Best Clinical Psychology Programs

[Lindubitable]

Hey guys,

I'm new around here, and I am currently an undergraduate majoring in psychology. I was wondering what were the top clinical psychology programs? I've done some research, and I've seen the typical top school mentioned (eg. Yale, Harvard), but I have noticed that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pretty high on the rankings as well. I will be grateful if you can provide me any additional information. Also, if you know of any international programs, that would be great too. Thank you once again!

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[A Blue Duck]

If you are truly only interested in the creme de la creme, check out the U.S. News Rankings of Clinical Psychology programs. Although its methodology is questionable at best (essentially DCT ratings...) and people on here love to trash it (especially when their school is poorly ranked), the TOP programs aren't really in question....

UCLA, Wisconsin, Washington, and UNC (I wouldn't dare attempt to place them in any kind of discernible order) are widely considered the very top tier programs. Duke, Berkeley, and Minnesota all have historically strong programs as well. Of course, you have some of the Ivy's: Harvard, Yale, and Penn. There are others that are more than arguable for top 10 positions...

I don't know too much about international; however, I don't believe the clinical PhD is directly transferable to international degree types...

You will come to find out, though, that program reputation is less important (at least, it should be, if you want to be a successful candidate) when it comes to applying for graduate programs in clinical psychology. Rather than focusing at the program level, to which of course you should pay some attention to the model type, concentrate mostly on individual faculty and their research foci, as almost all programs adopt a mentor model.

 

[WisNeuro]

What Blue said. After you've made sure it's a quality program, that ranking means nothing. All depends on what your career goal is.

 

[irish80122]

In my opinion, while program is important, your mentor is far more important. If you are working with either someone who is very well known and respected in your field, or someone who is a rising star in that field, it will take you much farther than going to a top name program but not working with a top faculty member, or working with someone in a different field than you hope to be in in the future.

For example, I do suicide research. Although Yale, for instance, has a top program I would be hard pressed to advise any of my mentees not to go to Florida State to work with Joiner. Does it seem odd turning down Yale for Florida State, sure (though it shouldn't, FSU has a TOP NOTCH program). However, your mentor is extremely important, and undergraduate prestige is not overly correlated with quality of graduate training. In fact, I sometimes think that it may be a negative correlation.

For the record, I did not go to FSU or Yale, I just present it as an example.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

The top programs for clinical training (on average) will:

1. Be fully (or mostly) funded
2. Have a small cohort size

Why? Because these factors are associated with EPPP pass rates and accredited-internship match rates (our best indicators of clinical training).

The top programs for academic achievement will depend on how much your adviser publishes and how hard you work.

The name, after that, has little to do with anything.

 

[futureapppsy2]

The top programs for clinical training (on average) will:

1. Be fully (or mostly) funded
2. Have a small cohort size

Why? Because these factors are associated with EPPP pass rates and accredited-internship match rates (our best indicators of clinical training).

The top programs for academic achievement will depend on how much your adviser publishes and how hard you work.

The name, after that, has little to do with anything.

I'd also say that small cohorts lead to better mentorship opportunities and more personalized support and guidance, which I would think leads to generally more successful graduates because they get more individualized attention wrt to research and clinical opportunities. That's not to say that every faculty member will necessarily be a great advisor, but your chances of getting good, intensive mentorship and opportunities both clinically and research-wise go up if you have 5-10 people per cohort versus 40 or 50.

 

[deleted343839]

Program funding, small cohort sizes, and internship match rates are very important criteria. Beyond those, "fit" is more important than a program's ranking or prestige. If you do your homework you can sometimes find out where a given faculty advisor's students ended up after graduation, which might also give you a sense of whether your career goals are in line with the training offered.

 

[hereandnow]

Yes, yes, yes. Agree with all of the above.

Fit is way more import than rank, in terms of your future development as a psychologist, in my opinion.

Find a place that speaks to you. That is what will, ultimately, in my opinion, make you a better clinician and psychologist.

Good luck.

 

[Kb1234]

You should narrow or pick your schools based on faculty match. There are top clinical schools, but if your research interest doesn't match what any of the faculty is doing, you won't get in. Find faculty members who does the research you're interested in and then narrow from there based on placement match of their students, funding, etc.

The faculty members you work with in grad school is more prestigious than the name of the school you attended. Working with a renowned and famous researcher in your field who's a faculty in an institution that isn't in the top clinical psychology programs is better than going to an ivy league clinical program. It's more about who you worked with than what school you went to, unlike undergraduate school.

The Ph.D. programs are all accredited by the APA, so if they are APA accredited, their curriculum and everything else is pretty much the same since it's guided by the APA standards.