Insider’s Guide to
Graduate Programs in Clinical and
Counseling Psychology

One of the benefits of applying to clinical and counseling psychology programs is that

you earn the right to commiserate about it afterwards. It was a night of anecdotes
and complaints (while doing laundry) that led us to review our travails and compare
notes on the difficulties we each experienced during the admission process. We emerged
from three diverse backgrounds: one of us (T. J. M.) graduated from a large state university,
took time off, and then entered a doctoral program; one of us (M. A. S.) graduated from
a private liberal arts college and immediately pursued a doctorate; and another one of us
( J. C. N.) graduated from a liberal arts college within a major state university after 5 years and
then pursued doctoral studies.