Might not finish my dissertation - options?

[MahoDonko]

Hello all,

Well, I am coming up on 7 years in my PsyD program -- I've completed all my academic work and finished the pre-doc internship, but I may not finish my dissertation by the deadline. It's been a hard and gut-wrenching realization. Any ideas about what paths I can pursue if I am unable to finish? Is it possible to transfer and finish at another program? If anyone has experienced or witnessed a similar situation as mine, please let me know.

If you can't tell, I have not had good support in my program, and I have found them entirely dismissive and unwilling to engage in exploring any creative possibilities.

Thanks in advance.

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[WisNeuro]

If you transferred to another program, you'd still have to meet their minimum credit requirement for a degree, which is usually a sizable amount of credits. Also, I personally have never seen an ABD transfer. It's almost always transferring after the master's component, or coming to a new program along with a faculty hire.

As for other jobs, I imagine you could be a psychometrist.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Hello all,

Well, I am coming up on 7 years in my PsyD program -- I've completed all my academic work and finished the pre-doc internship, but I may not finish my dissertation by the deadline. It's been a hard and gut-wrenching realization. Any ideas about what paths I can pursue if I am unable to finish? Is it possible to transfer and finish at another program? If anyone has experienced or witnessed a similar situation as mine, please let me know.

If you can't tell, I have not had good support in my program, and I have found them entirely dismissive and unwilling to engage in exploring any creative possibilities.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry you are coming up against this. What caused the difficulties with completion—data collection problems, unresponsive advisor, personal/medical issues, etc? Also, when is the deadline? Seven years seems like a very short cut-off for a doctoral program designed to be completed in 5–most I’ve seen have an 8-10 year cutoff.

Transferring to another program at this point is pretty much impossible without starting over.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

That's a rough spot to be in; I'm sorry to hear you're going through it. My first recommendation would be to try to exhaust every option available at your current program, if there are any left to pursue. On rare occasion, I've heard of folks having the deadline extended, particularly if there are contributing circumstances.

Transferring/re-applying is an option, but I imagine this is something you'd need to discuss with prospective programs, so you'd want to plan through how you're going to frame it. That would include discussing reasons why it would not be an issue at a future program. I also am not sure how much time all of your coursework and experience would actually save you. APA programs have a minimum number of credit hours you need to complete "in residence" to earn a degree, and each university may also have their own requirements in that regard. You'd almost certainly be more prepared than the typical incoming applicant in terms of knowing what to expect, and as far as your level of clinical skill development, but you still might spend about the same length of time in the new program as you would if you'd gone in straight from undergrad or a masters program.

There's the option of going the licensable masters route instead, which would of course be shorter than a new doctoral program. You could likely find work as a psychometrist, although I don't know whether that's something you would want as your career. You could potentially also find work in a research lab (someone I went to grad school with actually left partway through the program to go this route after deciding they didn't need a Ph.D. to do what they wanted to do).

That's what I can think up at the moment.

 

[WisNeuro]

Sorry you are coming up against this. What caused the difficulties with completion—data collection problems, unresponsive advisor, personal/medical issues, etc? Also, when is the deadline? Seven years seems like a very short cut-off for a doctoral program designed to be completed in 5–most I’ve seen have an 8-10 year cutoff.

Transferring to another program at this point is pretty much impossible without starting over.

Our PhD program was 8, which included internship, though you could appeal for an extension, though I never saw it happen. The University itself had a pretty hard cutoff of 10 years.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Our PhD program was 8, which included internship, though you could appeal for an extension, though I never saw it happen. The University itself had a pretty hard cutoff of 10 years.

Just to add--I think ours was 7, set by the university, but I'd have to double-check. I know of one person who got an extension.

 

[Ollie123]

Agree with the above, difficult to respond without knowing the cause. Any new program is likely to require you largely start over, or at least redo a substantial portion of the work. If you have specific reasons outside your control that interfered with completion (e.g., major illness), most proper universities will have a person you can appeal to but this may not exist at the shadier freestanding professional schools - or will just be another faculty member vs an independent office. I'd appeal up the ladder as far as needed if something outside your control - you'll likely find a sympathetic ear. If this was more "I was busy and my committee has high expectations" it isn't likely to get you anywhere though.

Basically, more information needed.

 

[ClinicalABA]

A few questions:
1) What support are you looking for from your program to help you complete the dissertation? If committee members/readers are not responding to you or giving you the feedback you need, kick your concerns up a notch (or switch committees). Are you talking about financial supports or laboratory resources? If so, is there some type of program manual or guidelines stipulating that you should receive such supports.
2) Is it an empirical dissertation (e.g., and experiment)? If so, is it quantitative or qualitative?
3) Can you alter the parameters of the dissertation to make it more feasible to complete in the allotted timeframe (e.g., reduce N; leave out some analyses; switch to a more accessible population, etc.) and still have it be acceptable to your committee? While you may want a perfect study with publishable results, the primary goal of the dissertation is to finish the dissertation- anything else is a bonus. I don't want to make assumption, but the fact that you say you are in a Psyd program and not getting a lot of support makes me think that an academic career that builds on your dissertation's line of research is not goal here.
3) Do you have to continue to pay a large tuition amount for semesters spent working on your dissertation? If yes and the program is actively or passively getting in the way of you completing the project, then that's kind of a scam.

 

[clausewitz2]

Our PhD program was 8, which included internship, though you could appeal for an extension, though I never saw it happen. The University itself had a pretty hard cutoff of 10 years.

I didn't realize the PhD stage was so long for y'all. Back when I did my (non-clinical) PhD it was get done in 5 years or get disappeared.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I didn't realize the PhD stage was so long for y'all. Back when I did my (non-clinical) PhD it was get done in 5 years or get disappeared.

I'd have to look at the numbers again, but I believe the typical clinical/counseling psych PhD duration is 6 years, not counting fellowship/postgrad reqs (i.e., 5 years grad school + 1 year internship). Most, but not all, states then require an additional year (or equivalent) of supervised practice.

I'm not actually sure how we stack up relative to other PhD disciplines on average. Anecdotally, I know that with my other non-psych friends in grad school, 5-6 years seemed to be the norm, but they had the same cap on duration as us.

 

[WisNeuro]

I didn't realize the PhD stage was so long for y'all. Back when I did my (non-clinical) PhD it was get done in 5 years or get disappeared.

Those are just the upper limits, generally only the hardcore researchers took longer to beef up their CVs. I only knew one person who did not do the 5+1 model while I was in grad school.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Those are just the upper limits, generally only the hardcore researchers took longer to beef up their CVs. I only knew one person who did not do the 5+1 model while I was in grad school.

I think it was more common for people to have to take an extra year during the hight of internship imbalance due to either taking an extra year to build competitiveness (especially if interested in AMCs or higher tier VAs) or having to take an extra year due to not matching on one’s first try. IME, 5+1 is definitely the most common, especially these days, but a decent chunk still do 6+1.

@clausewitz2 , having to do a year of full-time internship/residency before graduating definitely adds time to the degree, though history and English still have us beat by several years!

 

[ClinicalABA]

I didn't realize the PhD stage was so long for y'all. Back when I did my (non-clinical) PhD it was get done in 5 years or get disappeared.

In my clinical PhD program, 4+1 was the norm, with 5+1 not unusual. Guess we were just smarter back in the day

 

[R. Matey]

There's the option of going the licensable masters route instead, which would of course be shorter than a new doctoral program. You could likely find work as a psychometrist, although I don't know whether that's something you would want as your career. You could potentially also find work in a research lab (someone I went to grad school with actually left partway through the program to go this route after deciding they didn't need a Ph.D. to do what they wanted to do).

The only person I knew who didn't finish their Psy.D. due to advisor issues ended up getting an LPC and makes pretty decent money working in a prison. CACREP hasn't quite locked down the LPC-route yet so, in some states, students in this situation can take advantage if they have the appropriate coursework.

 

[R. Matey]

In my clinical PhD program, 4+1 was the norm, with 5+1 not unusual. Guess we were just smarter back in the day

This was similar to my clinically balanced counseling program though 4+1 was only possible if you already had a master's in counseling with all of the relevant coursework completed.

 

[quickpsych]

A few questions:
1) What support are you looking for from your program to help you complete the dissertation? If committee members/readers are not responding to you or giving you the feedback you need, kick your concerns up a notch (or switch committees). Are you talking about financial supports or laboratory resources? If so, is there some type of program manual or guidelines stipulating that you should receive such supports.
2) Is it an empirical dissertation (e.g., and experiment)? If so, is it quantitative or qualitative?
3) Can you alter the parameters of the dissertation to make it more feasible to complete in the allotted timeframe (e.g., reduce N; leave out some analyses; switch to a more accessible population, etc.) and still have it be acceptable to your committee? While you may want a perfect study with publishable results, the primary goal of the dissertation is to finish the dissertation- anything else is a bonus. I don't want to make assumption, but the fact that you say you are in a Psyd program and not getting a lot of support makes me think that an academic career that builds on your dissertation's line of research is not goal here.
3) Do you have to continue to pay a large tuition amount for semesters spent working on your dissertation? If yes and the program is actively or passively getting in the way of you completing the project, then that's kind of a scam.

^^ These are great questions. Well said @ClinicalABA .

Hello all,

Well, I am coming up on 7 years in my PsyD program -- I've completed all my academic work and finished the pre-doc internship, but I may not finish my dissertation by the deadline. It's been a hard and gut-wrenching realization. Any ideas about what paths I can pursue if I am unable to finish? Is it possible to transfer and finish at another program? If anyone has experienced or witnessed a similar situation as mine, please let me know.

If you can't tell, I have not had good support in my program, and I have found them entirely dismissive and unwilling to engage in exploring any creative possibilities.

Thanks in advance.

You need to talk to your university ASAP if you already spoke with your program head with no resolution or clear plan to completion. There should be some form of chain of command/protocol/appeal process to initiate if you've tried repeatedly to work with your dissertation chair and committee with no support or feedback. All legitimate programs have protocols in place for these situations , up to and including replacing dissertation chairs.

My PsyD program was ON me (and anyone else) years before coming up on this deadline. Hell, in year 6 (internship year) was finishing up my dissertation , my program was on me to make sure we got it done by end of calendar year: whatever we needed, support, consult with other professors, graduate assistants chipping in, equipment, etc. Granted we were kept on a strict and regimented schedule but they caught anyone behind sooner rather than later to get the ship to port so to speak. The support should be a given.

I'm going to be honest, and barring more information, this sounds like a for profit stand alone program or online program. Not judging just a hunch. Nothing personal. As others said 7 years is low (some will have 7-8 if you started in YII vs Y1), the cutoff is usually at least 8-10 years, sometimes more with extenuating circumstances. And support would be far better.

You need to review your university policies and procedures and look to speak with the appropriate department or office to help mediate and get this thing extended and finished.