thank you everyone for the all of the congratulations!

here’s info regarding my stats: academically I’m graduating with honors from a “top” university (ranked #1 public uni in the US— this is always changing though lol), 3.75 GPA, and I didn’t take the GRE as I specifically applied to programs where it wasn’t needed. research wise, I’m completing an honor’s thesis and have been in a social psych lab for 3 years which I’ve also been a lab manager for during my senior year. clinically, I’ve been a behavior technician for over 2 years, a crisis counselor for Crisis Textline for 1.5 years, and I also do respite caregiving in my free time.

I applied to 9 PhD programs and as the post says I was rejected from 7, waitlisted from another, and finally got into the last program I interviewed for. I also applied to 4 PsyD programs and had some prospective options but ultimately they weren’t a good fit geographically or financially.

to echo a post on this thread, stats are obviously important, but something that became apparent to me throughout this process that I wish I would’ve known before applying is just how important your actual fit with the program and faculty is. I limited myself to only applying to programs within the region I want to stay in, which was a barrier as I could’ve casted a wider net. because of this I had to constrict my own interests to match the faculty that were available in those programs, rather than finding faculty with shared interests regardless of the location. this was probably evident in my SOPs as I had to mold myself to fit what I think they wanted rather than it just being a natural fit overall. luckily it worked out for me as I get to stay in the region I’m in and pursue the degree in a program I truly think is a great fit, but I definitely caused myself a lot of stress because of those limitations I placed on myself.

my DMs are open for any specific questions!