Hello all, I am so glad that I found this subreddit as it has provided so much useful information to me as a first-generation graduate student. I wanted to ask for some advice or guidance on my current application. I am hoping to apply to Ph. D programs this fall and have been feeling unsure about where exactly I stand.

I have been out of school for about two years now due to a series of personal tragedies and family conflict that derailed my original plan on applying to medical school right out of undergrad. While it was not a great time in my life I feel like it afforded me the distance and time to really reflect on what it is I want to really do with my life and was part of what ended up pushing me in a different direction. Originally  as I mentioned I was planning on going the medical route and go into neurology because I have had a passion and love of learning the biological mechanisms of cognition for as long as I can remember but after the past few years of volunteering and working as a clinical lab tech I feel that I would be far more happier working in clinical psychology.  The thing is, I feel like I am having a really hard time gauging where I fall when it comes to applying to programs. I have been struggling with imposter syndrome a lot and I wanted to get an outside opinion on how competitive I actually am so I can adequately focus on things that I could do to be the most competitive candidate that I can be.

To begin with, I graduated with a double major in Clinical psychology and Cellular, Molecular and Developmental Biology with a  cumulative gpa of 3.64. At the time I really was focused on getting hands on clinical and medical lab experience and worked as a phlebotomist and student researcher at a local hospital. The time I was a student researcher was only for about six months though as I got that job during the last semester of my senior year and was not hired as a full time researcher after graduation like I had originally planned.  

I know that having research experience is important when it comes to applying to graduate programs, but I am not sure if my experience doing medical research will be helpful when applying. I don’t technically have any research experience in psychology outside of one class I took in undergrad that was focused on Statistics for the Social & Behavioral Sciences [ this was a stats class I took on top of Intro to Statistics and Probability and Statistics class]  .  I also have been working as a transcranial magnetic stimulation tech for the past year which, in addition to me volunteering at a hospice care center is part of what started making me seriously consider the clinical psychology route instead of doing medical school. I find that I am much happier having that one-on-one patient time and seeing them change and grow over the course of treatment.

What really helped me make this decision was volunteering in hospice and getting a lot of time with patients that were in the process of passing. I originally started volunteering in hospice because it made me feel better about my own grieving process that I was going through having just lost my younger brother. I found healing and fulfillment in being present and open with these people who were at the end of their journeys and looking for companionship. While I only do it once a week now due to other obligations, I can say that working with this population has fundamentally shifted the way that I carry myself through life and very much is the catalyst for me wanting to pivot away from neurology and more to psychotherapy and that realm of practice.  

I just feel like since I was so focused on being competitive for medical school my CV doesn’t look very much like others applying and I am not sure if that will detract from my overall application or not.

Thank you for reading through that short novel, I feel like I am not in a terrible place but would like to have some advice on where to go from here as well as maybe some heads up for things to look out for moving forward.