How to Strengthen your Counselling or Clinical Psychology Grad School Application

This weeks episode is a deep dive into how you can strengthen your graduate-school application to counselling or clinical psychology graduate programs. 

Amie is back to discuss the intricacies of applying to graduate school, focusing on writing applications, crafting personal statements, and preparing for interviews. Dan and Amie share practical tips on overcoming initial writing hurdles, generating ideas, and the importance of reflection on personal motivations. The discussion also covers how to effectively communicate research interests, the significance of letters of recommendation, and strategies for engaging with potential supervisors. Throughout, they emphasize the balance between personal and professional experiences, the need for preparation, and the importance of enthusiasm during interviews.

Useful Resources:

Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology
Canadian Accredited Programs
American Accredited Programs 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
• 3:40 Challenges in Writing Personal Statements
• 8:00 Tips for Starting the Writing Process
• 14:30 The Role of Reflection and Idea Cataloging
• 19:10 Specificity vs. Flexibility in Applications
• 23:45 Addressing Research Interests and Experience
• 29:10 How to Address Weaknesses or Gaps in Applications
• 34:20 Reaching Out to Potential Supervisors
• 40:00 The Importance of CV Preparation
• 45:15 Closing Tips and Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:00

[Music] Broadcasting from the most beautiful city in the world, I'm your host, Dr. Dan Cox, the professor of counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia. Welcome to episode number 26 of Psychotherapy and Applied Psychology, where we dive deep with the world's leading applied psychology researchers to uncover practical insights, pull back the curtain, and hopefully have some fun along the way. Catch our episodes on YouTube, just follow the link in the show notes to watch, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe. Doing so helps you stay updated and makes it easier for others to discover our show as well. Once again, I'm joined by Amy Orcetti. This episode is about strengthening your application to graduate school in clinical or counseling psychology. In particular, we discuss crafting, compelling application essays, supervisor selection, balancing personal and professional in your applications, reaching out to potential supervisors, getting letters of recommendation, your CV, mastering the interview, and much more. This episode starts with Amy and I talking about writing personal statements, so without further ado.[Music] Yes and no. I found it difficult to start. I think I didn't know where to start or kind of how to start. Some universities will post examples. I mean, you can Google them too. I don't know how good those will be quality wise, but some universities actually have examples on their websites of what they're looking for, which can be helpful just for the kind of content you want to include. Usually they're really short, like a page or two. So I think one of the things that I found really difficult was getting started, but then what's important enough to include and how do I make it so concise that I get everything that I want in on like one or two pages? So I think what I really did to just get started, what I just started writing, and it was not one or two pages. It was pages and pages. And then I took a break and went away from it and then came back and was like, okay, what's important here? What can I cross out? What can I change from being a paragraph into two sentences and try to go from there to kind of cut it down? I think that's a thousand percent the way to go, which is like the first draft in quotes, like to just get stuff out. It will not be good. It will not like writing these types of things. You've never had, you know, you rarely, if ever have to write things like this. So the first thing is just like to get a bunch of stuff out. So here are a couple of my suggestions. This is just for broadly for writing because so often it's like how do I do that? How do I just get something out? Because I think there is something restrictive about sitting in front of your computer with the keyboard or your fingers and that document thing. Like there's something about like how do you know where to start? So you want to get out of that like editor mind. So the couple of there are a few things I suggest. So one of them is handwrite. So I always suggest this, often suggest this, I do this a lot is I don't know why, but there's something about if I'm just handwriting, so I'm just getting ideas out, right? So turn down that ego and just get ideas that there's something about handwriting that I can just like let stuff come out. So I handwrite lots of stuff and then so that's step one and then however you want to get that to your computer, obviously there's lots of different ways. What I've come to do is I will then take what I've handwritten and I'll turn on some sort of voice to text on my computer and then I'll read it to my computer and I'll type and obviously it'll make some mistakes, but there's something so one thing is if you read, it just it is very quick. So it's not nearly as long at least for me as like typing what I'd written. But then there's also something about that process where I will start to then do like a little bit of minor editing or shifting or go oh I didn't hit this topic at all or oh I wrote two paragraphs on the exact same thing or whatever I don't know there's something about that process where I think at the outset a lot of us feel like oh my god that would be double work to handwrite it and then type it or put it in your computer but it's it is you know you do have to go through that extra step but that extra step is valuable in and of itself so you benefit from it and it takes way less time than you think it would to get your handwritten text into a computer. Yeah just handful of minutes it's not a big deal. So that's one way to do it. Another thing to do is to do some sort of a voice memo you know just like talk it out and you know you can talk it out going on a walk you can talk it out in your office a lot of times I find that I'm more creative when I'm walking around so I will you know close my door in my office and I'll just be walking around doing a voice to text or I'm sorry just doing a voice memo on my phone or whatever. Yeah or the other thing to do or another thing to do is to have a conversation with someone like a peer or a partner if you're able to sort of prime them so they can ask you good questions and then record the conversation that way you know just sort of starts to flow better. So these are there are many others these are a few ways to just sort of like get ideas down and then working on reshaping them. One thing that you said that I think is important to highlight is you know it might take a little bit more time but I think it's worth it because I think there's something valuable about hearing that out loud and getting to kind of process it that way. I think that's kind of cool but if you're worried about the time it takes to change it from writing it in handwriting to type down your computer you do not have enough time. Like these statements take time to write like you shouldn't be writing them two nights before. So it's worth putting that time in like I'm an over-prepared and I like to be prepared in advance so I probably started working on them earlier than a lot of people but I think that was really valuable because I got to write a draft and then wait a week and then go back with fresh eyes and then read it again so build in time I think that's really important to do. Totally. Yeah. Go ahead. Oh the other thing I was going to say is like you're kind of talking about like a reflection piece in having a conversation with a partner and saying things out loud and kind of hearing it and I think even before you begin writing it's really worth taking the time to to think about for yourself regardless of what you write down what your answers to some of these big questions are why am I going to grad school? Why do I want to go into this program? Where do I see myself in a counseling program or a clinical program or whatever? What is it that personally for me is really driving me to do this because I think a lot of the places where people struggle with writing these documents is feeling like I don't know what to write. Well if you have these motivations that are really strong and you've really thought through them then you'll have things to write you'll have a better idea of where you want to go with it. So I think you know there's a lot of value in that too. I couldn't agree more and the one addition that I would make to what you just said is to when like when you're thinking about it and you're coming up with your reasons and your desires and your future directions and all that sort of stuff have some way to catalog that. The Chuban brain is terrible for remembering these things. I mean we all know how it is where I don't need to write this down. I will remember. The brain's trick on all of us that you won't do it. I don't. The amount of things I'm like, oh I need to remember to talk to so and so about this when I see them later and I see them. It's gone. It's gone. So when you're thinking about these things, what I have is I have a little shortcut on my phone that I click on it opens up a note and I just catalog stuff. And so it does not have to be structured in any way. The one thing I will say is make it so it's basically in complete sentences. You have to think my future self will have no memory of this event. So my future self needs to be able to read this and remember and know what I'm saying. Yeah. So don't just do two words because you won't remember. So you know and I found if I force myself, I take the extra seven seconds to write the complete A complete sentence that are two that it's so much more helpful. So just as you're thinking about these things as you're in the car as you're in the shower as you're going for a run, what as these things pop into your head as soon as you can just write them down somewhere, store them somewhere. So that way when you go to write this, you have this library of thoughts that you can draw from. It's so much better than going with a blank page. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. So when you wrote your applications, do you remember how specific or focused you were in terms of your research interests or how you sort of did that? Yeah. I approached it differently for different schools. So for my clinical application, I was super detailed. For my counseling, I was less detailed in you know, defining exactly what I wanted to do. But I like I had a pretty solid idea of the area I wanted to work in as an area I worked in for my honor species. I'd done a research paper on it before. So for that, like I, you know, I wasn't detailed in saying, you know, this is exactly the study I want to run because I think, you know, that can be beneficial, but also maybe harmful, depending on if that excludes you from working with certain people. But I think I was pretty focused in the area that I wanted to work in on all my applications. I think that the essence of what you're saying is sort of what I typically suggest. Well, so one thing is to be honest. So if you know, you want to work with a very specific population doing a very specific type of thing, be honest in conveying that. Right. So like this is I am going to graduate school because I want to learn about parents, you know, a certain thing about parents with kids who have severe mental illness. Like that's why I'm doing this to do that. So then say that, that's great. So if it is that, if you're more flexible, Ryan Courage folks to do is to be able to communicate some sort of specific ideas or depending on what the application requests, maybe a specific study or whatever, but also indicate that you have some flexibility. Right. So you do want to be, if you are flexible, make sure to be overt about that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think that's good advice. I think that people get really caught up and I need to have an exact idea of this is what I want to do. Will you please take me? And if you don't, you don't, you're coming out of an undergrad. So you know, you mean you might not have an exact idea. Right. And so that's a, so one other thing that that triggered is you do not have to have experience in that area. Right. So like the last episode of the podcast was with Paul Hewitt who does who's a perfectionism researcher. Right. Yeah. There are, you know, I should check with Paul, but I'm sure that many of this graduates, like it would be ridiculous to think that people would have research experience on perfectionism when they apply to work with him like that silly. So I mean, it's not that it could never happen. Of course it could. And I'm sure if there was someone who did their thesis or their undergrad, whatever on perfection, I'm sure he'd be like all excited. But that's less common. So don't feel like you need to have that. So just because you did your bachelor's honors thesis on perform, yeah, let's say it was on perfectionism does not mean that you have to only consider folks who are doing work on perfectionism. Yeah. And that could actually show growth in you as a researcher as well. If you did an honor thesis in an area and they were like, you know what? This actually isn't where I want to work, but through this process, I figured out this is where I want to go. Like that could be a compelling kind of story to lace through your application as well. This is what I've learned. This is how I know this is what I want to do. This is the direction I want to take it. Yeah. I mean, you finished an undergrad. Yeah. And I can say for the faculty side that when I'm looking through, I'm looking for like seeds of stuff that I think will fit well with the types of stuff that I'm interested in. So, you know, it might not be, you know, so if they talk about a specific construct and I'm like, well, maybe not that construct is cool, but I'm more interested in this sort of like a Jason construct or this, you know, maybe the thing they're talking about put in a different context or like I'm just looking for like seeds of things that are like, oh, yeah, that fits. Oh, yeah, that fits. And then when I meet with students, that's what I'm going to really like evaluate if we are a good fit. Like, is that seed what I thought that was a seed of or not? You know, maybe they're not actually willing to be flexible or that or they're not interested in, you know, considering this other thing. But I would say, you know, the majority of times students are sort of like, yeah, I like this sort of general neighborhood of things, you know, but I'm pretty, but they're they tend to be pretty flexible. So, yeah, I think being able to, you know, successfully communicate if it's expected in the application, like a specific research idea, then we do want to see that then the purpose of that exercise is to communicate to us that you can think that through. But then if you are more flexible to also indicate that in your application, like have that be clear, this is something I'd be interested in, but I'm also flexible. And that so that also goes to, let's just jump to like the potential supervisors, you know, question I commonly get is should I indicate more than one potential supervisor when I'm applying? Did you have any, I don't have no memory of what you did with that, Amy. Which I think speaks to people who are nervous about applying. And that, you know, they may not remember everything you said. No, so I I indicated more than one. And I did so purposefully. As long as I was interested in more than one supervisor. So I think on all my applications, except for maybe one, I had at least two listed. And that partially comes from advice that I got when I was doing my undergrad that, you know, I had reached out to supervisors to say, this is kind of my area, are you taking students I'd be interested in working with you? Some I heard back from some I didn't. But if, you know, they've changed their mind, or maybe they've decided to take a year off, for their pregnant or whatever. What if they're not taking a student anymore and you didn't list anyone else? So I like the idea of listing two. I don't know how that comes across on your side of things when you're looking at the application. But I, I always thought that it was good to have two just in case. Yeah, I generally think similarly that you don't want to list everybody in the program. Now that being said, again, if you want to study parents of kids with severe mental illness and only one faculty member at the institution does that work, just list Dr. Smith. Like because she's the only one who does this work. Cool. Like, right, be honest. But if you're more flexible, you know, oftentimes there's a single faculty member that you're most drawn to. So sometimes I'll see folks who say like, you know, I'm particularly interested in working with Dr. So-and-so. She does this. It's really cool. Bo-bo-bo-la. And then sort of focused on that. And then they'll say, well, I am really interested in working with Dr. So-and-so. I think there's other research that Dr. Y and Dr. Z is working on, you know, or Dr. Y's research on this thing or Dr. Z's research on that other thing. Like that would also be really cool. Bo-bo-bo-la. So I think it just sort of keeps the door open for other folks to consider you. And that's really how I experience it on my end. And I've definitely taken students on both sides of that. Students who have like primarily indicated me and students who have like sort of secondarily or tertiary-indicated me. And you know, part of it is also that, I mean, this is a little bit of a different side of it, but that like sometimes, I'll, you know, again, this gets back to not being up to date on our websites, that like I'm in the middle of a project that is new and is a spin-off of other stuff. And so applicants don't even know that this topic is taking up a lot of my life. And so like I would love to have somebody who's interested in this stuff, but they don't have any way to see that. Or you know, it could be, you know, I have several projects that are like half done. So they haven't been published. So a person might not necessarily know that I started developing this thing or doing this thing. And you know, somebody popping up who's like interested in this type of the thing. Like they would never know what I am as well. But if they popped up, they're like, oh my god, I would love to like, I really want to get back into this, but just I didn't have any students that were interested in the time at the time. And you know, so I just got, and so other things pulled my attention, but this thing is still really compelling and whatever. And I would love to have someone so we could, so I could dive back into that. So I think that by listing a couple of names, to be honest, you know, I don't look at, I mean, if I'm on a committee that needs to, then I will, but if it's just me looking for my potential supervisees, I don't look at every single applicant. You know, so depending on the year and what I'm, you know, I might just look at the applicants who indicate me as one of their potential supervisees. So you might not even see an application you'd be interested in. If you weren't listed. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I think having a couple of, having that sort of like really want to work with Dr. Smith, but you know, and there's also some work that this person that they're just sort of keep, again, keeps those doors open a little bit. Right. I've had this student, or this question from students before about listing more than one supervisor. Would you ever take, you or not new particularly the people in general, do they ever take a fence to be listed as number two or number three would that ever be potentially an issue if you weren't listed as the first option? Yeah. So I've never heard that. I don't think. So I don't, I would say that the vast majority of folks would not be. Right. How could I say this? If somebody is really offended by that, you might not want to work with them. That is exactly what I have said to students. I think that indicates something to you about how that relationship would play out. Right. So it's either, right. So it's either their insecurities or whatever, or it's maybe representative of a competitiveness among faculty in that given program. Yeah. No, interesting. Yeah. So that's interesting because in our, so I can honestly say that in our program, I don't feel that at all. I don't know why. Like I could absolutely see context where I, where I could see fact like I'm not above it. I'm not, I'm not above, you know, jealousy or vindictiveness or whatever. But I've never felt like, yeah, there isn't that. I mean, to be honest, I feel like it's quite the opposite often where I've had students who I'm like, I would be really interested in working with that student. And there's somebody, one of my colleagues is also really interested. And like they're a newer colleague or something like that. And so I'll say, oh, you go ahead and then if for whatever reason, you decide not to offer them, let me know. But I sort of like, go ahead. You know, so I think, and I've had people do that to me as well. So, you know, I think that it's much more of a like, how can we support each other and get students in the best place possible? So I'm, so get back to your question. I'm sure there are exceptions. I'm sure that there are some people who might be offended, but you know, if you have to tap dance around for tiptoe probably, tiptoe around that in your application, then I don't know if they'd be a good person. Do you want to spend the next five years with or whatever? So how about in your application, did you have like a guiding framework for how much personal stuff to talk about? Personal stuff is tricky. So I've heard kind of two things about this. The first would be it's a counseling application. They're going to want to see some kind of, you know, personal motivations for being in this program, which in a counseling context could come as your own counseling, your own kind of background that has led you to this field. And then the kind of opposite swing of that is you do not want to use this as a place to overshare. You don't want to be going for, you know, a pity offer or, you know, pulling on heartstrings too much because it is an academic application. So I think I think I swung kind of in the middle, in being honest enough about the reasons that I was applying to the program, what interested me in the field of counseling in general, what it was that kind of, you know, led me to where I am, but being really cautious that details are not necessary. It doesn't, you don't want to be writing some kind of a plea to please accept me because of all the things that I've been through, you know. It needs to still be written to, you know, PhD level professors who are looking at a whole myriad of factors and don't want to get to your personal statement and go, oh no, like how do I handle this? So I think it's not wrong to include some personal aspects, but you need to be cautious about the way that you frame them and the level of detail that you get into. Yeah, I think that's that's definitely how I would approach it, which is to you want to personalize it and there is a line of oversharing. And you know, again, I think that we're talking from our perspective and there might be, I would say that in the context that we live in, our perspective is pretty typical, which is yeah, you want to have it be personalized, but not to certainly not disclose and say, I've been through this hardship so you should let me in, you know, that's certainly not helpful. But also, so there is this, there is a delicate line where, so for example, you know, a lot of people, there is something about people that happen to folks in people's personal lives that's influencing their career decisions or their research topic decisions, in terms of their entry, yes, the whole research is research thing. And but it's really like how it's done. So I've had or I've read applications many where they'll disclose something like a cancer diagnosis or a cancer experience for them or someone in their lives and how that influenced their thinking or whatever, right? And that how like a way that it can be done well is something like, you know, when you know, my father, I'm going to make something up here, my father passed away from cancer when I was in my, you know, early teens and we were really close and it was really hard for me and it was through the wonderful support of a grief counselor that she really helped me through it, which has really been a big influence on my interests in the process of grieving, right? So like something like that where it's like, it is personal, it does help me understand, but it's not, it's not oversharing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you could almost think of it as like a self-disclosure in counseling. Like are you doing the self-disclosure for you or are you doing it for the people that you're writing for and how are you, how are you framing it? Because if, you know, you're getting into a very emotional story now and the emotions are really, you know, getting into your application, maybe it's less appropriate and you're just trying to find a place to share this. But if it is very pointed like that and it does draw to the point of this is why I'm motivated to be doing this, this is where this comes from, then I think that can be powerful if it's framed, right? Totally, yeah. So I think that's something that, you know, one has to be thoughtful about how you disclose stuff and you know, something to do is to then take your, if you're not sure, write it and then give it to somebody and say, "Hey, what do you think about this?" For sure. So in terms of writing, did you get any, of course you probably might not have had any notable ones in terms of how to talk about clear, I guess, I originally used the word "weekness" is, but I almost want to take that back because what I have noticed is sometimes applicants perceive something as a weakness that isn't a weakness. So, you know, we'll get folks who apply, you know, who are older. And so for in our program, that's not perceived as a negative in any way. Again, I think that most of the time, when we're first going, you know, adjudicating, we don't even, I don't even, like, I don't know, I don't know how old you are. So it doesn't even really matter or it doesn't even sort of come in, but we don't, you know, it's not a, I think sometimes applicants will perceive it as a negative when it's not. So that's why I'm a little hesitant to use the word "negative" or "weekness" or something like that because all of the times it's sort of perceived rather than real. But, you know, probably a common example would be like a low GPA. That would be a common example. So do you, I don't know, was there anything that you had when you applied that you were like, "Oh, I have this. How am I going to explain this in my application?" I don't think there was anything that I specifically wanted to explain. I think I did highlight because I had just started in a job that was in a support role. And I wanted to highlight that, you know, I'm new-ish in this job. I had, I think, a couple of months in the role at the time. But by the time I started the program, I'll have had like almost a year in this job and it's, you know, a really hands-on kind of one-on-one support role. So my experience by the time I get to the program would be more than it is now. So I think I highlighted that. But I do know there was a couple of people that had just like a W on their transcripts for a course or two, even for whatever personal reasons that had come up that were really legitimate reasons. But we're worried that when they apply for grad school, that would stand out as a red flag. And the advice that they got from instructors was to talk about it in their statements and just explain, you know, again, briefly, not too emotionally, not too depth, not too much in depth, but like explain, you know, this was this unique situation where this happened, but I think the rest of my, you know, transcript shows that I am typically a hard worker consistent blah, blah, blah. And so I think if they're one-offs like that, I think it's totally fine to just, and I think better to highlight yourself. This is what happened. This is why then to just leave it there and be like, oh, maybe they won't notice. Yeah, I think that's great. I think that, well, I guess a couple things. So one thing is like, for like a W on it, like we probably wouldn't notice. Like, you know, like, you know, I mean, depending on the situation, it's like, you know, who cares? Like, you know, so four years ago, you withdrew from a class in the middle of a truck. Like, I could have been for a million reasons, but also like, you know, we've all, you know, some of us just, you know, you get into an advanced German class, we should really be taking intermediate German. And you're like, and you know, you're like, no, I can do this. And then, you know, four weeks in, you're like, I don't know what they're talking about. And I got to get out of here. And so you get a W like, who cares? Like, it's fine. Um, anyway, so, you know, I think there is something that like oftentimes with things like that, we won't see it. You know, we just won't. But I do think like Amy, your point about, like, noting it briefly is exactly right. So what you want to do is just have a sentence, baby, too, baby, just commenting on it and then move on. So one thing that I will see is students or applicants will write a lot and they'll put it in multiple places. And it's sort of like, and it's like, you know, oftentimes it's like, so there's there are lots of like the German example I just gave, right? That's reasonable, right? Like and like, and also we're not. If you were applying to graduate school in German studies or Germanic studies, that might be relevant, right? But you're not. So we don't. And many of us can empathize. So, um, uh, they're, so that's something easy. In a case, you know, a common thing, so there are a couple common things. I started undergrad as a bio major and I hated it. So my first year GPA is terrible, right? So like, that is also, that's very common. Yeah. That's maybe a slightly more professional version of that sentence is all you need. Um, in the second semester of my second year, my mom got sick with blank. Um, I thought I could, you know, complete the classes and be fine, but it really impacted by GPA. You know, and as in kids. So, and then we read that sentence, we look at your GPA and we see there's one semester where there's a clear outlier. Great. Thank you for giving us the context. We should probably consider that when we're looking at your overall GPA. Wonderful moving on. Right? And then there are other times where it's like, it can come across. So those are very reasonable make sense situations and other times it's this big long story about all these things happening and it comes across as sort of defensive and not taking accountability. You know, and it's important, particularly, I mean, to anything in life to take accountability. And so, you know, the accountability can be, you know, I thought I could take seven classes. I realized I couldn't. I thought I could, you know, whatever it happens to be like, that's great. That's that like that. We want that, right? We want people to can admit their mistakes. So, when it comes across as like, this wasn't my fault. This one, and it's all over the place. That, that is definitely a negative for applications. How about, um, this is an interesting thing that I'm not exactly sure how I feel about what was the advice that you got and what did you do when it came to reaching out to supervisors or potential supervisors? Yes. So I did reach out to potential supervisors. Um, the advice that I got was, if you're going to do it, like you don't want to be writing them a two-page email that's going to take them forever to read because they're just not going to read it. They're getting a lot of emails. Um, so if you're going to be reaching out, it should be short enough that they can skim it quickly and get an idea of who you are and what you're asking. Have enough detail at the same time, which is a bit of a dance, um, that, you know, they can decide when reading that if it's worth replying to, um, if you kind of fit with what they're, um, what they're kind of like and what they're interested in. Um, but also to do it early. Um, and I think that advice comes partially because it can be a log process. Um, you might not hear back ever. You might not hear back for a couple of weeks, but then you might get an email and then maybe they've asked you a question and you need to reply and then you don't hear back for a couple of weeks. And if, you know, you're doing this with a couple of people, it can take several weeks or a month or two before you get your answer of, you know, do you think you would fit as a supervisor? Could I list you as a supervisor? Would you be interested in working with me? Um, so yeah, more time is better for that. That being said, um, when I applied to work with you, I didn't hear back from you. So I still got in. Take that with a grain of salt. It didn't matter in this case. Sorry. Don't put all your stock in it, I guess. My apologize. No, no, no, no, no, I didn't take it personally. I didn't hear back from several people. Yeah. So that's something to that's something. Um, and I, I've gotten better at it. I sort of have a canned response. I send to most people now just to reply. Um, but if you, if you do email people and you don't hear back, do not make meaning of that. So that's one thing. Yeah. Um, what what I've learned over the years is that there's, there's typically very little point in me having these conversations with applicants until I get their application. So there are the exceptions I make so actually yesterday I met with a student who's in the class I'm teaching. And so that's kind of different because I already know that person. So it's like, I feel a sense of responsibility, I guess, for somebody in a class I'm teaching, um, to talk to them just about, you know, just as I would, for anybody in any class I'm teaching, if they're going to reach out that I'm more likely to, yeah, I feel more responsibility than random person. Yeah. Um, but that also like, you know, when I have, you know, when you apply, you send a whole lot of information. And so once I have all that information, I can really dig through it and I can really understand applicants, which is to an extent, which is much more helpful than if we just meet, you know, with maybe a CV. It's like, I don't know what to do with that. So, you know, in consistent with Amy, what she said, if you email a potential supervisor, keep it ridiculously short, very short. So when I get people who email me paragraphs, it's like, what are we doing? Like, like, I can't, I'm not, no, like, there's no way. Um, of course, the worst is when I get an email and it's like the wrong name because obviously they just copy and basted, uh, yeah, get those. Um, yeah. So keep it super short. But I also think it's, I think, and this is just my opinion, it's just not necessary. You know, it's just like, it's not, by and large, it's not going to help you. Um, there might be some faculty who like to touch base with folks before applications. Um, you know, there could be exceptions to this, like somebody who is just like a perfect fit, you know, and it's just like, you know, or something like that. Um, but otherwise, and I think there is this, I think somehow it's become an expectation for students or they have this expectation that I need to reach out to folks beforehand. I just don't think that that's real. Like it's real. Um, right. I think that's worth highlighting too is that like, some programs you have to have a supervisor figured out before you can even apply to be accepted. Really? Not, not for counseling, um, but for some like master's programs. Yeah. You have to have a fit pre-determined and listed on your application. Like they have to have, they have to have agreed to supervise you. Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I think that this, this seems insane, but okay, it's insane. Or is it just saying? Oh, I think it's crazy. I think that should be handled after the fact. But I think that can permeate into the way that we think though when we're applying is like, you know, I need to have some kind of a, a relationship on whatever small level with this person, if I'm going to list them as a potential supervisor. So I think it's easy to kind of get into that headspace. And then yeah, like you, you don't care. And you didn't get back to me. And I got into the program. And yeah, things are just fine. So not putting too much stock in it. Yeah. And we did, we did meet, we met, we, after you applied, we met, right? Yeah. Yeah. After I applied. Yeah. Great. Okay. So in terms of letter writers, some programs will say, you know, we want two letters from academic and one from professional or whatever. So obviously, if they say that, do that. The, what I always say, what should be your north star when, when considering who I should get for letters of reference or who should write my letters of reference is who is going to write me the best letters of reference. So that should be your north star. So come up with that list first in rank order. And so what does that mean? The people who are going to write you the best letters are people that you, that you know the best. Typically, like you can also factor in personality. But people that you know the best. So, or know you the best, they've seen you in the most different contexts. So before worrying about should I get a person from this space or that space or whatever first think who would be my best letter writers and then work from that. Yeah. Yeah, I could do, we could do a whole episode on like how to work with letter writers, how to ask them. But let's leave that for now. So what are, what are the, you know, one or two other things Amy that you think we should hit before we roll? I think it'd be worth talking about doing your CV and then maybe also briefly on interviews. So CV, I think put time into your CV. So I, I put a lot of time into my CV. It was not high on my list of documents at first because you have like, you know, all these very specific documents that you need to write out for programs. But your CV is really important. It's where you're pitching to them. This is exactly my experience. This is why I fit with this program. Like I've been working on this for a long time. So I think it's really important to put time into that. I get questions a lot about, you know, what kinds of experience, like what experience did you have? What will be the perfect experience? And that's such an individual question. It depends what program you're applying to, what your interests are, what kind of work you want to do. But I think like if you've taken the time to really focus on what you want to do, your experiences that are listed on your CV likely will reflect that. So I think there's a bit of trust that comes into that as well that I am, I have prepared myself. I am preparing myself in the way that is best for me and where I'm going. Like I get to the question all the time, did you do crisis line? And I didn't. And I was successful in my application. So I think it's important to remember that just because you don't necessarily have the, you know, quote unquote, tick box experience that other people have, that doesn't necessarily mean that your application is weaker. It just means that it's more unique to you. But put time into making sure that your CV is really clearly laid out so that people can read through it and see what kind of experience you have and how that fits with your other documents. Well, I think it's so important and I think it's probably why I didn't have it because it's so self, to me, it's self evident, but that's totally unreasonable for somebody who's not done this before. And with a CV more so than with any document, is like, you have to decide, oh, what do I put on there? And so I would say that what you should do is even before you start writing your CV, start having some sort of a note document something, or you're just putting down all the things you might be able to put on your CV, right? All the experiences, all the things. And like, there are lots of things that you like, you'll be like, no, I don't think I should put that. Just put it down first. And like, then you can figure that out later, but also, and then there are, if you haven't written a CV before, there are tons of resources online. Or if you're at an institute at a university or college, there's probably an office of people who can help you with it. It is like a CV is a culturally based, like, what is valued on a CV? How it should go and be presented? This is just a culturally based thing that we do. So there is no right or wrong in any sort of a true sense of right and wrong. It's just like, what are the norms in your particular context or culture? And if you're applying to a graduate program in one discipline, it might be different than another discipline or whatever. So there's no reason that you should have that innate knowledge. So you have to use resources that are available to you to figure that out. So yeah, so I think that, yeah, so starting with just getting stuff down, and it is, I mean, it still happens to me all the time where I'm working on my CV and I'm like, oh, I could include this. I forgot all about that thing. And I don't even want to think about the things that I've done that will are lost to the sands of time that are not always. We'll never make it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, at this point, I've been around for long enough where the little, the extra little committee or whatever doesn't really matter for me. But it just again, it's we're not good at remembering things. So so what so last thing then on interviews, was there something in particular? What what what what were your what do you think is most important to hit? The most important thing I think for interviews is to know your stuff because the people that you were talking to are likely sitting there with your documents that you wrote. And that is what they're kind of basing their conversation off of. And if you've applied to multiple different schools, you better remember what it is about this school and the supervisor that stuck out to you and why you've done it. And I mean, some of that should be intuitive. You shouldn't have to think too too hard about some of it. But some of it, if you applied to several different places, you're going to want to make sure that you're sitting there and what you're saying and what you're presenting is matching what they have in front of them. So I think, you know, and also, and also remembering that when it comes to talking about your research stuff, they're looking for like you called them earlier the seed ideas, not getting too worried about having to roll out this whole, you know, well-thought out research plan. But being able to talk passionately and honestly about your interest and why they interest you. Because I think that kind of, you know, having that kind of passion for why you're there and what you're doing and why you're committed to this program, that shows through. People can look at you compared to people who are sitting there trying to just answer the exact right answer that they found online. If they remember these three points, you know, they'll take all the boxes. I think if you're sitting there and you really care about what you're saying, that is really, really important when you're interviewing. Totally. Enthusiasm does matter. I think that's a really good point. And sort of, you know, we're not, I don't know, we don't want, don't feel like you need to be stilted in a really professional. Yeah, I think that like having some enthusiasm is a great, and I think that absolutely you need to know about that program and in particular the, you know, the one or two faculty that you want to work with when you interview. So here's two things that I feel like either gets missed or underplayed. So one thing when you're, when they're like giving you information about things have, so you could do a computer. It's a little impersonal to have that like, you know, that battleship thing or like the back of your computer is facing them. So I think, you know, if possible something that you could like hand right on is maybe a little more personal, but that's not a big deal. Take notes on what they're saying, even if they're, even if you're just doing it performatively, I cannot tell you it drives me insane. It drives me insane in all sorts of contexts when I'm sitting and talking to graduate school students about stuff, and I'm telling them a bunch of things and they're not taking notes. I don't mean like, but like, so it's like, you're not going to remember. So what are we doing? What are you doing? Like, there's, yeah. So like, you know, show them the respect of like the information that you're giving me is a value. So I'm going to like take little notes. So that's super important. And it's just like, it's a me, it still blows my mind how people don't have, I mean, like if I go in to talk to my department head or a colleague about like, I will bring something so I can take notes, you know, so if you can do it. And you should do it because hopefully it is valuable. The other thing is have questions. Have more questions than you need have, you know, go in and have them be both specific and general and try to have them be, you know, real, real questions that you have. You might have to generate some, but like, it's, I can't tell you how many times where I've said, like, okay, so what questions do you have for me? And they say, oh, I don't have any or they have like one or two. And it's like, what? Like, you don't, I have questions, a bunch of them. And like, as you're talking to them and questions pop in your head, write them down. So that way when you get to the question time, you can ask questions or even while they're talking, say, what can I ask you a question about that or do them wait? Like, you know, be engaged. Big decisions, they want to see that you're engaged that also goes back to Amy's enthusiasm piece. Yeah. So those are a couple of things. Yes, totally. So those are a couple of things. And the the last thing I'll say is while you're interviewing, this is be nice to everyone. Like, be nice to any staff people. I mean, you don't have to be ridiculous. Like, if you're kind of a quiet or person, you don't have to all of a sudden be, you know, really out there and like, you know, that's not what I'm saying. But like, be like showing that, you know, just niceness, politeness, whatever, it really does matter. And that, you know, there is if you're interacting with staff, if you're interacting with current students, if you're that, and if you if you behave poorly, it will get back to the people who interviewed you. And it absolutely can make it make a difference. So, okay, well, Amy, thank you so much. This has been great. We didn't get to everything, but I feel like we did a lot. And then maybe what I'll do is if if people have additional questions, comments that are that they want us to cover or clarifying things or whatever, and they let us know we can we can always do this again. Yeah, that sounds great. But until then, this is great. Thanks so much, Amy. That's a wrap on our conversation. I like to give a huge shout of appreciation to Amy for joining me. And as I noted at the top of the show, you can check us out on YouTube, the links in the show notes. Until next time.[Music][Music]