Most competitive fields in psychology

[Scalia]

From your knowledge, what are the most competitive fields in terms of admissions in psychology. Other than obviously clinical psychology, in areas like social, cognitive, counseling, quantitative, etc. what are the hardest to get into?

[Behavioral]

Does it matter?

Adding: Admissions statistics don't mean crap about competitiveness of a program. GRE/GPA isn't telling, and looking at % admit is fallacious.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Behavioral

[Scalia]

Does it matter?

Most definitely.

Anyhow, any other metric of competitiveness beyond the aforementioned stats. would be of interest.

[wtncffts]

If I may interpet behavioral's response, I think he was asking why you are asking this question. If it's simply curiosity, fine, but if it's as a guide to applying where you think it's the least competitive, I agree in asking why it matters. You should be expressing what research areas, ideas, questions, etc., you're most interested in and have passions for, not merely trying to increase your chances by saying whatever you think will help you.

[Behavioral]

If I may interpet behavioral's response, I think he was asking why you are asking this question. If it's simply curiosity, fine, but if it's as a guide to applying where you think it's the least competitive, I agree in asking why it matters. You should be expressing what research areas, ideas, questions, etc., you're most interested in and have passions for, not merely trying to increase your chances by saying whatever you think will help you.

Bingo.

[lewin]

I agree with the above posters, but to answer your question, Norcross has a 2005 American Psychologist that looks at these stats. The most competitive subfields are:

Personality (M = 19% acceptance rate, N = 15 programs)

Social (19%, 80)

Clinical (21%, 211)

Counselling (21%, 64)

Psychobiology (25%, 13)

But there are greater differences between programs than between subfields. Top quartile clinical programs, for example, have an acceptance rate of 6%.

[neuropsych76]

I would have to go with clinical psychology because of the massive amount of applicants they receive. If your GPA or GRE are slightly below average, your application may get thrown out before they look at anything else. All psychology programs are very competitive though. Especially fully funded PhD's. But clinical seems to be the toughest for admission because of the sheer number of applicants, many of which have very strong credentials.

[lewin]

I would have to go with clinical psychology because of the massive amount of applicants they receive. If your GPA or GRE are slightly below average, your application may get thrown out before they look at anything else. All psychology programs are very competitive though. Especially fully funded PhD's. But clinical seems to be the toughest for admission because of the sheer number of applicants, many of which have very strong credentials.

I should have said: the stats above are taking from a survey of all U.S. PhD programs in psychology, from 1971-2004. So clinical is competitive, but no more so than social or personality. There are lots of clinical applicants but also significantly more clinical programs (> 200) compared to areas like social (80) or cognitive (88).

[neuropsych76]

I should have said: the stats above are taking from a survey of all U.S. PhD programs in psychology, from 1971-2004. So clinical is competitive, but no more so than social or personality. There are lots of clinical applicants but also significantly more clinical programs (> 200) compared to areas like social (80) or cognitive (88).

Do you know how many of the schools listed in the clinical bunch are online/professional programs though? That would definitely change the statistics.

I would think it would be more level if all of the programs in psychology listed in the stats were funded PhD to prevent outliers.

[Behavioral]

I tend to agree with neuropsych76.

I'm here in California where a good amount of my friends applied and got into Alliant (former California School of Professional Psychology), and the acceptance rates here are around 50%. There are a lot of professional Ph.D. programs (not just Psy.D.) that accept an abundance of students.

[lewin]

I tend to agree with neuropsych76.

I'm here in California where a good amount of my friends applied and got into Alliant (former California School of Professional Psychology), and the acceptance rates here are around 50%. There are a lot of professional Ph.D. programs (not just Psy.D.) that accept an abundance of students.

That's a good point. The article just says that they analyzed all doctoral programs listed in the APA's Graduate Study in Psychology guide, or 495 institutions. Supporting your hypothesis is that they note "the largest difference from the 1970's to 2003 is the acceptance rate to clinical psychology doctoral programs, rising from the 4 to 6% range in the 1970s to 21% in 2003." (There was a general effect of acceptance rates increasing, but it was most pronounced in clinical programs.

They also break down by APA accreditation, which I think supports your hypothesis too. APA-accredited clinical programs are more competitive (10% for PhD, 40% for PsyD) than non-accredited (20% for PhD, 60% for PsyD).

Interesting! I'm up in Canada and we have very few of those professional programs--only two PsyD programs in the entire country. I hadn't realized the extent of their American proliferation.

[Behavioral]

That's a good point. The article just says that they analyzed all doctoral programs listed in the APA's Graduate Study in Psychology guide, or 495 institutions. Supporting your hypothesis is that they note "the largest difference from the 1970's to 2003 is the acceptance rate to clinical psychology doctoral programs, rising from the 4 to 6% range in the 1970s to 21% in 2003." (There was a general effect of acceptance rates increasing, but it was most pronounced in clinical programs.

They also break down by APA accreditation, which I think supports your hypothesis too. APA-accredited clinical programs are more competitive (10% for PhD, 40% for PsyD) than non-accredited (20% for PhD, 60% for PsyD).

Interesting! I'm up in Canada and we have very few of those professional programs--only two PsyD programs in the entire country. I hadn't realized the extent of their American proliferation.

I guess there's more sensibility in school business practices up there, then. The professional schools here keep opening up unchecked and students keep applying thinking that it's a ticket to success. Being down $250K+ in debt with a clinical psychology degree is insurmountable and the graduate schools don't care; what more is that these schools do little in the way of helping their students get APPIC/APA internships after graduating.

[neuropsych76]

I guess there's more sensibility in school business practices up there, then. The professional schools here keep opening up unchecked and students keep applying thinking that it's a ticket to success. Being down $250K+ in debt with a clinical psychology degree is insurmountable and the graduate schools don't care; what more is that these schools do little in the way of helping their students get APPIC/APA internships after graduating.

That sums up professional schools for clinical psych in the us very well. It's definitely a problem for clinical psychology as more and more students will have tons of debt with questionable training