I need advice for application essays to grad school psych programs?

Question

I am in the process of writing essays for applications to Ph.D. prgrams in clinical psych. Has anyone applied to these programs? Does anyone have advice on what to talk about or how to make the essays personal and professional at the same time?

Answer 1

I'm about to complete my PhD in clinical psych so I'm happy to help (I'm also on winter break right now which is why I'm on yahoo sooo much haha).

Talk about what you're interested in studying. Examples -- Are you interested in anxiety disorders or eating disorders? Are you interested in the way in which people use language or in the way in which children adapt to unfamiliar situations? If you write about something that you're truly interested in, it will come across as more genuine and interesting than if you write about something you don't really care about.

Talk about work or research that you've done, especially if it relates to what you're interested in studying at the graduate level. If you were given a position of significant responsibility on a research team, write about that and write about what you did. Discuss what your research found and what you learned from it. Even if you don't have a strong interest in doing research, make it seem as if you're at least okay with the research parts of the program (as I'm sure you know, most programs are interested in recruiting scientist-practitioners and want their students to at least have a modicum of interest in the research process).

Talk about why you want to study at each particular school. Each essay should be personalized to the each school - at least in part. For example, let's say you're from Atlanta, GA and really want to go to Emory because that's where you're family is, where your roots are, etc. then you may want to include that in your essay. Or, if you really like that a particular school focuses on CBT or on dynamic treatments, or whatever, then write a sentence about that.

Don't talk too much about your personal life. If you want to study eating disorders because you've had an eating disorder, don't write about it in your essay. (It's totally fine if a personal experience has led you to want to work in the field, and people will acknowledge that once they're in the program, but it's not something to include in an essay.) The only exception to this, though, is if you have had a struggle which has significantly impacted your gpa in college. For example, if you had to take a semester off because of some problem, you may want to include that in an addendum but not in the essay itself. BUT instead of writing about how much a personal issue sucked, write about what you learned from it and how it helped you grow.

If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me through the site. Like I said, I have too much time on my hands during break :)

Answer 2

in 8th grade my english teacher didnt like the professional essay so what he tells us to do is use alot of opinions every now and then .but dont use alot because you will get off topic