I will be at a conference in a southern city in a couple of weeks, and since I had interest in the clinical psychology PhD program at a major university in that city I decided to contact the program to see if I would be able to meet a student from their program who could tell me details about the program that are not found online.  I did not know how to go about this and whom to contact, but a friend who is in (non-psychology) grad school suggested that I contact the program head.  So I did, I contacted the department head who immediately responded, however she quizzed me about the program’s Student Handbook and said that it is expected that I read it thoroughly before meeting anyone in the program.  I had skimmed some of the Handbook; however I did not read all 70 pages of it thoroughly.

Through this experience I learned that most grad programs have a “Student’s Handbook” that explains the program thoroughly at-length, and that many programs expect you to have read it and to know it well when they are contacted.  I have found that these handbooks are sometimes not so visible on the program’s websites; however they can be more easily located through a Google search.