Coming back to study for EPPP after time away.

[youngharold1984]

Hello fellow-SDNers, I graduated with my Ph.D. in school psychology over 5 years ago, and took some time away from the field to deal with personal matters. I now feel ready to get licensed and pursue a career in the mental health field. Given that I have been out of school for a good time, will be coming from a school psych. background, and have not been exactly involved in clinical services in the meantime, I am concerned in my preparation for the EPPP. Am I at a disadvantage already? And would preparing using exam prep materials be enough? Or should I seek out more clinical-psych heavy graduate school material to get a better basis, given that the exam seems to cater towards Clinical Psychology material? Trying to learn a whole new curriculum seems daunting, but part of me feels it might better my chances. Thanks for any thoughts you may have!

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[AbnormalPsych]

What is the EPPP pass rate of your grad program? That would give us a good baseline of your education/training prior to the leave.

 

[WisNeuro]

What is the EPPP pass rate of your grad program? That would give us a good baseline of your education/training prior to the leave.

I think licensing boards are going to have more of an issue with not having any clinical experience for more than 5 years, and no unsupervised experience at all given that time frame.

 

[ClinicalABA]

I was in a similar situation- took EPPP about 7-8 years after graduating. I worked in a clinical psych adjacent field, but nothing that would help on the EPPP (not sure any work experience would really help, outside of stats related stuff). For the the 3-4 weeks prior to the exam, I hunkered down with some prep materials, studied, and took practice exams until I could reliably score at 90%. Passed the exam and then forget most of what I studied before I reached my car in the exam center parking lot. I'm a pretty good test taker and and pretty good with rememberin' useless facts and formulas stuff when I need to. If you're not, it make take more than a few weeks studying. Aim to be able to pass 2-3 practice exams at 90% in the 4-5 days before the exam.

 

[youngharold1984]

I think licensing boards are going to have more of an issue with not having any clinical experience for more than 5 years, and no unsupervised experience at all given that time frame.

I live in a state that does not require post doctoral hours in order to sit for the exam. Pass rate from my program is around 95% I think, though I am just a worrier in general.

 

[SchoolPsycho]

I think your step 1 is to take a practice exam and see where you are at. That's a nice, actionable first step. Then hunker down and study hard until you get to the results ClinicalABA mentioned.

 

[youngharold1984]

I think your step 1 is to take a practice exam and see where you are at. That's a nice, actionable first step. Then hunker down and study hard until you get to the results ClinicalABA mentioned.

Are you a school psychologist? Did you just use exam prep materials?

 

[SchoolPsycho]

Are you a school psychologist? Did you just use exam prep materials?

Yes I am a school psychologist. I started with hand me down old exams that circulated informally through my program. My post doc got me a subscription to Academic Review and I hit that hard.

With the time away, I'd go with Academic Review or one of its competitors so you have a nice structured approach to what you study. I did one practice test to see which domains I needed to focus on, then did flash cards + domain quizzes from there.