Louisiana State University's program?

[psych.meout]

I was going through my copy of the 2014-2015 Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology in preparation to reapply this upcoming cycle and noticed that Louisiana State University did not participate. I looked up their program and saw the following disclaimer about their APA-accreditation:

http://www.lsu.edu/hss/psychology/grad/prospective-student/areas-of-specialization/clinical.php

APA Accreditation
In a letter dated November 24, 2014 from APA’s accrediting body, the Commission on Accreditation, LSU’s clinical psychology doctoral program was asked to address a number of issues and our status was changed to accredited, on probation, until this took place. In consultation with an APA-recommended consultant, we have carefully and thoroughly addressed each concern. These included (a) updating our training objectives and competencies, as well as the manner in which these are assessed, (b) altering the sequencing and content of particular courses identified by the Commission, and (c) updating the manner in which data are collected from current students and alumni regarding the quality of their training.

We believe that these changes to the doctoral program not only address the issues raised by the Commission but inspired a bright future for our doctoral program, with its long history of training highly qualified scientist-practitioners.

The clinical faculty are very excited about the future of the program. Our program remains accredited during this probationary period. We recognize that the decision regarding continued accreditation remains in the hands of APA’s accrediting body. Nonetheless, as a result of our efforts, we are very confident that our clinical doctoral training program will return to its fully accredited status before the fall of 2016.

I'm interested in the program and my interests and experience line up very well with one of the professors, but I'm concerned about the quality of the program in light of this disclaimer.

Is this something to be worried about? Is anyone here familiar with their program and its quality?

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[Justanothergrad]

I'm unfamiliar with why it was on probation but I've known several folks who have gone through the LSU clinical program recently (finishing in the past 2 years) and are very successful. They were sharp and spoke highly of the program. It produced a substantial amount of research with some of the folks getting out with 10+ publications while there. I am surprised, honestly, but I've seen some similarly well regarded programs run into the same types of bumps..and of course, all this program design stuff changes with the new COA stuff coming out.

 

[Groupthink]

Two anecdotal comments I wish to contribute:

1. On internship I co-interned with a student from LSU. She was an excellent clinician and clearly well-read. If she is a representation of the program, then it is at a minimum quite solid.

2. During my graduate training, the APA placed my program on Probation. People, understandably, became anxious. (You think of the word Probation and people ask "Is APA going to install breathalyzers in our cars to make sure we don't utter the word "psychoanalysis" in the hallowed halls of evidence based practice?!") Ultimately we were taken off Probation after excellent work from our Program Director and received a 7 year re-accreditation. The APA's concerns were solely around the accuracy of our syllabi, data tracking regarding evaluating outcome of practicum assignments, and because our match rates on the website weren't in the format that APA required.

We had all the correct information, it just wasn't in the format that APA wanted. We fixed that up, had a few site visits at various points, and had no problems. I encourage you to take the "on probation" description quite literally -- when a program is "not compliant" with APA Guidelines, it can literally mean that the headings aren't bolded on the website.