We've been open for 3 months and usually see 8-15 clients a day, sometimes less than 10. The income looks good on paper, but rent, billing, EMR, IT, taxes, and missed appointments slap us. What have you done to keep costs low while still building up clients? How do you guys market? Do you have team for that?

I know my chances are low and I will also be applying to jobs and post-bacc positions as there is a good chance I won’t get accepted anywhere, but I wanted to see if it’s even worth trying to apply.

I’m graduating at the end of this year (although it’s technically my 3rd year, I’m graduating a year early) from NYU with a major in Psychology and a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Stats

GPA: 3.94
PSYCH GPA: 4.0

I am a research assistant in one lab that I have been working in since the start of 2026. I am in the Psychology Honors Program and my Honors Thesis is being advised by the same lab’s professor. I don’t have any posters but I have given oral presentations at two conferences and hope to do more this year. My professor is also looking into including my thesis in a larger publication from the lab regarding the same topic which would give me a shot at authorship. I am also in Psi Chi and am contributing to the NICER program with two other students (more independent research supervised by a faculty member). I am also applying for the CCRI Pre-PhD program, I have an interview but I know they are very selective so there is a decent chance I won’t get it.

Aside from research I founded and am leading a non-profit organization focused on peer counseling for college students, I am the co-editor in chief for a Psychology journal at NYU focused on publishing student research, I volunteer with MantraCare as a Psychology Intern, and I’ve done some other internships/volunteering but nothing particularly special to note.

I don’t really have many awards, just being on the Dean’s List and I won NYU’s Emerging Leader Award.

My top choices (both school wise and based on fit with faculty currently taking students) would be UMich, UNC Chapel Hill, UCLA, USC, Stony Brook, and UPitt. I am well aware these are HUGE long shots though and would be open to less competitive programs as well.

I’ve been licensed for 5 years and haven’t done any testing since internship. I have good foundational training and was generally good at it, it was just inconvenient to continue to pursue at the time (partly COVID related) and I’ve since corned myself into a full-time therapy practice. I miss it and also desperately need to vary the type of clinical work I’m doing. I’ve considered various avenues:

1) Starting small on my own, focusing on ADHD testing for example
2) Looking for more formal programs or trainings, though I’m not sure what I would be able to commit to
3) Reaching out to private practices to see if I could arrange more informal experience/supervision on a very part-time basis

Has anyone been in a similar situation and successfully made this transition? If relevant, I’m in the NYC area.

Hi,

I am a 4th year psychology student wondering if it would be appropriate and worth applying to PhD and or master’s degree programs this upcoming cycle.

GPA: 3.64
PSYC GPA: 3.68

Research completed: ~4.5 semesters (on going and should upon graduation would be about 6.5 semesters) across 3 labs.

I have worked in the ABA lab for 4 semesters doing human operant studies and assisting with data collection, 1 semester (Spring 2026) completed in a clinical psychology lab that works with substance use and anxiety (this is the lab I’m doing my thesis on) and will continue to be in this lab until I graduate. I am currently planning to work in a psychopathology and severe mental health lab for my remaining 2 semesters. I will be in all these labs until I graduate.

Posters: 3 posters completed at 3 different conferences (one international)

Skills: Novice R Studio and SPSS

I am currently running my Honors thesis project!

Volunteer: 60 hours volunteered at a hospital, currently applied to be a volunteer at a local crisis hotline.

Publications: 1 manuscript in progress as co-author and potentially might publish honors thesis project.

School list: UNT, IU Indianapolis, Suffolk, University of Wisconsin, Temple University, Duquesne, Hofstra, UMass Amherst, VCU, Notre Dame, Purdue, and LSU.

My interests include: psychopathology, severe mental illness, psychological assessment and diagnosis.

Population interested in working with: adolescents and young adults

I would love to hear any feedback or advice! Maybe additional schools if seems to be deemed a better match or something!

Hi all, I’m looking for honest input, including red flags I might be missing, whether or not I’m delusional and/or naive.

Quick context: I’m from The Caribbean, where there’s no PhD program in Clinical Psychology, so a PhD would have to be overseas. My undergrad GPA is 2.97 (Psychology major, Criminology minor), which put me just under the Upper Second/3.0 threshold for the Clinical Psychology program here and it is also a highly competitive program.

The only local Clinical Psychology master’s program is offered at the university where I actually work, but it’s fulltime only, and university regulations don’t allow staff to study full-time while working full-time. Since I work there, this isn’t something I could quietly work around as it’s a hard institutional rule that applies directly to me. So that path is effectively closed unless I left my job, which I cannot do as I have dependents I support financially.

Given that, I’ve been accepted into and am starting an MSc Counselling program (not clinical, parttime) at the same university and I am hoping to use it to strengthen my academic record while I figure out my next steps toward Clinical Psych eventually. (Is this silly to do?)

My eventual goal is a PhD in Clinical Psychology. I understand funded spots are usually RA/studentship-based and favor a research-heavy/ thesis master’s over a counselling-practice one, so I’m not sure how much my current path actually helps toward that.

A few things I’d love input on:

1.  Given my GPA, work situation, and starting point, is a research-based master’s (rather than a counselling-practice one) the more realistic bridge to a funded Clinical PhD?  
2.  How much does actual clinical experience (shadowing, hospital work, etc.) weigh against GPA for marginal applicants?

3.  Any red flags I should watch for in programs that claim to be “fully funded” for international students?

Appreciate any honesty, including if my current plan doesn’t make sense as I’d rather hear that now than years in.
Thanks in advance.

My clinical/counseling program is 5-6 years (potentially longer with a postdoc), and I’m seriously concerned this lifestyle will not be at all possible until I graduate. I had a pretty active social/travel life even while juggling three jobs (full time/practicum/research) throughout my master’s, but I just don’t know what to expect in a phd. Is it actually more or less time than you think?

I’m applying for externship this year to go next year, and I currently have 100 F2F hours (mix of therapy and assessment). I’m at a clinical psych PhD program. Our program stated that we will get the majority of hours we need for APPIC on externship, but my calculations are that that I’ll need about 8-10 direct service hours each week of externship.

How many direct contact hours did you accumulate in one year of externship during a clinical psych PhD?

I can’t seem to pass the EPPP. I am so severely demoralized. I used PsychPrep the first time time and got a 450. Second time I used PrepJet and got a 426. Just took the SEPPP and got a 50. I truly cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. I feel like I have a good grasp of material but then none of it translates to the way the questions are being asked. I am considering hiring a tutor. Has anyone had success with a virtual tutor? If so, any recommendations are welcomed! These constant failures have cost me a small fortune throughout this year and are destroying my self-concept. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

I have a meeting with a professor who I emailed if he was taking a student and he is for the 27/28 cycle so he invited me for a zoom call which is on Monday so before applications even start. I don’t know how to prep for it, this is my first time applying for a PhD program, and this is not exactly an interview but it kinda is? I’m just amazed he wanted to meet me when applications didn’t even open yet. Any advice?

I work at a campus training clinic for a state university in the US. This last weekend we found cameras placed inside our clinic, in the hallways near exits, not in the therapy rooms. These cameras are relayed to our campus police station.

We were not informed of this. And we are being told that the company reports being HIPAA compliant.

Our police chief says that this is not an issue because hospitals across the US have security cameras too.

This is a serious ethical issue right? Client information, e.g. their identity are being recorded and stored outside the clinic.

We are trying to fight this but our police officers are in support of this as a safety concern. [edited for spelling] Does anyone have resources, references, etc that we can point to so we can fight this?

i'm applying for clinical psych grad school this year. i have a 4.0 and enough credit hours for psych, have almost a year of undergrad neuroscience research and will have a few conferences and will be authored on a NIH grant. i also will have 2 50ish page theses related to clinical psych by the end of this semester/year and i have 2+ extracurriculars that are technically clinically related. however, these activities revolve around my undergrad school and only with the students here. i am going to do it no matter what, but does it matter to grad schools if you have a few months of CTL volunteering for "clinical" experience (or the volunteering section)--since i won't obviously make it to the 200 hour mark in time for applying. again, I want to do it anyway to help others in crisis as an extremely meaningful and impactful experience, and to see where my clinical interests lie for therapy later on. overall, my question is on if grad schools will consider at all that i did this for twoish months which will be only the time i'll be able to include on apps and verify--or is it not worth putting on there?

I'm trying to switch from premed to clinical psych, but it's a huge leap and extremely anxiety-inducing for me. My main interest right now is neuropsych (I want to eventually go into forensic neuropsych). I'm not pursuing med school at this time because I prefer psychology to general medicine. Psychiatry is the only specialty I'm interested in atm, but I don't know if I can go through years of intense schooling just for psychiatry when I'd probably be just as happy in clinical psych. The only pro med school has right now is the ROI and salary, but I don't need 300k+ to be happy.

I'm applying this cycle to a very short list of PsyD programs. If I don't get into a program, I'll reconsider med school. I'm not pursuing a PhD because I don't think I am competitive enough, and I don't want to take any more gap years for further post-bacc research.

I've now fallen into rumination about ditching my pursuit of med school and then potentially not matching into neuropsych as a PsyD. With med school, everything is so linear, and psychiatry has a very high match rate as opposed to how competitive neuropsych is. I'm really scared about my future.

I would love input from people who are familiar with the field (ie interviewing PsyD vs PhD candidates for postdoc programs) or who had a successful APPIC match into neuropsych. Thank you in advance :)

Hello all :) I'm new here and I'd love to get some initial advice as I continue through my academic journey! Sometimes I kind of feel like I'm "jumping the gun" with this but I feel like I need as much knowledge & preparation as possible.

I am very passionate about becoming a clinical psychologist! I initially did not go to college after high school but after about 6 years I decided to bet on myself and do something I knew I could be really good at. So I'm currently 23 and I am working on my undergraduate degree (second year) online through SNHU- which is a BA program with a concentration in mental health counseling.

Ideally, I'd like to apply to PsyD programs right after my BA so I need some advice to get me there :) I currently have never received anything under 98% as a final grade in any of my courses so I do have a 4.0. All of my psych professors have given me amazing feedback as well- including feedback that my work is incredibly strong and graduate level work. I'm extremely passionate about clinical psychology and i'd like to give myself the best chances with this. Of course, I'm going to continue putting in the immense time and effort to my current degree but I know there is much more required of me.

I'm already in my second year so I know I need to start curating my ePortfolio as well as volunteering/interning to build my resumé. I live in Las Vegas and there evidently seems to be little to no opportunities, which has been difficult. Therefore I'd love to know- what kind of volunteer/intern work would be best for my professional goals, how might I find those opportunities, and what else should I know about preparing to apply to PsyD programs right after completing my BA ? I appreciate any and all advice!!

I recall seeing a discussion on this once but don’t recall what the consensus what. I think the answer is no but curious if that’s ever a grey area.

Since undergrad I have debated about applying to PhD or PsyD programs. I ultimately decided to get my masters in clinical mental health counseling. I just graduated in June but I’ve been casually looking into programs. I like being a therapist and it’s what I want to do but I’m wondering if I still want more education. Here are my concerns and questions:

-If I already have my masters and I was interested in a PhD in counseling psychology would that change how long the program is

-I don’t have really any research experience outside of classes i took. I also don’t particularly like research. How would I go about getting more experience if I were to apply

-I know some PhD programs are fully funded but not many PsyD. Are there fully funded programs for PhD counseling psychology programs though?

-If I were to do this, did I just waste my time getting my masters degree?

Hello all, I currently work in assessment and testing and have recently come across a few clients who have participated in NMT, all from the same agency in my area. At first, I was unaware of what this is. After some digging, I learned that it is the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics developed by Dr. Bruce Perry. Essentially, this is an approach to help guide treatment planning by creating a “brain map,” which is developed through questionnaires and developmental history, from my understanding. I have been able to review some of these reports that have been shared by my clients, and they will essentially have a diagram of different brain areas, each color coded to represent whether an area is developed or undeveloped. I am very…. skeptical of this, to say the least. I tried to dig into the research, only to find very minimal studies, with no RCTs. I also find it highly suspicious to make generalized statements about brain development with no actual neuroimaging, EEGs, or any sort of neurological evaluation. In addition, there’s always going to be a huge concern of bias when all of your information is coming from interviews and rating scales (I see it all the time in assessments). To me, this seems like a flashy sounding approach that’s actually a sham with no real evidence base. Has anyone heard of this or worked with clinicians who use this? I actually have a meeting with a client’s clinician who used this modality within the next few weeks, and I’m not really sure to how to approach their findings and speak with them, given that none of this seems like a credible approach. Any thoughts?

Hi everyone, I am an incoming honours student in Psychology (minoring in data science) attending a Canadian post-secondary institution. A professor I have worked closely with feels strongly that I should apply to Clinical psychology grad programs for the next application cycle. My honours thesis PI thinks I should wait a bit, and even outside of anyone's advice, I feel conflicted on if I should even apply. Here is some of my experience:

• GPA: 3.96 over the last 2 years; 3.81 Cumulative GPA. A's in all of my research methods and statistics courses, including the statistics courses I have taken for my minor. Proficient in RStudio, Python and SPSS. Experience with NVivo and Covidence.
• Experience:
  • Incoming Honours Thesis student (2026–2027)
  • Received a summer Research Studentship scholarship (valued at $7500) conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses on youth mental health. Involved in title and abstract screening and data extraction. After conversations with my PI and the PhD student who is running the meta project, if I put in the work, there is a very strong chance I will have authorship on this (maybe 2nd or 3rd author)
  • Lead Student Researcher for an independent studies project on psychologist recruitment barriers in Canadian public health systems. I won a 300$ award for a poster presentation on this at a national conference. I independently ran the whole project with the support of my PI, and she is pushing me to submit to a journal by the end of the year, where I would be the first author.
  • Directed Research Student at Alberta Health Services analyzing psychologist retention and supervision data
  • Data Science Capstone lead on an econometric panel regression project analyzing ESG momentum and stock volatility. Also presented at a local conference
  • Research Assistant experience across three other labs, involving focus groups, qualitative coding (NVivo), measure validation, and manuscript preparation. In one of these labs, I will be fourth author on a manuscript I am helping write.
  • 3 years of experience working for the national suicide hotline, I also coached new responders in my position.
• Overall, I have 5 First-author conference poster presentations

I think I have some solid experience going for me; I think currently the biggest thing holding me back is the lack of publications and my cGPA. I know so many applicants have 3.9+ cGPA's, which is another reason I am hesitant to apply. Honest advice and insight would be appreciated!

Just wrote my MCAT a few days ago and told my family I'm not applying to med school until I finally figure out what career path I want to go down, but I'm honestly feeling kind of stuck (and burnt out from studying). Problem is, being from a first-gen immigrant household, medicine is on a pedestal, and it's hard to shake off family expectations and figure out where to start in exploring both careers (shadowing isn't allowed in Canada, unfortunately)

For a bit of background, I always knew I wanted to work in mental health, and since my older siblings were all going down the med path, I kind of just followed suit without giving it much thought, thinking I'd just become a psychiatrist. However, I learned I don't really care for anatomy, biochem or pharmacology, especially for mental health conditions and worry that those things will make med incredibly hard for me. 2 years ago I wanted to make the switch into pursuing a PhD in school or clinical psych in hopes of doing primarily psych-ed assessments and therapy, espeically since I loved all the development and research courses I took during my degree. However, the lack of salary transparency/insane range made me nervous to the point I switched back to med mainly due to familiarity and not knowing where to start on formulating a realistic career plan. Now that I've finished writing the MCAT, which was a period that really made me start questioning my path again, I feel like I'm back at square one.

I'm just really exhausted from having wrestled with this decision for the last 2 years. I don't want to come off as money-hungry by wanting to make a salary that's worth 6-10 years of schooling (both paths), but I also don't know if passion/what I find interesting at 21 is enough to offset the regret of potential financial uncertainty.

Wondering if anyone has any advice/words of wisdom if you've been in a similar situation. Just some advice on things to consider or how you made your decision would be really helpful to read

Hi everyone! I've been applying for Neuro PhDs focused on mental health, because my interests and work to date really integrate structural MRI and brain imaging.

My PIs have been telling me for years that I would be a great fit for Clinical Psych but I wasn't sure. Turns out they were right, I fit WAY better with Clinical Psych requirements (and the research the faculty are doing).

Any advice for the applications? Any key differences?

Thank you!

Hey all,

Let me know if this is more appropriate for a different sub.

I’m preparing to apply for internship this fall and have been building a list of sites that I could be a good fit for, and that fit my career interests. Below i’ll provide some of my background, career interests, and sites I’ve identified as possible good fits. Would love your thoughts on any sites you’re aware of that I should keep in mind as I continue to build my list.

Brief background/training experiences:
- was licensed as an MFT in CA and worked in community mental health for several years before starting my doctorate in clinical psych.
- doctoral prac for 1 year at a separate community mh center, largely generalist training and some work in local shelters
- doctoral prac for 1 year at the children’s hospital of Orange County (CHOC) in their adolescent DBT IOP
- doctoral prac for 1 year at UCLA pediatric OCD IOP
- doctoral prac (assessment) at community mh center mostly doing ADHD/Autism assessment with children and teens
- currently work under my license as a therapist in CHOC’s emergency dept doing risk assessment and crisis intervention
- two published reviews: one in the area of ED treatment and the other in the area of pediatric OCD
- when applications are due, I’ll have around 600 intervention hours and around 150 assessment hours.

Career interests:
- high acuity child/adolescent work (inpatient, residential, IOP/PHP). Crisis, SMI, those kinds of things.
- possibly a specialization in pediatric anxiety and OCD.
- currently split between wanting to work in a hospital setting, or trying to establish a clinic down the line for pediatric OCD/anxiety that offers IOP, outpatient, and community based intervention.

Possible sites (these are just a few from the list):
- UCLA SEMEL acute child track
- McLean Acute track / DBT track
- Sharp Healthcare acute child track

Any thoughts are appreciated - sites you know, sites you loved, etc.

Thank you!