APA program accreditation deferred

[affectiveH3art]

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Hi everyone,
Today we received notice that APA is requesting additional information and clarification about the program and student and faculty relationships. Does anyone have any feedback on what this means in a practical sense? Has anyone had experience with this?

Thank you.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

means that the APA needs more info. Not necessarily bad news... not a fortuitous sign either. Its its the first time going through accreditation then missing something is not uncommon.

 

[psypsypsy]

It's not as unusual as people think. APA wants to get some more information because the previous information you supplied (written or at the visit) wasn't sufficient, whether because there were some discrepancies, or something wasn't collected, or who knows. As long as the faculty are responsive, then it usually works out.

 

[UnknownPsych]

To give you some anecdotal reassurance...my program was recently accredited and had the same thing happen. It's a new Ph.D. program that had a site visit a couple years ago and got some very positive feedback from the site visit team. Based on that we were expecting to receive accreditation, but the decision was deferred. It turned out that some of the things they wanted clarified were incredibly minor (tables mislabeled in the application, etc.). The program ended up gaining accreditation at the next COA meeting. Obviously I have no idea if the reason for your program's deferment was similarly nitpicky or for more substantive issues, but I wouldn't be overly worried at this point. I think if there were major problems the decision would have been rejection rather than deferment, but again I'm just speculating.

 

[bmedclinic]

Similar experience to unknown psych for my program while I was in grad school. The thing that the on site people from COA seemed most concerned with? WAS THE HISTORY OF PSYCH COURSE 3 HOURS OR 4???.

My take away is that if the visitors are concerned with that, as opposed to other things, I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[docma]

It is very common for APA CoA to request more information in minute detail as part of a decision. This is part of why accreditation can take a long time. Because they only meet twice a year for formal decisions there can be delays in the final outcome if the site visit is too close to one meeting, or the program/site needs time to gather data and so has a decision can be deferred until there is time for the input and deliberation before the next decision round.