Firstly, Leeds Clearing House is where you will find a lot of information about applying to the Clinical Psychology Doctorate. You will find information about the individual courses, the eligibility criteria, funding costs, the dates to remember, and other important information. You will submit your application to four universities through this site. As part of the application, you’ll need to answer some questions:
1) In what way have your work and/or research experiences made you a better candidate for training in clinical psychology? (3,000 character limit for this question)
2) Please give details of any publications/dissemination resulting from your work. (1500 character limit for this question)
3) What would you hope to gain from training? (750 character limit for this question)
4) Other information about yourself eg activities/interests apart from psychology. (750 character limit for this question)
6) If there are any other factors relevant in assessing your application please give brief details here. (700 character limit for this question)
To help you answer these questions, I’m going to share some tips that I have from personal reflections. I'm mainly going to speak about what I did differently between my unsuccessful applications, and my successful one, in securing me an interview. I can't promise you this advice will secure you an interview. I would still have a supervisor or Clinical Psychologist review your application and provide their advice too.
Question One Reflections
Reflection 1: Do not rewrite your career history
For the first question a lot of people will want to readdress their career history and talk about what they have learnt in each role. For example, ‘When I was an Assistant Psychologist, I learnt developed my teamwork skills through attending Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) meetings…’. I did that in my previous application. Summering each of my previous jobs and listing what I had learnt. I suggest a different format. Which brings me onto my next points.
Reflection 2: Organise paragraphs around Clinical Psychology competencies
In previous, unsuccessful applications, I centred my paragraphs around previous roles and what I learnt from each that made me a better candidate. The final time I applied, I focused the paragraphs around two-three Clinical Psychology competencies. These competencies could include formulation, assessment, supervision, reflection, research, understanding psychological models, and any others. Competencies are the skills that Clinical Psychologist possess and lead on. I wrote about the competency and said how my experience developed my skills in these areas.
Reflection 3: Use Point, Example, Explanation to format paragraphs
Do not stray from the format that our English teachers taught us. When writing about these competencies, I first explained my point: ‘developing my skills in formulation has made me a better candidate’. I then elaborated with an example. This is where I talked about my work experience. ‘Having supervision enabled me to reflect on the collaborative formulation process…’. Finally, you end with your explanation. Drive home the point of why this is going to make you a better candidate.
Reflection 4: Do not just say what you learned but HOW you learnt it
One of the final big differences between my previous applications and my successful one is I elaborated HOW I developed the skills. Before I would say ‘In my previous AP role, I developed my team building skills, organisation, and efficiency’. What I did after is talk about HOW I learnt this. What methods did you use to learn the competency? Can you give a specific example? How will you use this in the future?
Question Two Reflections
Reflection 1: Do not over complicate this. They are asking for a brief description. You do not need to go into too much detail. Outline your role.
Reflection 2: Disseminating work does not just apply to research. Have you done a service audit or evaluation and disseminated your findings to the wider team? Or have you done a dissertation project and shared your poster information in a presentation?
Reflection 3: You do not need to have published a paper to get onto a Clinical Psychology Doctorate
Question Three Reflection
Reflection 1: Reflect on what you want to learn, read through the course description, and write about what aspects of the course will teach you this skill. Will the group projects improve your confidence in teaching? Will the placements develop your knowledge of mental health services?
Question Four Reflection
Reflection 1: Do not talk about Psychology
You are probably very eager to tell the universities how you are a brilliant candidate and about how you are passionate about the doctorate and psychology. I would not talk about Psychology. They want to know about how you will cope with the Doctorate through what you enjoy. They want to know about you. Talk about your hobbies and let your personality flow.
In sum, this is a very pressurised application. It can be awful receiving rejection after rejection. I have been through that too. Make sure you look after yourself. The best advice I can give is enjoy the journey. I know that’s cliché but it is what got me through the five years of applying. Enjoy each role your in and try and go with the flow. I wish you all the best luck.
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