Essay 1: Autobiographical Statement
The autobiographical essay can be very challenging. Write authentically and avoid overthinking it! The purpose of this essay is for training faculty to understand a bit more about you than what can be conveyed by the AAPI, and to hear from you in your own words. Below are a handful of prompts you can consider mixing and matching.
- What inspired you to pursue a career in psychology, and what motivates you to keep going?
- Professionally, who are you now and who are you trying to become?
- Consider sharing a relevant life experience or a key experience in your professional development.
- What characteristics do you consider your most substantial strengths?
- What characteristics do your training faculty consider your most substantial strengths?
- Carefully distinguish sharing personal versus private information.
Essay 2: Theoretical Orientation
This essay is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your critical thinking abilities, and evidence the ways in which you’ll be able to work autonomously in the clinic & with teams.
- If you will reference specific modalities, stick with evidence-based approaches which exist across theoretical orientation
- Strongly consider your audience and the approaches used at the sites to which you’re submitting applications
- Integrative perspectives are welcome (e.g., CBT with a developmental perspective).
- Explain why your current theoretical orientation resonates with you.
- Share how have you observed its effectiveness. Case example(s) are highly illustrative!
Essay 3: Multiculturalism & Diversity
This essay is a key opportunity to communicate your reflective capabilities, professional maturity, and openness to both new professional experiences and constructive feedback. It is also an opportunity to reiterate your interest in human connection and commitment to life-long learning. A case example, or two, is a straightforward way to demonstrate how your diversity-focused values come to life in assessment and intervention spaces.
- One option is to consider sharing a values statement.
- Be sure to present different facets of diversity in your case example, including how your and your client’s intersecting identities (and aspects of systemic oppression) shaped your work together.
- Do acknowledge aspects of privilege that may influence your work with clients.
- Use terminology properly. Although citations are not required in essays, do consider citing in instances where you are using terminology coined in the DEI space.
- It’s also acceptable to present a case in which you experienced challenges or made mistakes. What did you learn? How will you do things differently in the future?
Essay 4: Research
If research is a primary training and career objective, this is the place to shine! However, even if you don’t envision spending much time conducting research in the long-term, this essay will convey skills in an area that is crucial to our field. After all, psychologists who work primarily as clinicians, educators, administrators, policy makers, and in other roles often play an essential part in research (and support the research others are leading!). This essay will help readers become more clear about your short and long-term professional goals, and can provide foundational text for you to use in upcoming postdoc or job applications.
- Explain the role you hope research will play in your long-term career.
- Convey 1-2 lines of research, why you are pursuing these primary topic areas, and the outcomes do you hope to achieve in the long-term.
- Under that umbrella, it’s helpful to explain why you chose your dissertation topic, your progress thus far, findings if you have them, and a future direction for this work.
- Explain how you hope to expand or refine your research skills in the future.
- Generally, do not name drop (this essay is about you!) and do not duplicate details reported on CV and/or AAPI (number of publications and presentations, for example).
- Citations are not required and not usually recommended.