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UNDERGRADUATE OFFICE
Preparing for Graduate School: Degrees and Areas of Psychology
Degrees
A Doctorate (Ph.D.) is required for the independent practice of psychology and for college and university teaching jobs. A Master's degree (M.A., M.S., M.Ed., M.S.W.) can be suitable training for many industrial positions and for clinical or counseling positions in settings in which you are supervised by a psychologist with a Ph.D., or a psychiatrist (M.D.).
Psychology departments at most major universities only admit students who intend to get the Doctorate. The typical student will have a B.A. or B.S. in Psychology when admitted and may, or may not, earn a Master's degree en route to the Ph.D.. You do not need a Master's to be admitted to a Ph.D. program and you do not (usually) need to get a Master's before getting the Ph.D.. It typically takes at least four years to get a Ph.D. Ph.D.'s in clinical or counseling psychology will require an extra year of internship. The minimum time is three years; some students take up to eight years.
Some universities only have Master's programs that typically take two years to complete. While admission to a Master's program is much less competitive than admission to a Ph.D. program, career opportunities are more limited. You can get a Master's at one institution and then apply for admission to a Ph.D. program at another; however, graduate coursework does not transfer between universities so earning a Master's before going to a Ph.D. program will add to the time required for the Ph.D. Usually you would choose this route only if you are denied admission to Ph.D. programs at first, and need to prove competence in graduate coursework to apply later. Some universities that offer the Ph.D. will admit students into a Master's program and then use performance in that program as a screening device for admission to a Ph.D. program. And a few universities offer separate Master's and Doctorate tracks.
Area of Psychology
At the graduate level, you must decide on an area of specialization within psychology (e.g., clinical, counseling, social, biopsychology, industrial, cognitive, etc.) to list on your application to be reviewed by the faculty in that area. If chosen, you will be admitted into that particular area, and you usually cannot change to another area of that department. Use the "Index of Programs by Area of Study Offered" in Graduate Study to find departments that offer training in your area of interest. (See Information Resources below.) There is often more than one name for an area: biopsychology programs can be called biopsychology, psychobiology, physiological, etc., and a cognitive program might be called cognition, cognitive, human experimental, etc. Therefore think of synonyms for the area in which you are interested when you use this index. For advice on strong programs for your chosen area, you should ask UT faculty in that area to name the current top schools; you can review the current journals for that area and see where the published authors are working; and you can use the number of applications to number of available spaces ratio information in Graduate Study as an indicator - the best programs tend to attract the most applicants.
Clinical or Counseling?
The APA investigates and accredits programs in the areas of clinical, counseling, and school psychology, but not programs in the other areas of specialization. In these areas, you should try to get admitted to programs approved by the APA; it will affect your internship setting and enhance your employment possibilities.
What are the differences between clinical and counseling programs? There is a considerable amount of overlap between these programs, but there are differences in emphases. Clinical programs tend to have more of a research emphasis; counseling programs tend to emphasize the practice of psychology. Clinical programs tend to emphasize more severe, biologically-based disorders; counseling programs tend to emphasize adjustment or coping difficulties. These statements are generalizations and will not apply to every clinical and counseling program. If you are interested in an academic position, you should attend a clinical program. If you are interested in becoming a private practitioner of psychology, you should consider either a counseling program or a clinical program at a regional university. Major universities stress the research aspects of psychology. Clinical and counseling programs that offer the Psy.D. (Doctor of Psychology) degree have a strong practitioner orientation.
Many undergraduate students are interested in becoming practitioners of psychology and apply to doctoral programs in clinical and/or counseling psychology. Therefore, admission to these specialization areas is very competitive, and clinical programs tend to be more competitive than counseling programs. UT- Austin receives approximately 350 applications to the clinical program, admit approximately 10 students, and hope that 6-7 will matriculate. (The others will have received admission offers from other major institutions and will have decided to go elsewhere.) Programs in desirable locations (Boulder, the San Francisco Bay Area, etc.) and programs in large cities also tend to be more competitive.
What can you do if you are not admitted to a doctoral program in these areas or if you doubt that your application would be competitive? First of all, do not give up. Apply to programs at less well-known institutions. You may want to consider Master's programs; the M.A. degree in clinical or counseling psychology will allow you to function as a psychologist under the supervision of a licensed Ph.D. or M.D., or with some additional coursework will make you eligible for certification as a Licensed Professional Counselor (L.P.C.). You may also consider a Master's program with the goal of applying to a Ph.D. program: this route works best for students whose low undergraduate GPAs make admission to a doctoral program difficult or who are unable to obtain supportive letters of recommendation.
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