It's so frustrating!

Gibs

peeps01 wrote: »

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, research is an area I am lacking in. Since my degree, I have been trying to gain as much experience in a variety of settings and now I realise I should have obtained a masters as well as experience.

I am considering applying for a one-year postgrad but I'm still confused as to whether this is a prerequisite for all universities. UL's entry requirements only ask for a degree and one year work experience. Whilst I know this is more to do with the competition, surely work experience is as good as an extra year in a lecture hall? I am confident in my research ability and love statisitcal analysis but apart from my thesis, I have nothing on paper to prove this. It's so frustrating!

The entry requirements listed for any of the doctorate courses are really more like a minimum expected level and are almost always exceeded by the people accepted onto the courses.

During your doctorate you will be expected to plan, design and conduct a fairly major piece of research. The clinical courses tend to prefer people who have a demonstrated history of having done this before, mainly because the learning curve is too steep when you consider all of the other work that you have to do in terms of reading and coping with the clinical work, much of which will be in areas that are new to you.

You might get onto a clinical course with only a primary degree and some experience but it's harder to do so without some extensive research experience. I mean no disrespect to you, and I'm sure you have good research skills and ability but the research you conduct at Masters level or doctoral level is generally at a much greater level of sophistication than anything you might have done at bachelor's level. Clinical courses tend to want you to have had that experience, as well as clinical experience.

I think it would be extremely unlikely that any course would use a telephone interview as a way of selecting candidates, although I could be wrong. Many courses require an extensive series of interviews, aptitude tests, essays, interactive group activities etc. during the selection process

Best of luck with your journey towards clinical practice. It's long and tortuous at times but totally worth it.:)

Valmont

I'm heading towards a research Phd although not in a clinical area. Will this still stand to me if I apply for a clinical psych placement in a few years after I get some relevant experience? I'd like to hope so!

peeps01

Thanks for that Gibs. I think I've been concentrating too hard on getting clinical experience when I should have combined it with a masters. Trouble is, in Australia there are no one year masters. The system is so different here as you can practice as a registered psychologist after only an undergraduate degree and supervision.

Hopefully one day I will move forward on this long and tortuous journey!

The Black Oil

Gibs gave a comprehensive explanation there. Take a look at the clinical slides on here. http://www.psihq.ie/members_studentNews.asp Probably stuff you're already familiar with. In college the powers that be suggested part of what they were looking for was "someone who would make a good trainee", though they didn't really elaborate on that.