Congratulations to all of the prospective students on this thread who are deciding between programs. I am a current student in the PsyD program (currently a 5th year student on internship now) and would be happy to answer any questions people have about the program. I will try to reply to some of the points made previously on this thread.
Thisisaname and Jt676-
Both of you posted requesting additional information about the program and specifically stated that cost isn’t an area of concern for you. I won’t address the cost concerns brought up previously in this thread since that wasn’t what you asked about, but am happy to PM further about those if you have questions.
As I said above, I am currently on internship and am graduating from the consortium in June 2014. I have had a wonderful experience in the program so far and am very happy that I decided to attend. I feel that the quality of the academics in the consortium is very high. I took classes from PAU and Stanford faculty that are experts in their fields and I feel like my academic coursework prepared me well for a career as a psychologist. The coursework is heavily focused on evidence based practice, which has prepared me well for working in a variety of settings. I received incredible support and mentorship from both my academic and my dissertation advisors, as well as from other program faculty members. I also really benefited from the relationships that the program cultivates with top practicum sites in the bay area. The practicum coordinators meet at least once/year with each practicum supervisor to ensure that the site meets their standards, so the quality of the training is well controlled. They only select sites that are focused on evidence based practice, so the practicum training closely relates to what you learn in class. For me, by far the biggest advantage of this program is the support they provide throughout the internship application process. I am thrilled to be completing an APA internship in the bay area, and the support of the program faculty allowed me to accomplish that.
With respect to living in the Bay Area, I must admit that as a native Californian I might have a bias. I absolutely love living here, and many of my friends who moved here from other parts of the country are intent on settling here. The cost of living is high, but the many perks outweigh the cost (in my opinion).
I’m sorry to tell you that I am not very familiar with the Widener or Roosevelt psyd programs, so I don’t have much to offer by way of comparison. I do have a friend who is at the Rutgers program and likes it very much, but I don't have any concrete information about the pros/cons of that program. Hopefully students from those programs will be able to chime in.
Jeyro-
You are correct that we have had a 100% APA match rate for the past 2 years. I have previously posted about our high match rates for the past several years. I believe that a lot of the information you posted is inaccurate. It is important when talking about PAU to distinguish between the PsyD and the Phd programs, as they have different application processes, faculty, match rates, class sizes, missions, etc.
Some of the information you posted may be applicable to the PhD program but not the PsyD program. For example, the Psyd program has never offered a geropsychology specialty track. It has always been a generalist program that offers well-rounded training, whereas the PhD program offers various tracks.
It is 100% false that the PsyD program encourages students to defer internship for a year. Having been through the process, I can say with confidence that nobody is discouraged from applying to internship during their 4th year. Some students decide to defer for personal reasons (having a baby, pursuing international clinical research opportunities, etc), but they are certainly not held back by the program. You can see from our stats that mean time to graduation is 5 years, which clearly indicates that students aren’t being discouraged from applying to internship in a timely fashion.
I know that these threads can get heated at times, so I just want to be clear that my intention is to provide information to those students sincerely interested in learning more about the consortium. Please feel free to post or PM me if you have additional questions. Best of luck in your decision making process.
