program information

Including the incoming class, we have 36 graduate students. 64% of the students are female. We believe that the richness of a graduate program depends greatly on the variety of experiences of its students and faculty. Accordingly, our program currently includes students from Korean, Latino, African American and Indian backgrounds, and those of gay, as well as straight, sexual orientations. Applications from students of diverse backgrounds are encouraged and carefully considered. Over the years, our students have included one who descends from a family of Italian counts, and one born among the Bush-Meko tribal people of New Guinea. Another worked as a Congressional Fellow on the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations and as an elementary school teacher in a low-income neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles as part of the Teach for America program (this student maintains contact with her former students with annual visits). One earned money as a bartender and brewer, and did several stints as a commercial fisherman on an Alaskan fishing boat. One has spent summers working on a cruise ship and living among the native tribes in the Amazon jungle. One worked in Canada as a "Lordco girl," delivering car parts to mechanics; one worked at a farmer's market; and one female student served as a Naval aircraft electrician. At her undergraduate institution, another started and obtained funding for a student art group that traveled to museums across the country. We also have a student who teaches swim lessons to children, one who's a black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu and cuts and polishes gemstones as a hobby, and one who practices Bikram yoga. We have another student who plays five instruments and works as a "Cat Socializer" for the Austin Humane Society. Clearly, our current and recent students bring a broad and varied range of prior life experiences to their graduate studies.

Because of the close supervision given to each student, we aim for a class of approximately five students from among the 250-350 applicants in any academic year. Considerable attention is given to upper-division coursework, letters of recommendation, and the applicant's personal statement. Around a third of admitted students have a prior MA or MS degree. A strong interest in research and demonstration of an aptitude or potential for research are the major criteria for admission. Students will be accepted for full-time doctoral training only. The typical course of study is six years; this includes the year of pre-doctoral internship training.

For specific information on admissions procedures, please take a look at the Psychology Department's application instructions. For a more general sense for the overall experience of applying to a clinical psychology program, you may find the following website useful (put together by Auburn University): "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Becoming A Clinical Psychologist".

Program Statistics: For specific information on applicants to our program, incoming class data, internship data, and graduation outcomes, please see Program Statistics. This link provides relevant "Full Disclosure Data" for our program.

The program embraces a mentorship training model, with faculty members selecting from among the applicant pool students with congruent research interests to admit to the program. Thus a student's personal statement should indicate his or her research interests and training, as well as his or her choice(s) of the faculty mentor with whom they are most interested in working.

This mentor admissions system does not mean that each faculty member will admit one student each year. Some faculty may wish to admit more than one student. Faculty who are currently supervising a large number of students may not admit any. Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact prospective mentors to learn whether or not that faculty member plans to accept new students for the coming year.

The clinical faculty and their research interests are listed in the faculty section of our website.

In early Spring 2006, the University held opening ceremonies for its new IRC, with one of our psychology department faculty members, Dr. Michael Domjan, as director. The IRC, made possible by a $4.6 million grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is housed in a spacious 8,500 sq. ft. facility and is equipped with a 3.0 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner. IRC goals include

This center provides a rich training opportunity for our students, and we anticipate the development of many exciting research avenues. The department offers a neuroimaging track, which is open to clinical students.

It is our expectation that all students who are admitted will complete the clinical program. Attrition fluctuates since many unforeseen factors are involved in a student's decision to leave the program. Over the past ten years (2001-2011), seven of the 55 admitted students have left the program (12.7%). Of these, four left the program after their first year to pursue degrees in other areas, and three left after obtaining a Master's degree.

The program is fully accredited by the American Psychological Association (202-336-5979) for training in clinical psychology.

The Department of Psychology is able to provide graduate students with three types of financial support--research assistantships, teaching assistantships/assistant instructorships, and fellowships. It is the general policy of the department to provide all graduate students in good standing with some form of support during the academic year (fall and spring semesters) for the first four years of their graduate training. In practice, we have provided support for nearly all clinical students who requested such funding throughout their tenure here. Students who receive support must satisfy the departmental and Graduate School requirements for the type of support they receive. The requirements for most types of support include full-time registration (nine hours during the academic year) and no more than one incomplete grade from a previous semester. There is a limit of 14 long-session semesters of appointment as a teaching or research assistant.

Students employed for 20 hours per week are also eligible for premium sharing (the state and University’s contribution to insurance premiums) which completely offsets the cost of health insurance for TAs, RAs, and AIs. Students who work as TAs or AIs for 20 hours or more per week for a full spring semester are extended medical coverage during the following summer at no cost and regardless of whether they are employed by the University. TAs and AIs also receive tuition assistance that is indexed to the number of hours of their appointment. Current award amounts for 20-hour appointments are $3,784 for each long session and $1,415 for each summer session. (Additional information regarding TA/AI tuition assistance is available here: http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/employment/tuition/ ).

Almost all new students who do not have fellowship or RA support receive an offer of TA support at the time of their acceptance to the program. Continuing students apply for fall semester TA support in the preceding June. All students apply for spring semester TA support in October. Students may request a particular course or instructor when they apply for TA support. The list of prospective TAs is circulated to the faculty, who are then given an opportunity to indicate their TA preferences.

Faculty members who have research grants often hire graduate students to work as research assistants (RAs) on their funded projects. The faculty members with grant support will select students for these appointments. RA appointments are either 10 or 20 hours per week. Most students with a 10 hour per week RA appointment also receive a 10 hour per week TA appointment. Currently, all pre-internship clinical students who have requested RA or TA support are receiving such support.

The Department of Psychology attempts to provide each graduate student who wants to have direct classroom teaching responsibility an opportunity to teach at least once as an AI. Clinical students usually teach Introductory Psychology or undergraduate Statistics and Research Design. AIs are generally fourth- or fifth-year graduate students. They must have taken the teaching course (398T) and have been a TA for the course that they plan to teach. The teaching course is offered during the school year and in the summer in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Educational Psychology.

An additional source of aid is provided by University Fellowships and other competitive fellowships and scholarships. The department recommends potential fellowship recipients to the Graduate School. Only a few such awards are available. The department also encourages students to apply for extramural fellowships and scholarships. Please see the Clinical Student Handbook for more information about the specific types of awards available.Additional information on financial assistance is available through the Office of Student Financial Services. The application for financial aid may require extensive processing and should be explored early, prior to official acceptance as a graduate student.

To receive a doctoral degree from the clinical area, students must: 1) complete four academic years of graduate study, 2) defend a dissertation successfully, and 3) complete a one-year internship.

Required department courses include two statistics courses and four core courses with at least one core course from each of three major content areas in psychology: Behavioral Neurosciences; Cognition and Perception; and Personality, Social, Developmental, Individual Differences, and Psychopathology.

Area coursework is designed to meet APA requirements and expose students to research, clinical, practice, and professional issues. Required area courses include Research Methods in Clinical Psychology, Clinical Area Seminar, Theory and Techniques of Assessment, the Assessment Practicum, Advanced Behavior Pathology, Empirical Foundations of Behavior Therapy, Diversity Issues in Research and Practice, and History of Psychology. In addition, students take the year-long in-house practicum during their second year and must take an additional three semesters of practicum.

Please reference the Clinical Student Handbook for more detailed information about coursework in the clinical program.