Can I take Grad School Classes Before Being Enrolled in a Program?

[Girlie87]

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I am a rising senior undergraduate student planning to research full time for a year after I graduate in May. Then I plan on going to a Clinical Psychology PhD program. I am afraid I will digress too far away from the academic realm if I am away from school for at least a year
...(More like all of my relatives are afraid that if I start working I won't go back to school). Would it be possible for me to take a graduate course during my "time off" from school? If so, how would I go about doing that? What is the application/registration process like if you are not already admitted into that program? If it is possible, is it a good idea? Thank you very much!

 

[myelin]

I am a rising senior undergraduate student planning to research full time for a year after I graduate in May. Then I plan on going to a Clinical Psychology PhD program. I am afraid I will digress too far away from the academic realm if I am away from school for at least a year
...(More like all of my relatives are afraid that if I start working I won't go back to school). Would it be possible for me to take a graduate course during my "time off" from school? If so, how would I go about doing that? What is the application/registration process like if you are not already admitted into that program? If it is possible, is it a good idea? Thank you very much!

Depending on the school, you can enroll as "non-degree seeking" so that you can take classes while not being enrolled in the PhD program. You will need to contact the psychology department to see what their policy is on this. From my experience, I had to contact each professor of each course I wanted to take to obtain permission. I was also restricted to taking a total of 12 credit hours as a non-degree seeking student.

It's a great idea if you do well in the courses. It helps your application by showing that you can do graduate-level coursework, so make sure to do your best if you go this route.

 

[Ollie123]

Definitely possible, but as myelin said, it depends on the school how you will have to go about this. Fair warning that chances of it transferring are not so good.

An additional thing to consider is a friend I know actually took a class being taught by the person she was doing research with. It was informal, he just kind of let her sit in and do the work. Downside is she didn't get a formal grade (just an off-the-record one). Upside is that she didn't have to pay for it.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I've seen it at the MS level, but not at the doc. level.....though it is worth a shot.

 

[clinpsychjack]

I work as an RA for a university, and through them we get full tuition remission for any state school, and tuition reimbursment for Hopkins courses. I thought the application process to enroll as a non-degree seeking student was fairly straightforward, even though I was enrolling in a graduate public policy course and my undergrad degree is in psychology.

I had no problem getting permission to take the course from the professor, but the graduate admission secretary was a bit more difficult to deal with. It turned out the my application was accepted fairly quickly, and with permission from the instructor, I was in. (Note: it looks very good if you get an A in these kinds of courses, which I did fortunately, and fairly bad if you don't---so make sure you choose a course that's interesting to you and not too far beyond your knowledge-base!)

As mentioned above, I also know labmates in undergrad who took grad courses with our mentor while they were still undergraduates. I know at least one person got an "A" in the course, and received graduate credit for it. Also, as an honor's student, we had the option of either taking honors seminars or a few select graduate courses to fulfill the requirements of the honors program. I think if you have good connections within the department and have done well, then you shouldn't run into any major problems going this route.