Most Underrated Ph.D. Programs

1. University of Kansas clinical program is a great environment. Never hear about it much nationally. Balanced, lots of opportunities, and a great little town thats dirt cheap to live in yet close to Kansas City.

2. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas-great town, unique med school environment, tons of opportunities for research and clinical work, built in predoc internship. Whats not to like?

3. University of Kentucky-great town, friendly and accomplished faculty, great opportunities for research and clinical work, 100% match rate over the past ten years.

4. Auburn University- very friendly (its Alabama after all), beautiful campus, warm faculty, clinically focused.

Just my 2 cents

What a great thread!! I wish I knew of some to add, but I do not. I'll just sit and observe. Kansas is a program you do never hear of, itneresting.

Jon

Kansas alumna here. I'm thrilled to see the KU love! There are some great programs at KU for sure. Rock Chalk!

UT Southwestern seems like a great program. Duirng internship application time, I was kicking myself for not going there. Having a built-in internship saves the students SO MUCH money and SO MUCH stress

According to this paper http://www.pgsp.edu/pdf_docs/StewartetalScholarlyProductivityCLINPSY2007.pdf , my program is THE most underrated (in the mean publication category on page 167). Of course, the ranking sources all have subjective criterion. So that aside, I think that most people are pretty shocked when they hear how well funded U of A is. Most of their incoming grad students get a $19,300 annual or $30,000 annual fellowship, along with full tuition remission. Additionally, they can teach for $3,000 extra per semester (a potential of $39,000 annually). The relatively low cost of living makes these amounts even more meaningful. It's a direct (1 to 1) mentoring model, & when I interviewed, I got the impression that the faculty were very, very interested in the well being & growth of their students, as well as personally invested in helping to propel them in their learning & careers. U of A has a high internship match rate & a reasonable average completion time. Fayetteville is a cool city of about 70k (not too big, not too small), & the University is highly involved in supporting, as well as influencing, the public schools in the area (important to me as a mom). My POI is working on a study that is federally funded & currently has a sample size of over 700. The faculty are also very supportive of their grad students branching off & doing their own research. Oh...& they have a great, on-site clinic with all of the amenities (including enough funding to buy almost any materials grad students want). First year students shadow in the clinic, & then by the 2nd year (2nd half of the 1st year, if you're exceptional), students are taking their own clients. Did I mention they have great funding? lol There is no application fee. (The psych dept pays the grad school these fees.) AND...at least when I went...they reimbursed all of the applicants for their airfare to come to the interviews, AND hooked them up with a free stay at the on-campus Inn, which was just 2 buildings down. Anyway...U of A is a gem!

This should be a great thread...back when I was looking there weren't any good resources that covered this kind of stuff. The Insider's Guide only gave a cursory review of programs.

My professor went to U of Kansas, and she's probably one of the smartest people I know.

Markp said:

I gotta admit, when I visited the program at K.U. for an interview I came away thoroughly impressed! The people there were great, the program looked fantastic from the outside looking in.

Mark

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i loved it too!

Psyched77 said:

According to this paper http://www.pgsp.edu/pdf_docs/StewartetalScholarlyProductivityCLINPSY2007.pdf , my program is THE most underrated (in the mean publication category on page 167).

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I love this article bc my future school (UNR) is one of the most underrated programs as well (I think #7). I sort of found UNR by accident as I was researching faculty with similar research interests. After learning more about the program and visiting, I am surprised that it is relatively unknown or doesn't generate more interest. They seem to be quite strong research-wise (and have some very productive faculty) and also seem to have great clinical training. Plus, everyone is so friendly and it seems relatively non-competitive. Yet, I think they only receive about 100 applications per year. Good for me, I guess, because it meant less competition! I'm not there yet, so perhaps I will have different opinions once I am, by right now I am very impressed.

Markp, I know you go to USUHS and I have to say that I think that it is very underrated as well. I was very impressed by the level of scholarship when I visited and personally know one of the faculty who is one of the most talented researchers (and nicest people) I know. Plus, the stipend is phenomenal compared to other places. Yet, whenever I told people that I was interviewing there they would say "USUHS? What's that?".

PsychappA said:

Markp, I know you go to USUHS and I have to say that I think that it is very underrated as well.

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Must agree there.

Andrew Waters is among my favorite researchers, and a book chapter he wrote inspired my thesis

I don't know if I'd describe our program as underrated. I know from the perspective of my lab, the program is very under-rated, but the program as a whole I'd say we're about where we should be.

erg923 said:

1. University of Kansas clinical program is a great environment. Never hear about it much nationally. Balanced, lots of opportunities, and a great little town thats dirt cheap to live in yet close to Kansas City.

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Jon4PsyD said:

What a great thread!! I wish I knew of some to add, but I do not. I'll just sit and observe. Kansas is a program you do never hear of, itneresting.

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I am not positive why people think U of Kansas Psychology is not getting the recognition is deserves (this may not be right), but, if it is the case, it may be due to the Applied Behavioral Science program (formerly the Department of Human Development and Family Life) which many people seem to think of as KU's psychology department. Although this KU department is not the Psychology department, its faculty are essentially all psychologists and the department is known as the center of the universe if one is a behavorist. Most well known psychology professors throughout the world who are behaviorists have done some to all of their training at KU. So due to this reputation of the Kansas behavioral program it may cause others to think that the KU Psychology department is also entirely behavioral in orientation and even get a negative reputation amongst all the psychodynamic and cognitive psychology oriented people. However, The KU behavioral department is not the Psychology department and is an entirely separate program. Yet, what is a psychology department supposed to do when another department at the school has more famous psychology professors and is more well known in research and applied psychology than the actual psychology department?

edieb said:

UT Southwestern seems like a great program. During internship application time, I was kicking myself for not going there. Having a built-in internship saves the students SO MUCH money and SO MUCH stress

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Agreed! UT Southwestern's captive internship was a very attractive characteristic of the program....I probably will be kicking myself come internship time (which isn't for four years, but still!)

top for this application season

*bump*

While we are winding down the application season for '09....I thought this may be helpful for people starting to look around for '10 options....

i would have to pick drexel

it is extremely competitive but not ranked especially high. i think they had almost 500 apps, 70 interviewees, for 7 spots or something?

although their funding isn't as good as many others, their resources were quite impressive. and they have a lot of new research going on as well as a great teaching cirriculum. i didn't think i was going to like it there as much as i did. also, they have some strong ties to the medical school.

and they won't let me in

I just visited the program at Idaho State University last week. I hadn't heard much about it before I applied, but after meeting some of the students and going for an interview I was VERY impressed. The faculty and students were great, and there is some really interesting research going on there. They have some type of funding for every student and awesome internship match rates. I would recommend checking this program out!

Of the places I interviewed, I really liked University of North Dakota and Eastern Michigan University. Both have good match rates, equal balance between clinical training and research, and extremely friendly faculty.

PsychappA said:

Markp, I know you go to USUHS and I have to say that I think that it is very underrated as well. I was very impressed by the level of scholarship when I visited and personally know one of the faculty who is one of the most talented researchers (and nicest people) I know. Plus, the stipend is phenomenal compared to other places. Yet, whenever I told people that I was interviewing there they would say "USUHS? What's that?".

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I totally agree with this statement - I would have given my left arm (I'm right handed! ) to go to USUHS. Medical people know it, but psychology people don't. UT Southwestern Medical at Dallas was my second favorite. Alas, my lack of research background and less than stellar GRE scores got me rejected. And, my undergrad GPA is low because I tried to be a nurse for 2 years (didn't work out so great). I even got rejected from professional schools because my undergrad GPA was too low for them. Never mind that I have an MSW (so I can clearly perform at the graduate level) with a 3.8 GPA and 10 years experience.

LMK said:

I totally agree with this statement - I would have given my left arm (I'm right handed! ) to go to USUHS. Medical people know it, but psychology people don't. UT Southwestern Medical at Dallas was my second favorite. Alas, my lack of research background and less than stellar GRE scores got me rejected. And, my undergrad GPA is low because I tried to be a nurse for 2 years (didn't work out so great). I even got rejected from professional schools because my undergrad GPA was too low for them. Never mind that I have an MSW (so I can clearly perform at the graduate level) with a 3.8 GPA and 10 years experience.

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I agree! I interviewed there this year and I loved it. The resources, faculty, & clinical training opportunities are phenomenal. I was sooo impressed. Now I'm waiting to hear their decision. It's amazing to me that school is not well known......Oh yes and the funding is awesome even for civilians (no tuition and 26k stipend).
I hope I get in....

The University of Tennessee seems to me to be quite underrated. For instance, they have had a match rate of 100% over the past six years (which includes this past year). They have also poured a tremendous amount of thought and work into the unique model which guides their program of training, the Tennessee Model. I encourage future applicants to read about this model both on their website and in published articles as I found it to be a much better fit for me than the Boulder Model alone. And, if you're interested in interpersonal relationships (including domestic violence, couples, sexual assault and trauma, etc.), you simply cannot find a better program as there are numerous (4+) faculty members at UT who are active researchers in this area. Unlike many of the other programs I visited, the entire faculty appear to be actively working to find new and interesting ways to collaborate with one another. Additionally, the students are encouraged to collaborate with individuals in other labs. There is a sense of community at UT unlike any other place I visited (and I visited a lot of programs, some highly rated and others similarly underrated) - a community and friendship among faculty members, among members of the same cohort, among lab mates, and even across labs. People at UT work really, really hard, but they're also happy.

Go Vols!