Master's Thesis

[crazy4psych]

I'm considering completing a master's in experimental psychology and was wondering how often master's thesis get accepted for doctoral programs? I will be applying to clinical programs. I know it will vary from program to program, I'm just wondering if, as long as it is good quality, how likely would they be to accept it? Do they generally make you re-write them?

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[thewesternsky]

This is going to vary a lot. I had an experimental psych Master's when I applied, and this was one question I asked at interviews. My results were about 50/50 between "You get no credit whatsoever for previous work; the program is the program" to "We can waive some stuff but we're not sure what yet. You'll probably get credit for one stats course and maybe a breadth course or two. We might waive the thesis requirement but have you do an alternate paper instead..." etc.

I ended up at a program that gave me credit for my stats course, two breadth requirements, and let me waive the Master's thesis. None of that was guaranteed when I accepted the offer. We worked that out along the way. Note that waiving those requirements did NOT change my actual time in the program, as there were courses and practica that still had to be taken in a particular order. It did give me a little more time for research, so I ended up doing *more* research than I would have if they hadn't waived the thesis, I think. YMMV.