How can an older student without a psychology background get into a psychology PhD program?
My girlfriend is a third year in a clinical psych PhD program right now, so I went through this process with her not too long ago. I would start off by ordering this book, if you haven’t already. First off, the good news: your age is totally irrelevant. At 24, my girlfriend was the youngest person in her first year classes by at least a year; most of her classmates are in their late 20s and early 30s. However, unfortunately for you, the reason for this is that almost all admissions boards are looking for some significant experience in the field prior to your application, so most of her classmates had spent years in research jobs before grad school. My girlfriend spent the 2 years prior to her matriculation working as a clinical research assistant for a prominent research psychologist. In addition to the experience she gained, the letters of recommendation that she was given were invaluable componen
Psychology is a science as well as a helping profession. A master’s degree in English will not avail you in getting through, for example, the classes in experiment design, and intro, intermediate and advanced statistics that you will need to complete and understand before you can be in a position to start to read the literature, and, eventually, make an original contribution to the field. If you do not want to make an original contribution to the field, you must not try to obtain a Ph.D.., as that is what a Ph.D. is for. Here are the goals you have stated: • your previous therapists as role models • Added prestige • added earning power • extra authority • “no interest in working with seriously structurally downtrodden populations” • to teach someday, although you do not yet know anything about what you would like to teach None of your goals involve advancing the science of psychology, which makes applying to a Ph.D program a pretty dicey proposition. None of them involve helping people
In general, PsyD programs are competitive and PhD programs are even more so because they accept a much smaller number of people. I am currently in a PsyD program and there are a few people in my program who didn’t have a background in psych, but the majority did. Since you don’t, you will most likely be asked why you want to pursue this degree or be a clinical psychologist. And seconding ikkyu2 that for the prestige and money is not a good answer to that question. So, I would recommend taking some time to think about it and come up with something better. Oh, and the answer “I want to help people” is also considered a no-no because the programs already assume this. There are also some other things you might want to think about: 1. You will have to consider moving. Based on where you live, the programs near you may not interest you or be even more competitve than others. For example, I moved from FL to VA. 2. This will likely be at least a 5 year commitment. Some schools are better at wo
