PsyD and PhD clinical neuropsychology program recommendations

Graduate School
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Demographics
45 years old
US citizen - Texas resident
Current Institution: Austin Community College
Other special factors: I recently retired from a 20-year career as an engineer / R&D director. In the late 90s-early 2000s, I earned a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in Mechanical and Energy Engineering from a Russel Group (top tier) UK University.

Cost Constraints / Budget
I won’t qualify for any need-based aid nor will I need loans.
However, I have a strong preference to spend as little as possible if doing a PsyD or go to a program that is fully funded with good stipends if doing a PhD.

Intended Major
Clinical neuropsychology

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
College GPA: 3.97 (88 credits from community college)
GRE Scores: 165 Verbal / 167 Quantitative

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)

  • 24 credits in Psychology (4.0 GPA): General Psych, Social Psych, Developmental Psych, Abnormal Psych, Biopsych, Personality, Human Sexuality, Statistics
  • 16 credits in Chemistry (4.0 GPA): Gen Chem 1+2, Organic Chem 1+2 (both with labs)
  • 14 credits in Biology (4.0 GPA): Cell/Mol Bio, Organism Bio, Genetics, Nutrition
  • 17 credits in Spanish (4.0 GPA): Honors Healthcare Spanish 1+2, Spanish 3+4, Conversational Spanish
  • 14 credits in Music (4.0 GPA): 4 semesters Vocal Performance + ensembles
  • 3 credits in Accounting (3.0 GPA): Individual Tax Accounting

Extracurriculars/Awards
I’ve been the lead in a couple musicals and operas.
Honors Scholar
Phi Theta Kappa

Essays/LORs/Other
I can get glowing letters from psych profs, engineers, and MDs.

Schools
I’m here for match recommendations. My wife and I have a general location preference for larger population, medium COL cities. We have a preference for the US, but are open to Canada, Australia/NZ, or UK assuming I can easily become licensed in the US afterwards.

Also I’m looking for recommendations for universities that are unlikely to require me to get a bachelor’s in psych before beginning my PsyD/PhD and would admit me based on my previous doctorate + my recent community college work covering all the basic psychology, biology, and chemistry coursework necessary to get into graduate level clinical neuropsychology. I have no interest in taking a bunch of gen-eds required for an undergraduate degree; that would be a waste of my time, effort, and money.

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Are you looking to become a licensed therapist, a researcher in an academic medical center, work with adolescents in the criminal justice system? Develop substance abuse interventions at Big Pharma?

For the typical teenager I usually recommend keeping your mind open. But your decision now depends on where you want to end up!

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Your match recommendations for Ph.D. programs will be largely based on what your areas of research interest are and how they align with one or more professors in that program. Also, your success in being accepted to a clinical Ph.D. program will primarily be based (in addition to grades/classes/scores) on your research experience and possible publications. My thought is that research experience, preferably in more than one lab, would be much more important than the undergrad classes you took.

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Thanks for the reply. I’m definitely looking to become licensed for clinical practice in the US.

I’m not interested in academia … which is why PhD programs are only appealing in that they are typically funded vs PsyD. I’m sure I could keep myself at least moderately interested in my thesis during grad school, but the final objective would to get into clinical practice, not continue to do research. I’d also lean heavily towards universities where I could TA rather than RA for funding if that’s ever an option.

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Thanks for the reply, Elena!

I probably should have structured my post to ask for PsyD recommendations rather than both PsyD and PhD, as I have little drive to do a bunch research … only motivation for PhD is that it’s cheaper. I’ve had a 20 year career as a researcher and a research director (granted, in engineering) and I’m glad to not be doing it anymore. However, I may feel differently doing psychology research.

Another worry I have is that the time and effort I’d spend getting a few psych publications under my belt (assuming that would be needed to stand a chance at getting into a PhD program) would be less efficient than if I just did consulting work in engineering and then earmarked that $ to pay the full PsyD tuition.

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Here’s the full list of accredited PsyD programs in the US (you can also search PhD programs.) I expect you are going to have to talk with each of the schools you are interested in to see if you meet the admission criteria and go from there. In Chicagoland, Roosevelt and Midwestern are well regarded. I know someone who attended Roosevelt’s program (undergrad from an Ivy) and is successful working as a consultant to corporations for hiring, developing leaders, things of that nature.

https://apps.apa.org/accredsearch/?_gl=1*19yvcn*_gcl_au*MTQxNzE0ODYxNS4xNzM5Mzk3NDM3*_ga*ODUxNzQyMjQxLjE3MzkzOTc0Mzc.*_ga_SZXLGDJGNB*MTczOTM5NzQzNi4xLjEuMTczOTM5NzQzNy41OS4wLjA.

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If you are currently taking psychology courses at a community college, or if you have recently done so, then I would be inclined to talk to the professors at your community college. The transfer advisors at your college might also know. It might at least be worth asking them. You are certainly not the first person with a graduate degree to then take some courses at a community college.

I also would be inclined to look first at your in-state public universities. If nothing else this should help with the cost, since you are in-state pretty much as long as you continue to live in Texas (assuming that at this point you are either a US citizen or a permanent resident of the US – I am not sure about in-state status if you are in the US on some other basis but after a 20 year professional career that seems unlikely). You might be able to just walk into the psychology department at a nearby public university and ask them.

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That makes sense. Just keep in mind that many Ph.D.s need research to get into the programs, and then do research and publish during grad school, but still end up doing primarily or all clinical work following grad school. You’ll be well trained for both. One more thing to consider when looking at PsyD programs is to make sure they have a good track record with getting their graduates into APA accredited internships.

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I’m not sure how many years of schooling you are anticipating, but I think you have more than a few years to complete this degree program. Is that what you want!

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Ya, 8 years for me, then a year intern in general, another child/family, and a third in-patient at a private hospital. If you want a degree in less time, look into mental health, family, or at the more rigorous, .MSW. these programs are well -defined, mostly asking for 2 years involvement.
I’m happy to answer other questions , as I’ve worked in a hospital setting over a dozen years, and a few in academia.

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Recently retired clinical neuropsychologist here. Your undergrad courses from 20 ago won’t exempt you from any graduate courses. It’s possible that because you already have a doctorate in another field that some programs might not require you to write a masters thesis, but you will still, in addition to years of coursework (eg neuroanatomy/neurophysiology, tests and measurements, statistics (maybe you can test out of this) neurotransmitters and behavior, psychopharmacology etc) in addition to many “core” clinical
Psych courses, have to complete practica, qualifying exams, a dissertation, internship, post doc and licensing exam in a state if you plan to practice, you are looking at many years of education and training, and without getting political, funding for grant students may be quite tight. And from a practical standpoint, most programs like to see a history of clinical experience, although your background may intrigue so programs. Go to the APA guide to graduate programs and look at the curricula of several. There are some online programs (eg the Fielding institute) but I have
My personal Biases about those. If you want neuropsych, most terminal
Masters programs won’t be sufficient. Good luck.

Start here:

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Unless I’m mistaken, for the PsyD, I’ve seen that programs generally structured:
4 years of full-time classes + 1 year of internship where you get between 1000-2000 supervised hours
I’ve also seen 3 years of full-time classes + 2 years split between classes and internship.
After all that, you have to post-doc and get another 1500-2000 supervised clinical hours for your license. All total: about 6 years.

Most clinical PhD programs I’ve seen are 6-8 years (which includes coursework, internship hours, and doing your research) + you still have to do the post-doc to get the remaining supervised hours before licensure. All total: 7-9 years.

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So…are you saying you are OK with potentially 6-7 years of schooling before you can be independently licensed?

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Plus you have to take your state’s required licensing exam, though I believe now you can take the national exam portion before you finish your internship. That wasn’t true back when I took it.

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Be aware too, internships are very competitive . Wherever you consider doing your academic training, choose an APA approved program. Some students have had a hard time finding an internship if coming from a less competitive training program.

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Yes. As a nontraditional student, I think you can have nontraditional priorities when searching for programs. I am not you, but if I were you, I would prioritize the following:

  1. Shorter programs
  2. Programs located either online, or in locations where my spouse and I (especially my spouse) desired to live
  3. Locations where I could work part time in my previous well-paid profession to make some money

I would NOT prioritize:

  1. Quality of the program. You want to go into clinical psych, you are looking to earn a credential that will allow you to do that. From my perspective as an MD physician, there isn’t a lot of correlation between the prestige or perceived quality of a PsyD program and the quality of the clinicians it produces. I know some clinical psychologists from big name schools who are quacks and/or clinically worthless. I know some clinical psychologists from total degree mills who are outstanding clinicians. If you are 45 and intelligent, you can self-teach a lot of the science. And common sense nobody can teach.
  2. A low cost program. Because when you are a non-traditional student, being penny wise and pound foolish is not a mistake you want to make. I would be willing to pay a little more in tuition to live in an appealing city, have a shorter or more convenient program, or live near opportunities for me to moonlight part time in my old career.
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Some of the above may be true, but the chances of getting into an APA approved internship in an appealing city coming from an online or “degree mill” type PsyD program would be fairly low.

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Completely agree. I would always recommend an APA approved program to get both good training and a better chance at a desired internship. But, if the OP is interested in the most efficient way to get a degree and doesn’t want to relocate for the program and then again for internship. Something like fielding might be worth looking at. Personally I would not do that (and did not) but it depends on the OP’s priorities. It’s also worth looking at how sound the programs are. Several years ago the chicago professional Psy D program (it then had a different name as well ) closed and left students scrambling to find places that would take them.

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I believe that happened to a school in Atlanta as well.

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Yes, that school had locations in many states and the sudden closure affected many many students. The one in Atlanta was Argosy/GA school of professional psychology. Theses were originally part of the Chicago professional school which had branches in several states. They all got shut down.

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