PsyD and PhD clinical neuropsychology program recommendations

TacoTacoBurrito
Mon, 17 Feb 2025 18:52:55 +0000

fiftyfifty1:

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.

2. A low cost program.

Yes, exactly this and thank you for the reply. My wife (40) and I (45) have saved just shy of $10m (excluding our current home, which is fully paid) in our portfolio. When we retired last year, we did so because when I filed our 2023 taxes, our earned dividends were above our average annual spend for the last 3 years running. But we both are the type of people who want to have a second (ideally part-time) career in something we love. For my wife, that is nutrition, and for me it is clinical neuropsychology.

I’m definitely going to prioritize shorter programs and online/convenient ones unless there is a huge reason not to do so. I fully agree with the anecdotal advice about program prestige and quality of practitioner. I’ve seen the same thing in my engineering/research career. There have been some duds that I had to let go over the years who came out of programs like MIT, CalTech, Ivies, etc. and some real gems who have come from no-name schools. There’s general correlation of quality for sure, but any individual is just that. I feel more like those brand names guarantee a certain quality floor, but not a ceiling and when you’re at a company/research department that is hiring for top 10-20% quality, the floor doesn’t matter as much.

All that being said, I’ll certainly take your advice to heart and try to find that balance between APA accredited programs with decent post-doc clinical placements and short+flexible programs.