I'm a former psychology PhD student who has since graduated. Before that, I spent several years working in finance after college with a business degree, which is not the typical path into academic psychology. (To say the least.)
When I decided to make the switch, I did it methodically. I kept my full-time job throughout the whole preparation process, took the prerequisites I needed, got research experience, and didn't rush. By the time I applied, I'd done everything I could think of to be competitive.
It worked. I applied to 12 top PhD programs and got into 10 of them, including the #1 program in my field.
What I noticed along the way was that most of the advice available to applicants was either too generic to be useful or came from people who hadn't actually been through a competitive application cycle recently. There wasn't much out there that told you what the process actually looks like from the inside, or what really makes the difference in being the applicant to get an offer when you're applying to the most selective programs.
So I wrote a book about it, and later built this site.
Everything here is aimed at serious applicants who want to give themselves the best possible shot at a top program. If you're at a school without a strong graduate advising office, if you're coming from a non-traditional background, or if you're just trying to figure out what actually matters and what you can safely ignore, this is for you.
You can reach me at admin@mentalclarity.net.
