Masters in hand on an applicant's chances for admission- Some programs expect you to have a Masters in hand when you apply, but many don't. If the program doesn't want you to have one, then the value of a Masters is goes down a bit. The information I have concerns Clinical, Counseling and School Programs. If you have good undergraduate GPA and GRE scores, having a Masters degree is rated as positive (or at least somewhat positive) for the majority of the Counseling and School programs. The majority of Clinical Programs rate a Masters degree in hand between somewhat positive and neutral. However, if you have a mediocre GPA and GRE, there is a definate shift toward the negative. The majority of the programs (Clinical, Counseling, and School) now are neutral to negative about the effect of having a Masters degree on an applicant's chances for admission.
The other issue you need to consider is whether or not your classes will transfer to the new program.Graduate programs are much less likely to accept transferred courses, so you may have to repeat a number of classes. This is from Teaching of Psychology, Vol. 24, p.176-182
http://krantzj.hanover.edu/handbook/masters2.html
At 02:35 PM 4/17/01 -0500, Ferguson, Sherry wrote:
Tipsters,
I have a student whose long-term goal is to attain a Ph.D. in Counseling
Psychology. But she's going into a Master's program now in Experimental
Psychology and her advisor has told her that it will be easy for her to move
to a Ph.D. program in counseling with a master's in experimental.
Does anyone know what the chances are of this? In other words, if her goal
is a counseling psychology Ph.D., will a pause to pick up a master's in
experimental psychology help or hurt?
Thanks!
Sherry Ferguson, Ph.D
Research Psychologist
National Center for Toxicological Research/FDA
3900 NCTR Road
Jefferson, AR 72079
Deb
Dr. Deborah S. Briihl
Dept. of Psychology and Counseling
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698
(229) 333-5994
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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