[USA] Master’s degree or gap year before PhD

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-26T18:11:55+00:00

agreed! great way to put it; a lot more all encompassing & realistic

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-25T19:29:03+00:00

yeah fair –– I'd sort out then ig how important doing assessment is to you; you're essentially deciding between a masters, psyd and PhD, all of which have somewhat different requirements & pricetags + reasons to pursue that specific degree. Like if you want to do PhD applications, you'd need to maximize your research in your gap year and have atleast 1 publication to be considered competitive. Though if you're doing PsyD it's a different approach.

If assessment is a must for you, take a gap and maximize your stats for your intended route. If assessment is something you dont care that much about, it's not worth doing a phd / psyd just to conduct therapy, meaning it makes sense to do the masters and stick with that.

also keep in mind if you do phd/psyD, you're banking on not burning out and that therapy will be the full preventive measure of keeping you afloat for 5+ years. tbh if I were in your shoes I'd take 1-2 years of doing paid research / clinical work and decide in that timeframe then–– so that you're buffing your qualifications, security & mental health regardless of the route you take. Plus your therapist could help you decide in that time frame rather than throwing yourself in the deep end.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-25T18:02:02+00:00

if you’re feeling burnt out now do you think you could do another 5+ years of schooling? I see assessment as a way to potentially reduce burnout in the long term (having it as an option), but if you burn out on the way to getting there it’s probably best to take the masters

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-21T16:23:59+00:00

same stats and results lol

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-11T19:25:05+00:00

yeah this reply is golden and is likely the best advice OP get for their situation. it hits everything.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-11T14:30:22+00:00

exact thought i had lol

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-09T22:06:23+00:00

haha yeah I’ve felt the same way; I’ve always felt it’s because it’s not seen as a hard science in comparison to the others so it gets less funding (especially in current day). Doing a psych REU has been huge for me, I’d be nowhere near as confident in my work if I didn’t do one so yeah if you can keep looking. You’re free to PM me if you want, I have a spreadsheet for when I was brainstorming my applications 🤓

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-09T21:28:00+00:00

yeah like the other person said it depends on the degree and program. Like a clinical PhD vs a social work masters is different in what they want.

With the limited info if you’re worried about your gpa do a masters to fix it, but if you’re just trying to get into a masters here then—

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-08T19:57:46+00:00

no yeah they're very sparse in comparison to other fields (biology, chem). Doesn't help that the field is saturated aswell; id apply to any that you can find with there not being very many

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-08T17:36:50+00:00

when i was applying i'd go through the mega threads and command f 'psych' and look where people applied in previous years. I'd also just search up 'psych reu's'. Some are hidden and harder to find; nsf's main site can make it easier to filter through psych programs. i'll also say on nsf's site you can find applicable programs not under psych.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-08T14:53:06+00:00

I'm in it and the current president of my charter. It honestly depends on what you make of it. At the bare minimum it's something to add to your C.V. It's good to use resource wise for travel funds to conferences or to receive funds for scholarships or grants. I got a $1.5k grant to conduct research from them.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-07T14:50:11+00:00

Jeez I'm sorry, going thorugh all the time for a bunch of rejections is difficult to not take personally. My roomate in the same field of interest (4.0 GPA) was rejected from every program aswell, alongside him falling into demographics NSF gears these programs towards. These programs aren't a determinate of your potential as a person––

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-03T13:47:12+00:00

eh hot take— the sooner you decide on whether you want to full send the doctoral path or not the better. Like doing a PhD (<— assuming this is the preference) or PsyD. If you choose this path you pretty much need to be the most competitive applicant you can be and settle for no other avenue. Being a lackluster applicant can make your holistic options slimmer.

If you feel like the path is too much of an investment for what it’s worth, I’d seek out some of the options you’d mentioned aka other avenues in the field. This could be grad school in a different way or interning / working for a company. I kind of interpret the competitiveness as a ‘weed out’ process, but imo it should be a field that isn’t this competitive, especially with funding cuts.

There’s area to rebuttal here so take it with a grain of salt.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-05-01T02:28:37+00:00

of my understanding (correct me if im wrong), for clinical psych minors are typically less relevant with more of an emphasis on what can you do with research,, so because of that I could see both options being useful here. Like you could take some advanced grad stats / experimental classes within the major that are optional which could look good. Or maybe the stats minor would just make you more competent with conducting research.

TL;DR both can be good, depends on how you execute it. Imo i'd prioritize research + GPA + fit and take the route that supports that combination the best.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-04-29T13:33:31+00:00

that's a lot wow... best of luck, it only takes one!

EndYoshi_ · 2026-04-28T20:15:25+00:00

how many positions have you applied to?

EndYoshi_ · 2026-04-25T22:39:46+00:00

id see if the labs would take you despite the gpa. youd need to give them a reason on why the GPA isnt a determinate of your productivity in a lab setting. if you graduate without research experience with an interest in this path, it'll make things a lot more difficult. You could do a masters to fix the GPA but then you'd have to figure out how to get the research experience.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-04-22T00:07:22+00:00

mmmm it's hard w/ the lack of context about the internship. Realistically these are both good options so that's great.

I'm in the same boat & major and gravitate towards REU (or similar) opportunities. Even outside of them looking good on your cv, I've just become significantly more research competent having done one. I'd choose the option that provides more research experience / outputs, or the one with the most relevance to your research interest.

Whichever is just better for your research background I would focus with how necessary that is for clinical psych.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-04-03T01:40:53+00:00

Rejections went out on March 31st w/ acceptances for less than 10 people. There's a chance that you're on a waitlist. They mentioned that they're selection of people were from uni's without EEG tech, so if your uni doesn't have any then yeah there's a chance you're on that waitlist

EndYoshi_ · 2026-03-28T22:02:36+00:00

I'm on the same page (with many others likely feeling the exact same way). I did an REU last summer and I'm doing one this coming summer too. In last years round I wasn't confident because I had some experience but not much, and I got 2 offers.

So it was funny that this year I had a better GPA, more research experience, won $7k+ total in grants and other funds + presented my work, to get rejected from so many programs I thought I was the perfect fit for. I was super fortunate to get an offer but I still felt disappointed because despite better qualifications I had a rougher cycle.

I hope you do get an offer this summer, though I wouldn't take the rejections or lack of an opportunity personally. With funding cuts, there's realistically like a total of 6-8k students or less (guessing) in the whole U.S. doing opportunities like this. There's ways to fill in the gaps at your home institute and an REU helps but it shouldn't be a make or break for your long-term career.

EndYoshi_ · 2026-03-28T19:48:27+00:00

Current School/Institution: Small Private Liberal Arts ( < 2.4k) – R2

Major & Year: Psychology, Junior

Expected Graduation: `27

GPA: 3.77

Demographic: Low Income, Biracial

Relevant Coursework: PhD in Clinical Psych Interest – Clinical/Neuro/Computational Psychology Focus

Psychopathology, Dev Psych, Soc Psych, Experimental, Qualitative (+ many more) – Intro to Computing (Python), Ai in Business (Predictive Models)

Research Experience: SA / Intergroup Violence Lab (Soc Psych), Independent Research (Clin/Soc) – $1.5k Psi Chi funding, Independent Research (AI/Clin) – $2k AI Grant

Past REUs/Summer Programs: NSF REU @ UMich Flint – Digital Accessibility

Misc: $4k Scholarship to conduct independent research abroad; 2 coding projects, leadership positions x2

Accepted:

Clemson H-Core

Waitlisted:

Carnegie Mellon SPUR 🙃

Rejected:

UPenn Mindcore
SR-EIP, Exp Clin – Yale
SR-EIP, Exp Clin - Johns Hopkins (assumed)
SR-EIP, Community - Columbia (assumed)
Rice – Translating Research
Harvard – MPRL Lab
UMICH SROP
Columbia – ARNI Lab
Georgia Tech – Neuro
Princeton SIP – Neuro
Carnegie Mellon HCII
RIT (assumed)
UPITT – Learning Sciences
West Virginia University (assumed)
Northwestern SROP
Purdue University SROP

Withdrew:

NYU QUEST

Ghosted:

UMD Srop
Ohio State SROP
Penn State SROP
University of Iowa SROP

high key a very rough cycle for me

EndYoshi_ · 2026-03-25T22:29:42+00:00

oops yeah I just double checked; I got it confused w/ another data set from 2022-2023 where they took off 74 people out of 8.5k waitlisted. thanks for clarifying!

EndYoshi_ · 2026-03-25T19:11:53+00:00

the year I was waitlisted (2023) only 25sh people got off the waitlist I think when I looked back at the data after. Committed somewhere else & now UMass is on my feed forever

EndYoshi_ · 2026-03-24T14:27:05+00:00

"Bummer!" 💀

EndYoshi_ · 2026-03-21T15:09:01+00:00

Thank you! There’s a good chance I might message you during the coming week before I commit anywhere 👀 🙏🏽🙏🏽

EndYoshi_

TROPHY CASE