An open letter to those interested in the Baylor University Clinical Psychology PsyD program

[Healing4545]

Dear hopeful applicant to Baylor University's Clinical Psychology PsyD program,

I wish you the best of luck in all of your application endeavors. As someone who made their way through Baylor's PsyD program, I would like to offer what I hope to be some helpful information to guide your decision making. There are many benefits to the program, as I'm sure you already know. Namely, fully-funded PsyD programs are quite rare and hard to find. Baylor's financial benefits are certainly top-notch. The clinical experience you could receive from this program are also quite good. You are able to begin (highly supervised) clinical practice almost immediately upon beginning the program so that by the time you finish you already have 4-5 years of clinical practice accomplished. The classes are rigorous and challenging, expectations are high for success, and, if you can tolerate living in small-town Texas for half a decade, then your opportunities to be a big fish in a small pond are very good.

While all of these options are great, I would want any applicant to go into this program with a full awareness of what the program is like. When you go in for your interview, ask about the students who have died while in the program. Several students have passed away through the years from suicide and/or complications with mental illness while in this program. The mentorship and faculty in the PsyD program are highly variable. I had close relationships with faculty members throughout my many years there. Some were very edifying while other relationships engendered a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I've been out of the program for several years at this point and am still receiving treatment for the clinically-devastating effects the Baylor PsyD program had on my mental health and overall emotional wellbeing. The faculty is ultimately there to guide your progress, and, of the ten or so faculty members who I interacted with regularly, I would guess that maybe two served in an actual mentorship role. Meaning, true mentorship in this program is hard to find. Ultimately, the faculty will only help you insofar as they are helping themselves. Being that the program is located in Waco, TX, the atmosphere of the program can feel claustrophobic at times. You will become extremely close to the members of your cohort as there will likely only be 4-7 of you; however, this small size can be a double-edged sword. If something occurs that splits a member of this group from the rest it can be very difficult for individuals to find another group of friends. Further, because the program prohibits extra employment or vacation time while you're in the program (you'd be hard-pressed to find time, tbh), you end up going to class and working with the same small group of people for years. Again, can be wonderful if the group is wonderful. Could be stressful and difficult if otherwise. I witnessed both outcomes through my years there.

Baylor's PsyD program appears to have outstanding EPPP and internship numbers but note that these numbers are derived without the outliers. Meaning, several students will leave the program either voluntarily or involuntarily, and the statistics don't reflect such occurrences. I wish I had known, going into the program, how brutal the program would be on my wellbeing, my mental health, my financial state, my education, and my self-esteem. I don't regret the clinical opportunities I received; however, the PTSD I still suffer from as a result of going through the program has been significantly impactful on my career in a negative way.

If anyone has any specific questions about the program or other Baylor-related items I'm glad to talk with you about the pros and cons anytime. Best of luck to you!

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[WisNeuro]

Dear hopeful applicant to Baylor University's Clinical Psychology PsyD program,

I wish you the best of luck in all of your application endeavors. As someone who made their way through Baylor's PsyD program, I would like to offer what I hope to be some helpful information to guide your decision making. There are many benefits to the program, as I'm sure you already know. Namely, fully-funded PsyD programs are quite rare and hard to find. Baylor's financial benefits are certainly top-notch. The clinical experience you could receive from this program are also quite good. You are able to begin (highly supervised) clinical practice almost immediately upon beginning the program so that by the time you finish you already have 4-5 years of clinical practice accomplished. The classes are rigorous and challenging, expectations are high for success, and, if you can tolerate living in small-town Texas for half a decade, then your opportunities to be a big fish in a small pond are very good.

While all of these options are great, I would want any applicant to go into this program with a full awareness of what the program is like. When you go in for your interview, ask about the students who have died while in the program. Several students have passed away through the years from suicide and/or complications with mental illness while in this program. The mentorship and faculty in the PsyD program are highly variable. I had close relationships with faculty members throughout my many years there. Some were very edifying while other relationships engendered a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I've been out of the program for several years at this point and am still receiving treatment for the clinically-devastating effects the Baylor PsyD program had on my mental health and overall emotional wellbeing. The faculty is ultimately there to guide your progress, and, of the ten or so faculty members who I interacted with regularly, I would guess that maybe two served in an actual mentorship role. Meaning, true mentorship in this program is hard to find. Ultimately, the faculty will only help you insofar as they are helping themselves. Being that the program is located in Waco, TX, the atmosphere of the program can feel claustrophobic at times. You will become extremely close to the members of your cohort as there will likely only be 4-7 of you; however, this small size can be a double-edged sword. If something occurs that splits a member of this group from the rest it can be very difficult for individuals to find another group of friends. Further, because the program prohibits extra employment or vacation time while you're in the program (you'd be hard-pressed to find time, tbh), you end up going to class and working with the same small group of people for years. Again, can be wonderful if the group is wonderful. Could be stressful and difficult if otherwise. I witnessed both outcomes through my years there.

Baylor's PsyD program appears to have outstanding EPPP and internship numbers but note that these numbers are derived without the outliers. Meaning, several students will leave the program either voluntarily or involuntarily, and the statistics don't reflect such occurrences. I wish I had known, going into the program, how brutal the program would be on my wellbeing, my mental health, my financial state, my education, and my self-esteem. I don't regret the clinical opportunities I received; however, the PTSD I still suffer from as a result of going through the program has been significantly impactful on my career in a negative way.

If anyone has any specific questions about the program or other Baylor-related items I'm glad to talk with you about the pros and cons anytime. Best of luck to you!

As a point of reference, every program shows their statistics this way. Additionally, in the past decade, it looks like that they have had 3 students disenrolled for any reason. That's not really different than any program over a decade time span.

 

[Sanman]

Honestly, if you removed the the name of the program from the title, much of this post would likely be true for most any funded doctoral program in clinical psychology. I'm not sure what mental health issues you are struggling with, but unless I missed something I don't know of any way that a doctoral program would expose students to criterion A of a PTSD diagnosis.

 

[Ollie123]

Honestly, if you removed the the name of the program from the title, much of this post would likely be true for most any funded doctoral program in clinical psychology. I'm not sure what mental health issues you are struggling with, but unless I missed something I don't know of any way that a doctoral program would expose students to criterion A of a PTSD diagnosis.

RE: the bolded, google "Dartmouth Psychology Lawsuit" and read up.

That said, generally agree with what you said and doesn't sound like what went on here was anything like that.

 

[WisNeuro]

RE: the bolded, google "Dartmouth Psychology Lawsuit" and read up.

That said, generally agree with what you said and doesn't sound like what went on here was anything like that.

Yikes, I hadn't heard about the Dartmouth thing. Now that sounds like it would meet criterion A. But if things are just a contentious relationship with a PI/faculty member, not so much.

 

[PsyDr]

a. One of the biggest disappointments in my career, was accepting how catty psychologists are. Middle school level group dynamics seem present until after retirement.

b. Hooking up with people in your program is a time honored mistake. It's how the TAT was created.

c. Being mildly assaulted by the SMI is pretty standard. If you talk about how you feel about being slapped, it makes it worse.

 

[Sanman]

RE: the bolded, google "Dartmouth Psychology Lawsuit" and read up.

That said, generally agree with what you said and doesn't sound like what went on here was anything like that.

I didn't know about the Dartmouth thing either. Professors behaving badly is nothing new though. That said, it is not what I would call standard operating procedure. Something like that is different from the general "trauma" of being a grad student. I have been on the receiving end of poor behavior from supervisors and while it certainly causes emotional turmoil, I don't necessarily classify it as trauma. That said, we all know that poor behavior is not isolated to one program or clinical site. People are people. Some will behave badly. That is a part of life.

 

[WisNeuro]

I didn't know about the Dartmouth thing either. Professors behaving badly is nothing new though. That said, it is not what I would call standard operating procedure. Something like that is different from the general "trauma" of being a grad student. I have been on the receiving end of poor behavior from supervisors and while it certainly causes emotional turmoil, I don't necessarily classify it as trauma. That said, we all know that poor behavior is not isolated to one program or clinical site. People are people. Some will behave badly. That is a part of life.

Well, these days, any and everything is trauma. And the only cure is EMDR.

 

[Shiori]

OP, I hope you are doing okay. For the record, it has been helpful to me as I apply to different places to have a sense of what difficult questions to ask. I have interviewed at two sites that had received a lot of bad press around the time I was applying. I was given frank answers about shortcomings when I was able to be specific about my concerns. I received the position both times, so they were not scared off by my questions. I also accepted the position with my eyes open to potential issues. Some solvable. Some baked in.

During all the times I have been on the other side, I have given honest feedback about specific mentors. I would be open about which kinds of students succeed and who leaves that mentor or the program altogether. It may feel very different to choose to work with someone known to be challenging (or frankly horrible) rather than walk into it unaware. I have had people decide to work with the person and others decide it was not a good fit. I was just one data point at the end of the day.

 

[cara susanna]

Just want to say that I appreciate the Criterion A gatekeeping happening in this thread. You all know I have VERY strong feelings about the word "trauma."