284: Insider Tips for Success in Grad School Admissions with Dr. Aeriell Armas

284: Insider Tips for Success in Grad School Admissions with Dr. Aeriell Armas

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] Welcome to the top global ranked and award nominated grad school femtoring podcast. The place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on conversations about grad school, and growth. In this podcast, you'll learn about all things higher education, personal development, and sustainable productivity. This is Dr.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yvette Martinez Vu, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with tips and tricks and everything else you need to know to successfully navigate grad school. For over 14 years, I've been empowering first gen students of color along their personal and professional journeys, and I'm really excited to support you too.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is your host, [00:01:00] Dr. Yvette. Today we're going to cover the topic of tips for success in grad admissions. In other words, how to prepare for grad school apps, something that my guest and I both know a lot about. So I'm sure we'll be geeking out together in many ways today. guest is Dr. Ariel Armas, she's a bilingual clinical psychology PhD. Originally from Queens, New York, and this is where I told her I was, I'm going to go from Ariel to Ariel. So originally from Queens, New York, Ariel has brought a multicultural perspective to her work in mental health disparities in the Latina community, intimate partner violence, and digital therapeutics. She has conducted research at the Maternal and Digital Research for Equitable Solutions Lab at PAU and the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at Dartmouth College, as well as provided psychological assessment, as well [00:02:00] as individual and group psychotherapy in English and Spanish to adults from diverse backgrounds. Ariel is most notably the founder of GradLife Grind, through which she focuses on increasing access to higher education and frequently mentors BIPOC and first generation college and graduate students. to the podcast, Dr. Ariel.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Thank you. I'm super happy to be here. I appreciate that we were able to get this in right at the time when I have some sort of downtime between finishing up my pre doc internship and starting my first postdoc gig.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, that's really, really exciting. I'm so glad you were able to make the time for us. I know that we have a lot of shared audiences. So I think that the insights that you bring in today are going to be really, really valuable to the folks that listen to this podcast. So thank you. Thank you. And actually, before we go into the conversation for today, I'm doing something brand new.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Some of y'all might notice this because I just started it with the [00:03:00] previous episode on providing visual descriptions for folks who can't access the video on YouTube or aren't unable to see the video. So for me today, I've got, well, usually I've got mid length straight brown hair. I have olive skin.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I've got, I'm wearing a tan over ear headphones, glasses, blue top matching blue beaded earrings. There's also. a small white shelf on my top right with the little succulent and with the framed what is it a framed cover of my book is Grasgill for me and then on the other side on my top left there's some starburst designs, uh, decorative designs on the wall and there's also a black mic with a pop cover on it on my bottom left.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So that's my visual description. Now feel free to give us whatever description you want to offer for us.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Thank you. So I am also Wearing glasses. I've got [00:04:00] olive skin, long brown hair, and a purple, like, lilac blazer. In my background, I've got peach walls in my office, and I have a little bit of framed and unframed art on my left, and some plants in the back. There's also some white closet doors behind me, and the white door that leads out of the room on my right.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I think that's about it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, thank you so much. So let's dive in. I want to hear more about you. I want to hear more about your journey becoming first gen Latina with a clinical psych PhD and anything you're comfortable sharing about that journey from, know, from youth to where you are today.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Totally. It's a long story. First, I want to thank you for this podcast. I Found it, I think way too late than, or way later than I would have loved to. But I'm happy that this exists. I think the work that we both do are really aligned and I'm super proud to see that your book is out. So my story I [00:05:00] think starts around age 12 is when apparently I sat my mom down.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I grew up in New York city in a single parent household with just my mom and brother. And I sat my mom down probably for like, I don't know, it'd be umpteen time to tell her what I want to do when I grow up. And she describes this as like a serious, like, sit down mom. Like I need to tell you something.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I'm 12. I don't remember this. And she was, she tells me. That I wanted to become a clinical psychologist. She's like, how do you even know what that is? I'm like, I don't know what I told her because I don't know where I got that from. And she was like, okay, like, what are you going to do? And I said that I wanted to work, you know, help children.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And now I don't, well, Usually when I tell the story, I would say, I don't want to work with kids and I don't work with kids. This year, I started working with youth for the first time, specifically Latina youth, and I loved it. So we'll see. To be continued. I know your, your face. So I didn't [00:06:00] see that for all of my PhD as like my main focus.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: As you read in my bio, I work with Latina and like all BIPOC adults with trauma and different things like that. So now I'm adding, you know, youth and family to my repertoire, but at that age, I apparently wanted to work with kids. And I just told my mom kids are going to come to me. They're going to tell me their problems and I'm going to listen to them and I'm going to help.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And yeah, so that's, I think that does sound a lot like me, but I don't remember this like moment. And I learned that story when it came time to apply to graduate school and I had to write my personal statement. And one of the tips that I give folks, and we'll get into that later, is talk to your friends and family about, you know, maybe these early things that these things in you that they saw or that they heard that you don't even remember or think about that led you to this career.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So I learned that sort of fast forward when I was in college, applying in my third and last year of college at City College of New York. And I was like, I don't even know what to write. I don't remember if I even ended up keeping [00:07:00] that story in my personal statement, but it was a conversation that sparked like, okay, where did this come from, this interest?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So sometime in high school, I was, I think in high school, I was already very decided. So in my junior year, I started taking courses like called a college now, which is just a way to start taking college classes. And my high school was on the Queens College campus. So it was, we could just like walk to the building.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: We actually had to take college classes in senior year, but in junior year it was optional. So I took Psych 101 and I was very determined to like get as many credits as possible and in senior year we were able to, we had to take some required humanities courses at the college and then we had the option to take, you know, one elective or two per semester.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I started taking like introductory psychology courses from there because I already had the 101 and I was just like on this fast track. Which now I think back and I'm just like, I was just this girl just like wanting to get there and do it and go all the way. And I've done it now I'm here and today is the three month anniversary of my dissertation defense.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So it's super surreal and recording this is sort of a nice way for me to think back to where [00:08:00] I've, where I've come from. So sometime in high school, I think maybe around the time where before I started taking those like introductory psych courses my parents were able to, my mom and my stepdad at the time were able to like connect me with.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Someone that they knew who was a psychologist. He was this old white man who was willing to carve out an hour of his time. And I just went with like a legal pad and I stepped out and I was like, I have all these questions. And he was like, you need to do research. And the doctorate is this versus masters.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I was like, I didn't know anything. And I was like, okay, so he actually, I don't know if I knew about research, but he was like, you have to do a lot to get to where you want to go. You know, he explained to me a little bit about the difference between a PsyD. For those that don't know, they're both doctorates in psychology, but kind of those differences all about teaching and the kinds of jobs he was able to do.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like he did court reporting and different things. And I was just like, my, that moment to me represented something so special because. Even though this was a, this was a white male and it wasn't something that I could necessarily [00:09:00] see myself in him, I could see myself doing what he was doing. And he was gracious enough to, to just like open the door and let me know, like all the things that you have to do to get to where I want to go.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I don't know if Grad Life Grind would exist without that. Because that's what I do now. I want to be that person that he was to me for an hour or, you know, hundreds of hours that I've spent online creating free content. So that people could also get that information and see someone who looks like them.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Later, when I finally got to college, I finally met the one, and I think only, Latina psychology professor in my college. And we're great friends today. She continues to mentor me. We meet almost weekly still. Her name is Teresa Lopez Castro. She's incredible. And when I got to college, I was like, Oh, I want to be like her.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And so I constantly attribute my success to her and being able to see someone who looks like me. When I saw the syllabus, like when I was picking classes, I'm like, Oh, a Latina psychologist, like her [00:10:00] name alone is, you know, Lopez Castro. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going, I'm, I'm in this. And I remember the first day I walked in the room, And how I felt.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And by the time it came to do research, I went to her, like she has guided me all throughout. I learned about, uh, Palo Alto university, which is where I got my degree from because of her. And so all of these people I've sort of been able to collect over time have inspired me to do what I do now with Gradly.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Wow. There's a lot of, no, no, no, it's, it's great. I love that you started out with the story about you manifesting your future as a 12 year old by sitting down and saying, this is what I want to be. And this is how it's going to happen. And this is who I'm going to work with. And then here we are many years later. It's happening in many ways, or it has happened in some ways to then being presented with this opportunity getting in an insider's perspective on [00:11:00] a field having that be potentially the catalyst for you continuing on in this profession. And then wanting to be that representation that you didn't necessarily have right away. And then also the the value of having. Really supportive mentors. That's what I'm hearing kind of from you of, of just how pivotal that's been for you to have that support, to have someone who offers time out of their schedule, I'm sure busy schedule every week to nurture this relationship with you, that is incredible.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And then to. Not just take that and run, but to take that and then to use that as an opportunity to continue to give back to others is so incredible. So I'm just like in awe of your story. I'm so happy that you shared those little nuggets. Those are all just like small

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I know there's so much,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: more.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:12:00] Yeah.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: mentoring mentorship is a huge theme in my story and is one of the tenants of just like how I live my life is that there was, you know, one person who unlocked maybe like what the word psychologist was. I don't know if I heard that in school.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I don't, I don't know. And I don't remember. And that was just like, I feel like downloaded into my heart and my mind. And, and blossomed into what it became like this interest in pursuing a PhD. Somehow, I don't know how I was like, I'm going all the way. Like if PhD is the highest you can go, that's what I want to do.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I didn't even know until I was like in my PhD program that you could get a master's and start a private practice. I just was like, Oh, we're going all the way because I'm going to be the first of my family and all of these things. And that was a huge motivator for me, but it went from like one person unlocking the word to one person unlocking the pathway.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And then the next person, Teresa, you know, unlocking what it, like the breaking down the steps to get there. And it's been this, like at each point, then it was my dissertation. What does that mean? And some, my advisor unlocking that for me. And what [00:13:00] I've tried to do with GradLife Grind is like, let's just put it all out there now.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So that you can see like, what should you wear to school? You know, to grad school, what should you write in your essay? What should you not write in your essays to apply to graduate school? Just like everything, because it's been this like time release content of like, just knowing what's coming. And I'm sure you've had the same experience and that's hard because you're constantly just thrust into the unknown.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And of course we figured it out, but it shouldn't be that hard. And I think that's a phrase that has guided me from day one. I started GradLife Grind in 2019. It shouldn't be this stressful. It shouldn't be this hard. It's like, life is already hard for us and for other BIPOC folks and, and add other, you know, intersectional identities to that harder than it was for me.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Right. So we should just have that stuff accessible to us. And that's a guiding, I think, thing for me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, we definitely have that in common. And it's so funny because I started this podcast in 2019. So, uh, I didn't realize we had that in common of the year that we started. [00:14:00] offering or insights or just like the content creation in different ways for you. It's been, I know you're on different platforms.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: For me, it's been primarily the podcast and sprinkling and a little bit of social media here and there. So in the five plus years, because I want to say plus because you've been Probably been doing this longer than when you've been showing up online on social media. What are some of the challenges that you've noticed that especially first gen BIPOC students face when they're getting ready to prepare to apply to grad school when they're already thinking, okay, this is the year that I'm going to apply.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: There's so much. I think one is what I just mentioned, not knowing what's coming and not knowing all the pieces. And so that's something that I've tried to do from day one is like, here's a list of all the components of the application process. We can go hours and hours into each one of them, but at least here's what you can expect.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Cause I logged into the portals when I was going to apply to and learn that for the first time as I was trying to develop the applications. If [00:15:00] you know that a year or two years in advance, like what amazing things you could do. So I think one is not knowing. I think a big, big, big one that I'm tackling now with the summer cohort of my 12 week program, we'll talk about later, is mindset.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Feeling like you don't belong, like already taking yourself out of the room before you even get there, which is something I've been telling the people I work with, like, no, we're not going to already, like, remove ourselves from the space before we even get the chance. Because then who is it keeping you out of?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Right. Is it these systems and these people, or is it you and, and those limiting beliefs that obviously are not our fault that, that are downloaded from society, media, systems of oppression. But I think it's the, I'm not going to get in cause I'm brown or black or whatever, you know, insert identity, marginalized identity people are going to make judgments about me from the moment I walk in the room or from the moment they read my application or they see my CV or they see my gaps or they see whatever that's so that's a big one.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: The challenge of like, I don't belong here. And I think that I'm [00:16:00] still having those experiences. I'm sure you are as well. That doesn't go away. Unfortunately, it gets better and you get to find your people in your pockets of your spaces where you feel at home, but just last year I went to a conference and I was like, I want to get the F out of here.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like, I can't be here. Like I went to the bathroom and I was like, I'm going to go home. And I was in New York and I was like, this is not what New York looks like when I'm in this conference space. It's not where I'm from. It's not what I'm familiar with. And then a week later, I went to NLPA, which is a National Latinx Psychological Association in Chicago, 2023.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I was like, I could breathe. Like, so I think I say that to say there's, there's going to be those two types of spaces always and everything in between. But I think the mindset and the knowing, and it's not even like a false belief. It's like knowing that I don't belong, seeing and feeling and experiencing that I don't belong.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: It's holding me back from wanting to even bother at all. And if I did that, if you did that, we wouldn't be here. None of the people that we've helped would be [00:17:00] here. So it's, it's tough, but I think it's dismantling like the. Practical parts. What is it, what is expected of you? What are the components to the application?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: How do you make a strong application? The, the doing, and then there's the feeling and the knowing, uh, the mental, I think, emotional part of it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I love that. I love how you broke it down to, yeah, the feeling and the knowing that's like mindset stuff that gets in the way of us doing stuff. And then the, the doing, which is if you don't know how to do it, you can have the best mindset ever, but you might get stuck there too. What, what are some mistakes that you've noticed that some grad school applicants get caught up in? time and time again, you know, over the last few years. I know you've been running several cohorts of helping folks apply to grad school, and it doesn't matter how much guidance or advice or tips or whatever you provide, you can write a whole book and offer it to people. There, there's still going to be some mistakes. So I'm curious what you've noticed in terms [00:18:00] of mistakes that you, that come up time and time again, and potentially some ways to avoid those mistakes.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I'm going to say this as lovingly as I can. Bad writing. Bad writing and, and bad is, you know, relative, but I think that you may relate to this experience of getting to grad school and realizing like, I'm not that good at writing or as good as I thought I was. And things change and, and we can't expect, you know, grad school or PhD quality of applicants because they're not there yet.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: But sometimes people have a beautiful story and a wonderful passion and they're not able to package it in the right way. Maybe they're putting like overly personal details that shouldn't be there or they're not highlighting certain things. Like one of the things that Teresa pointed out to me when I was working on my applications, I don't know, seven or eight years ago, was you didn't put bilingual, like at the top of the page.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I was like, Oh, okay, whatever. And she's [00:19:00] like, that's like, you want to put that at the top. Like you want people to see that first. And it's those little things that you don't know because you haven't done this before and it isn't your fault. Sometimes it is things that you do know, like grammar and spelling.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: It's like get it together. Trying to make your resume different colors, like that's not where you should spend your time. But a lot of times it's not knowing really how to put forth the right parts of your story and make certain things shine.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, that storytelling piece is really, really pivotal and important. And that's why I think that's where folks to certain people for guidance, uh, because it's hard to see yourself from an outsider's perspective. So it can be a lot easier for you to just tell your story to someone else, have them ask you questions and then uncover, okay, those are the nuggets or those are the gems that need to be here, that frame that entire narrative about why. absolutely are the right person for this program or for, you know, this, whatever it [00:20:00] is that you're applying to. Okay. So how do folks, what, aside from getting help, like what are some ways for folks to work on their writing? If they notice that, okay, I, I'm one of those people, my writing isn't that great.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I need a lot of extra support. How can they work to improve their writing specifically for the grad school application process?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I think this is super important because One of the things that a lot of grad programs don't include is a writing course. And I think that they should, but that's a whole other soapbox. I spend a lot of time as a TA trying to like build that into different, uh, courses because that's where I end up. I remember like grading people or like messing things, mess, getting messed up because of writing.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: But even way before that, way before grad school, I like to tell folks just sort of in general, everything you're doing when you're applying to grad school is going to help you when you're in grad school. So do not see this as a waste of time. Do not see this as like, Oh, I don't want to do this. Like, I feel like I got a Ph.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: D. in applying to stuff, because all we do is apply to stuff. Grants, [00:21:00] scholarships, fellowships, like jobs, there's so much stuff. So every part of this is important. So every draft is working on your writing. Peer review is something that has been a game changer for the programs that I teach. Just this year, this summer, I had a group of folks in there.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I asked them, sort of, at the beginning of the program, like, where are you all at with your CV? Everybody had a CV. Everyone was like, yeah, I'm good. And I'm like, okay, let's do peer review. Everybody has to do peer review a second time now. So you don't see things until you see them. And sometimes you need someone else to point it out.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I know it can be intimidating to have a mentor or a faculty member or someone who you feel is sort of like above you read something and give you feedback. So you can do that with a peer. Another is writing centers. If you have any access at all to the writing center, if you're still in college or you're still tied to any institution, That's part of your tuition or part of whatever benefits you already have.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: When people hit me up and they're like, Oh, can you read my essay? I'm like, did you go to the writing center? Because you can pay me and I would benefit from that money because I need it. And also you have free [00:22:00] resources. Come to me after you've already done that. Come to me after you've had a peer. Come to me after you've gone to the writing center.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Come to me after you've had a mentor. And then I can give you, you know, an additional edge. But a lot of people don't exhaust the resources that are already available to them. And now we have a bunch of like AI and cool things. I don't recommend that you have AI write your stuff, but you can ask AI to help you with things like grammar and spelling, like grammarly, and you can also get, like, use AI for brainstorming.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I want to write about this. How can I make this more interesting? I use it for titles. I use it for planning, developing ideas. Not for your writing. Important disclaimer. So I think there's a lot people can do to work on, on their writing. Obviously you can work with a coach, you can work with someone specifically, but there's so much before that that's free or low cost that I think people can be benefiting from.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: But I think folks just want to apply. They want to get in. They want to be a doctor. They want to, and I'm like, whoa, slow down. Because if you're struggling a lot with the application process, which we all are, [00:23:00] that's a good lens about, are you ready for this? Nobody's going through the application process.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Easily, at least I don't think they should be because it's very stressful. It's very taxing. It's very emotional. It's very difficult, but it's helpful to see if you have like the grit and the passion where like, I still want to do this, even though this whole process sucked so much. That's an, that's important information.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like all of this is data as you're going through the process. That's what

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Right. I mean, yeah, definitely looking at the application process as like, what I heard you say is as a learning lesson in and of itself, like in applying, you're already learning skills that you're going to keep using once you get in and even beyond once you finish your graduate program. So I'm curious, what other questions that. up a lot and it just, it, I feel like it's a broken record type thing where it's like every year the same question over [00:24:00] and over again is do I find the right grad programs? And one of the things that I noticed that most people do when they have no idea what to do is they just go to Google and they search top programs in my

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I did. I don't recommend that

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I did that too, so I'm not going to pretend like I didn't do that.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: now. There's so much that I would do that. Like, honestly, if I knew everything that I teach, Y'all listeners who I hope are prospective applicants. I don't know if I'd be at the grad program that I ended up graduating from. I wouldn't change anything at this point, like of the options that I had, I think I picked the right thing for me.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And you know, when I arrived on campus, I'm like, I see myself here. But if I had everything that I worked so hard to freely share with people, who knows where I would be? So I, sure. Google is. Sometimes our friend and that's an option where I think that's a mistake. And maybe this is sort of tying back to the mistake question [00:25:00] where I think that's a mistake is you're searching top for me, top clinical psychology programs, I wasn't the top applicant.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I wasn't the R1 perfect, you know, like perfect fit. And even when you are, I've seen people year after year after year with master's degrees and with tons of experience get denied from doctoral programs, which is something important. That I tell people, but I'm looking at like the most quote unquote, prestigious universities in clinical psychology, which doesn't even exist.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like there wasn't a ranking, a good ranking system. It's probably some random website putting that together for clicks. In reality, the perfect grad program or like a good grad program is contingent on your research goals, your career goals, like who you are as a person, your values, like there is no, like, show me the top five, like top five, based on what?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Based on research, based on teaching, based on what. And that's where I think we all mess up, because when you're going to college and you're like, I want to pursue nursing, let me find the top five nursing [00:26:00] programs. That's different. In psychology, even in PhD, because of the research component, there is no way always to quantify, like, the best program.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And all of our needs are different. So tying back to mentorship, I think the best way to find programs is Mentorship and networking. Connecting to people who are aligned with your values and or your research interests. Mentors, current grad students whether it's going to conferences and I didn't go to any, any conferences until my third year, I think second or third year of grad school, but going to conferences that are maybe online, like I just went to one that was like 40 bucks virtual.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: But it, that's an easy avenue for like networking with folks that's low cost, that doesn't involve travel, that's safe. Physically as well as just like professionally. So connecting with people and asking them, especially asking current grad students. Like I require the folks that work with me that are going through like a 12 week [00:27:00] process of applying to grad school to reach out to at least one student at every program.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And you can do that by calling the admissions and being like, hi, I'm interested in this program. Can you connect me with a current student? I did that for years at my university because I worked at admissions. And I was a person who did a no, like off the record call with folks who were perspectives for the university that I went to.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And they were asking me like, Oh, where do people live? And how much does it cost? And how do you, you pay for this and that? And I was like, I'll tell you everything. That's what you need. You need someone who's going to tell you for real, for real. What is it? What is it like there? And I did that only after I was admitted.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I was so excited and I was like, okay, sure. Of course I want to go there. But doing that even before you apply, I think is a good option. And talking to people, networking with people, now LinkedIn makes it so easy and all these ways to reach out to folks. I know a lot of people now do like a lot of informational interviews in preparation to applying for a PhD program.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I didn't [00:28:00] do, no, I actually did a few, but that wasn't something that anyone told me. So all of those things I think can help weed out programs. And I think that people really need to get clear on, of course, their research goals, but also the culture that they want to be a part of. For clinical psychology, you can find an, you know, an R1 institution where you're bred to be an academic, like have a, be a professor and have a lab, or you can go to a clinical program.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And then there's everything in between. Programs that are a little bit more clinical, I think mainly on the west coast. Programs that are a little bit more research focused, like middle of the country to the right. So like there's all kinds of nuance in what the program stands for or, or is developing.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So asking, uh, programs, what do people who normally graduate go and do? So that's a huge question that you can ask and you don't have to wait till interview season to ask. Before you pay that application fee, you can have those answers.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: One of [00:29:00] the things that I'm hearing you say is that It's gonna take some time to go through working on that graduate school list. It's not a one and done process. I work with a lot of undergraduates that are part of big grad school preparation programs and they're assigned homework like by next Tuesday have your grad school list.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I'm sure they're waiting till the night before, a couple of days before to Google and search. unfortunately, then once that assignment is done, then that's it. Instead of working on it incrementally over time and breaking it up into the process of first, Do a search, then reach out to people, then book some calls, then update the, the list and to see it as this like working document, not as this like final thing that you do it once and then that's where you apply.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Yeah, I think that's super important because what happens inevitably is once you make that list, even if you make it in a week or you do it the night before or whatever, and God bless the [00:30:00] grad school prep programs in undergrad. I didn't have that either, but One of the things that you, that will inevitably happen if you do your list that way is when you're writing the essay and you're trying to, like, tailor things as you should to the program, you're gonna be like, I don't even want to go there.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like, I'm not actually interested. The more, like, and then you're already in it. You're already writing, you're already prepping, you already asked for recommenders, and then you're in this like, I actually don't want to apply there anymore. And that's okay, but you can avoid that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: seen that happen where folks are really set on going to this one Ivy League because they've dreamed of going to the Ivy League all their life. And then they get to this, that stage and they're like, wait, I can't even pinpoint one person to work with. I'm like, maybe you don't need to apply there.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I think make the decisions off of, and I don't know if that's, I have, I, someone, someone else's podcast. I don't remember that I was on a while ago. It was like people over publications is something that I said. And I was like, I have to put that on a t shirt. And then I forgot, but now I'm [00:31:00] thinking like, similarly this sort of comes back when I have these conversations with folks is pick your program based on people.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Pick your program based on people, not on prestige, not on publication opportunities or publications that you're expected to write or any of that. Pick it based on people, on the faculty, on the support that's available to you at the university level. on the peer to peer sort of vibes. And obviously you don't know who your cohort is going to be, but you can get a sense of the culture by talking to current grad students.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like, I cannot stress that enough.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I love that. That's such a great motto and tip, uh, people over publications. You need that shirt. That's, that's a good shirt. Yeah. okay. So let's transition to actually getting into more of those tips. Can you tell us a little bit more about your best or top grad application tips, uh, or just anything that could be helpful to anyone who is going to be applying this coming [00:32:00] cycle?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Totally. So one is picking the right programs. I think we've covered that at length. The other is starting this process, as far ahead as you can. I have had people in my DMs saying, I miss, I'm a senior in high school and I want to get my psychology PhD. And I'm like, girl, so was I, I was in that position.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And still it was haphazard and all over the place. So you don't have to be that person. If you're already like a college senior and you're like, Oh, I just figured out that this is what I want to do. It's not the end of the world for you. There's so many non traditional quote, and I hate to use that term, like non traditional student.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: It's like, you're a student. And you should be a student of life anyway. But people who don't have that like perfect trajectory, like I went from undergrad, gap year, grad school, that's not typical for so many people. And that gets a lot of people discouraged. So, I would say working on things as far ahead as you can, and that doesn't mean that you're writing a personal statement two years in advance.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: It means you're thinking about the kinds of opportunities that will make you competitive two years in advance. And that's why I [00:33:00] created a separate webinar that I have grown over time called Pathway to PhD. It's specifically for folks who are pursuing health service psychology. So, clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school psychology, PsyD.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: A year, two or three before you want to apply to a PhD program. So, because it's about what makes you competitive, what kind of pre application experiences you need to get and how to get them so that you're thinking ahead. You're planning your pathway to PhD way, way ahead of you. And anybody should be doing that.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Why I focus on psychology is because that's my bread and butter, but that is a, uh, sort of, uh, framework that I think everyone should be using. So if you got the idea to apply to a PhD program in June, and you're going to apply in September, I'm worried. That doesn't mean you won't get in, but I'm worried because I don't know yet, right, if you're competitive.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So did you get all the experience you needed? And then someone was like, dude, why aren't you applying to PhD programs? And then you realized you have everything you need and then you go for it. That's [00:34:00] like the best case scenario. But the reality is probably that you're like, Oh, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a psychologist.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I want to do this. And then you go for the application and you realize you don't have anything that you need. Or worse, you don't realize you apply anyway and you don't understand why you didn't get it. So really being able to pull back a year or two, maybe even six months before you start applying and thinking about what do you need to get to fill the gaps so that you're competitive.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And even when you are competitive, the other thing to really work on is mindset. And, and of course I'm going to plug for therapy. Going to therapy and, or doing whatever related work you can. To disentangle your worth from your academic performance, which is like, everybody needs that. You and I probably still need that.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Disentangling from productivity, disentangling from, you know, academic validation as we now are able to call it. I didn't know those terms back when I was dealing with this, like a lot more heavily, but knowing what I mentioned earlier, [00:35:00] that people who are well qualified, well educated, uh, perfect on paper applicants don't get in one, two, three year cycles into PhD programs.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: means that this is not a, are you good enough contest? This is not, are you smart enough contest? Everybody who's applying to PhD programs is freaking smart. Sure there are some stragglers, but everyone's pretty, you know, pretty well educated, pretty smart, pretty committed. If you're applying to PhD programs, you're goal oriented.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So it's not a question of that. It's, are you the right fit for that program for that faculty member at that time, and that's a lot of variables for people to tie up their, their worth in. So go to therapy and or work in some other kind of way to, to disentangle like the outcome from who you are as a person.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And that's something that I think helped me a lot and still helps me to this day is when I apply to SUP, I'm not expecting to get. I'm putting my best foot forward because [00:36:00] I care about the thing, whether it's I care about grad school or I care about this grant money and I care about this project.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: But I'm not expecting to get in because there's so many other people and it doesn't mean that I don't expect to get in because I'm not smart or I'm not good enough or I'm not committed enough or I'm not passionate enough. I know I'm those things and I know there's a lot of other freaking people who are also those things and maybe they're a better fit and a better fit does not mean you're bad.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So I think that's something that is, doesn't feel like a tip grad school application tip, like what's going to get you in, but it is. It's what's going to get you in the rooms, into the doors, at the tables. Because once you disentangle like, Oh, I don't deserve to, and all of these stories, then you're limitless.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I have a follow up actually because one of the things I heard you say was to put your best foot forward like not to not to wrap yourself and your value up in the outcome, but to do your best. And I noticed [00:37:00] that for some applicants in doing their best, they start to slip into perfectionistic tendencies, and then they struggle to figure out when their work is good enough to click submit.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Yeah.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: like, insights you have to share about that, about like, How do you know when something is good enough or when you've done essentially the, the putting your best foot forward and you're ready to click that submit button.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: That's a great question. A few, two things. One, I'm going to come back to people. I'm going to keep coming back to comunidad, like always. One is people, because if you have those people who are peer reviewing or mentors reviewing or writing center reviewing or Ariel or Yvette reviewing. Then you have someone to be like, it's good.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: It's ready to go. And, and we all want that. Some need that sometimes just be like, okay, you like it. It's good. Okay. And you can submit. The other is having some of the tools at your disposal that maybe you or I provide, like I have a personal [00:38:00] statement checklist. If you've done these 10 things, Then it's, it's good enough.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And some of those that's free. That's something that is one of my freebies is just like a personal statement checklist that you can go through. And one of the things in there is sending it to a mentor, getting feedback from writing center, like those kinds of stuff, but that's helped a lot of people that I've worked with because they can say, okay, I've checked these boxes.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: That's enough. And they can be done with it based on that checklist. If you don't know, or, you know, we'll talk about how to access my content and stuff, but you can also Google that or use AI for that, right? What are some things, what are 10 things that make me a checklist, right? Make me a checklist for my grad school essay.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And it's going to give you 10 things. If you can check off those 10 things, you're good. So I think that's something that you can use sort of these resources or these folks like us who come, uh, provide these kinds of services to an advantage, because then it helps you just like, all right, I've done this.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: The task is finished. Even simpler than that, the prompt. So if you've answered the prompt and you've hit every [00:39:00] piece of the prompt, cause you can usually break down a, you know, three or four sentence prompt to an essay into like a few bullet points of what they want, you can create your own little checklist using that.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I've done these things. I've addressed these four or five things that they want. That's it

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I love that. Those are all actually multiple strategies for arriving at that green light of I, I can give myself permission to submit it. I love that. And actually, if you want, we can add a link to your personal statement checklist to the show notes so folks can access it if

Dra. Aeriell Armas: for sure.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: All right, so we've already started to establish that mentorship and networking is pretty important in this process, not just applying to graduate school, but just in general, through graduate school, navigating career life, etc. one of the things that comes up a lot for, especially first gen BIPOCs. folks that I work with, folks that I'm in conversation with, is that it's really hard to find mentors and it becomes harder as you move up in your [00:40:00] career.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Yeah,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: so I'm curious, I'm thinking specifically for folks who either have struggled to find mentors or who have taken a few gap years and are worried about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Like, what advice do you have to give to them? Give them about either mentorship or building their network if they don't already have access to this huge network because either they've been away for a while or just historically have struggled to

Dra. Aeriell Armas: totally. Yeah, I think this is great. And this is something that comes up every year. I'm sure you have folks reaching out to you about this as well, where they're like, I Took gap years or I had a change in career, right? Like I thought I was going to do, I think I'm working with someone. Yeah. I'm working with someone now who did their undergrad in biology, did research, did all these things.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And now they want to do psychology. And they were like, how do I make the jump? And how do I explain to my recommenders? I'm like, girl, there's no shame. This happens all the time. So, or there's folks who, for different reasons, like COVID or medical or psychological, aren't able to connect with other people in that way.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: That is sort of like, that I reach our [00:41:00] expectation. So this is one that I struggle with. I'm going to give my two cents, but if I'm allowed to reverse interview, because I'd love to hear what you have to say, just because there's so many people asking me this question and I'm only one person. So I'd love to hear your perspective.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: But I think that the internet is a huge asset to us in this situation. Obviously there's social media and just because someone contacts you or me, doesn't mean that they're not. We're like going to be besties, but it is a connection for, for, I personally have the policy of like, I answer every DM unless it's disrespectful.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So, including not spelling my name right. So I will answer everybody that I can. And if I don't know someone else and I'll connect them. So, for example, if it's someone who I think could benefit from your podcast, I will just at you in my DM to them and be like, Oh, I think you need to talk to a bit or listen to the podcast.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So I think that that is networking and people don't think it is because it's social media. And for years I have felt like, Oh, what I do is like, she needs to be like in the closet and like, not something that I talk about. Now it's on my CV because we're doing the work. We're doing the mentoring. We're doing [00:42:00] the teaching.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: We're doing the, all of the academic things outside of the classroom.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: hmm.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Anyway aside from that, I think that connecting with folks online, like I think it's pretty badass when people DM me and they're like, Oh, I don't know anyone. Like, can you help me? I'm like, I don't know if I have the gall to DM someone random and be like, can you help me?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like the vulnerability of that and the, and the passion and the motivation where you're like, I don't even know her, but I'm going to, and I don't even know if she's going to read it, but I'm going to try. So that's one thing that's free. Another is now there are a lot of, uh, organizations like professional organizations that used to do mainly in person events, right?

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So if you join NLPA or APA or whatever other psychological associations before, like when I started grad school, pre COVID and when I was an undergrad, it's like, yeah, you join, you pay the fee. But like, unless you go to the annual conference, like there's not much for you. One thing that the pandemic did for the world is like, we're all doing a lot more online stuff.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And so a lot of professional organizations had to transition to doing online things, [00:43:00] webinars, workshops, uh, networking, like little zoom networking mixers, all these kinds of things that are still available now. So you maybe pay a 40 student membership to an organization, and now you connect online.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Whether they're medical or personal or whatever reasons why you can't connect or make it to an in person conference, now there's a lot more available to you. Something I'm trying, trying to do now is like email the people, email the student committee, like email the student special interest group of an organization and be like, Hey, I'm, you know, students such early career, like let's connect.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And, and they have things and I'm like, Oh, they have a Slack channel. They have this, they have that. And you don't even realize that it's like right under your nose. And maybe you paid a hundred dollars or less of a membership fee. To be involved in these things. And what a lot of people don't tell you is that if you are a member of a professional organization and then you don't renew, you're probably still on the listserv and it's very unlikely that they're going to remember who you are to kick you off, [00:44:00] not to say that you shouldn't continue to keep your memberships, but like once you get on a listserv, there's a lot that comes your way.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like there's a lot of things that I hear about and that I ended up sharing on grindlifegrind that are emails, like emails come through. And I try really hard as much as I hate emails to not get off of certain listservs because. There's funding opportunities. There's job opportunities. There's things that I can send to someone.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I know, even if it doesn't even apply to me. So there's a lot of free email listservs you can get on. There's social media, there's professional organizations. And then there is whoever you already know. So one thing that people feel is like, Oh, I only know like one or two people. Yeah. And you also know, know, or have access to everyone that they know.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Mm hmm.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So if you just go deeper with the two people that you know, Instead of trying to go like peripheral with 20 people that you can't keep up with because nobody can, like, we can only connect with so many people truly. Then go deeper with the one or two people that you do know. And that's like a low [00:45:00] stakes, like, okay, I can do that.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Like I could send an email to two people for the folks who maybe have social anxiety or like, whatever you can go deeper with the few folks available to you and you never know. Like, I think that this, what I'm gathering from. Today's conversation is, there's a lot that wouldn't have happened, a lot of places I wouldn't have gone, a lot of people I wouldn't have known, if not for the one or two people that got me there.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And sure there's hard work and grit and faith and all these other things behind it, but one person making one introduction can change your life.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, I want to just add one more. Everything you said just really, really great gems about finding mentors, but I want to add to it and say something that's a little bit more broad, but that could be helpful about Becoming more curious and flexible about who you consider to become a mentor, [00:46:00] who is like a viable mentor for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And by that I mean, we all might have a picture in mind of what a mentor looks like. sometimes if we are inflexible about that picture, we're expecting that person to look like us, to sound like us, to have the same exact values, same background, etc. It, that. Narrow picture makes it harder and harder for other people who might genuinely want to support you, to be there for you. so for me, one thing that I've done is aside from looking for mentors with shared experiences, shared backgrounds, shared identities, I also look for Mentors, you know, in similar and different industries, mentors who have shared values, for instance, that's a very, very big one for me. So we might not have the exact same identities, but we definitely have alignment there in terms of our values. And even not discounting, like you said, like the peer support, because for me, when I was lacking the most support in [00:47:00] terms of mentorship folks ahead of me. I definitely had an abundance of peer support, and that's actually what helped me get through grad school

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Totally.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: support, more so than the

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Same.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: mentorship from advisors and committee members.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: They helped, but really what kept me afloat were my peers.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: One thousand percent.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: yeah, I just wanted to add that. It's like just when you're picturing that person who might become your mentor, know, get a little bit more curious, get a little bit more flexible, and you know, Think outside of that box that you might have in your head of who that person is.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I like that a lot because I think we're all hoping for like the perfect mentor, but no one can be everything. So, I learned quick that I need to have different mentors for different things.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Mm hmm

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I need to have my research person, I need to have my fri even your friends for certain things, right? You have peers and colleagues for certain things.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Certain experiences that you know who you can go to and who you can't, certain questions you know who you, who you can go to and who you can't. To your point about being flexible, I think that there are a lot of people who mentor me that don't even know who I am because of [00:48:00] the nature of online. So anyone who's listening to this can consider you or me a mentor whether or not they have direct content with us, contact with us.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Because that's just kind of the pseudo social relationship that we, the parasocial relationship that, that can exist now because of online content. That redefining, like does a mentor, is a mentor just someone who meets with you every week, or is it anyone who can provide you the information that you need and also like speak life into you through things like a podcast or content?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Right, right. I want to be mindful of time. So, uh, we're gonna get close to wrapping up. My second to last question is whether or not you have any closing words of advice or closing words for our listeners. And if not, I would love for you to share more about what you have coming up about how folks can sign up to work with you or even just follow you and support your work.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Totally. Thank you. I think I just want to echo something that, that was already said in this conversation, just what I want folks to [00:49:00] stay with is people including yourself. People matter. People are going to help you. You should be helping people. And you can also become the mentor that You, the ideal mentor, which is sort of one of my aspirations.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So that's something I'd like people to take away from this is that people are going to take you where passion and where ideas never can. So aside from that ways to work with me, one of the exciting things that I have going on is starting on September 8th, we'll have the fall cohort of my 12 week grad app grind group program.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: This is designed for anyone applying to graduate programs in any discipline. So we're going to walk through week by week. We meet every Sunday for two hours and we'll walk week through week, week by week through the application process to applying to graduate school. The first hour I spend lecturing on a different topic related to the application process, such as the personal statement, the statement of purpose.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Usually I spent one hour, like that first hour on something. If they're smaller things, we bundle them in the second hour. It serves as co working. So you set a [00:50:00] goal with a system that I created for goal setting to tell us what you're going to work on during this time, you work on it. And then we check in.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So this is a program for people who know they're applying. They know they're competitive. They know they want to do this, but they need the guidance and they need accountability. They know that they need a community as you know, as we've talked about today, they need those peers. There's peer review built in.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: There's I review, you know, some of the statements and some of the graduation, graduate school components to the application. So it's a space for like, you know, you're going to do this, but you don't want to do it alone. You know that you're going to do this, but you want that like week by week support.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: There's a syllabus, there's deadlines, there's downloadable resources, there's templates. There's me, of course, and then there's the community and how folks can support each other. So that's starting on September 8th and I, you can sign up for it right up until the day of at gradlifegrind. com. You can also email me at gradlifegrind at gmail.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: com to hear more about it. You can email me at that email for kind of all the other things, such as like, if you want someone to review just your CV or your essay for grad school applications. And the best place to follow me is [00:51:00] on Instagram at gradlifegrind. I'm on the other platforms, but that's kind of my home base.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: So if you have a question, email or DM is the best way to reach me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Great. So please, please. Check the date. If it's before September 8th, don't wait. Check the show notes. Go to the link. And if you're interested, it out and sign up. So, I just want to thank you so much, Dr. Ariel, for coming on the show today, for sharing all your insights with us. I'm just glad that I just felt like I could help. I could just snap my fingers at everything you said because I 100 percent could relate, agree. Sometimes, you know, folks come in with a perspective that might be slightly different and I'll offer my insights and my perspective on things. Uh, and then sometimes folks come in and it's just like, it's almost like, variation of a mirror.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: Well, thank you so much.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: want to say it's an exact mirror because I know we are our own selves,

Dra. Aeriell Armas: No, I hear that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: yeah, definitely felt [00:52:00] like, oh yeah, I can, I can resonate. I can relate. I can agree with a lot of what you shared

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I'm super grateful for, for the opportunity to be on here to connect with you more. I know we've sort of like been in each other's same spaces and we've sort of supported each other on social media for a while, but I hope this won't be the first time we do this together. On this podcast, I have. So much that I would love to share with your audience.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: And I really appreciate it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I already have a follow up. I think in the past I wanted to have you on to talk about neurodivergence and ADHD.

Dra. Aeriell Armas: I would love to

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Okay, if y'all are listening and you want her back, you gotta DM us on gradlifegrind. Let us know

Dra. Aeriell Armas: let us know

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: people tell us they want a follow up, we'll get it

Dra. Aeriell Armas: for sure. Thank you so much.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thank you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thanks so much for joining me in the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. If you like what you heard, here are four ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you email me a screenshot, I'll send you a [00:53:00] surprise freebie. The second way is to get your copy of my free Grad School Femtoring Resource Kit.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: which includes essential information to prepare for and navigate grad school. You can access it at the link in today's show notes. The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at grad school, femtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The last way to show your love is to order a copy of is grad school for me. My graduate school admissions book for first gen BIPOCs. Thanks again for listening and until next time.