Fascinating Discussion of PsyD vs PhD and other Online Issues

The thread is interesting for a number of reasons. It discusses the Ph.D versus PsyD (perceived differences and prejudices). It also mentions Alliant, Argosy and Fielding and people's experiences with these grads.

There is an hilarious video spoofing online education.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/is-there-really-so-much-animosity-toward-psy-d-grads.1076272/

 

It is interesting to see the prejudice people with non traditional degrees can face in some fields. Something to be aware of and prepared to overcome. However, the traditional route is not necessarily desirable or practical in all cases. People have to make individual choices based on cost, life issues, time, etc.

 

Here's a direct link to the video.

The logo looks an awful lot like University of Phoenix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMmTLPaODUQ

 

An equally funny video http://youtu.be/XQLdhVpLBVE

 

Mmmmm. Thoughtcoins.:laugh2:

 

I want a Master's degree in Digital Gardening from FPOU. :hail::notworthy:

 

Just don't tell Howard your name!

 

The PhD is a scholarly degree; the PsyD is a professional degree. The former contributes to the academic discipline (theory), while the latter contributes to practice. Either can be a pathway to licensure as a psychologist, just as either could be used for other purposes.

That said, the line between these degrees, their designs and purposes, can get blurred. YMMV.

 

"FPOU makes a profit off of me now so I can make a profit off of them in the future. It's like Physics."

 

It is awesome right? Or is it wright, rite, ride? Who knows, I took my first writing (or riding if you prefer) course today at FPOU? I'm on my way to creating profits. Like Geometry really. :dunce:

 

I always take these sort of arguments with a grain of salt. The reason is that they reveal this incredibly snotty world where everyone dwells in a land of minutiae.

To me, it's like when MDs (always anonymously and online) say they don't respect DOs. They never respect them. They would never want one working on them. They think that DOs are all just people who couldn't get into "real" medical school.

Then you look at some really successful DOs and say "Huh, how do these worlds reconcile?" And I think the answer is why I have a problem with some, but not all, anonymous posters.

The answer is that I think a lot of people on the internet are completely full of crap.

I also recall from my time in Wilkes-Barre that I saw at least a few people who were licensed psychologists and had EdDs. So I did a brief search and found one incredibly frustrated account of a licensed EdD who got a PhD because employers didn't feel s/he had a "real" psychology degree.

 

Great find. What an interesting story. It really goes to show just how strong perceptions can be.

 

Indeed Neuhaus! Interesting (and true) insights.

 

One of the most brilliant professors I had in my graduate psychology program has an Ed.D. in Counseling Psychology from Columbia University, awarded by the Teacher's College. I can attest that he is a "real psychologist", and the other faculty (Ph.D.'s and Psy.D.'s) think very highly of him.

 

Just like in the manifesto linked by Neuhaus, I think the fact that his degree was from Columbia places it in the rarefied air of Harvard which equalizes the degree "quality". Brand names mean way more than many give credit for.

 

I find it interesting that schools like Alliant and Fielding that are both APA accredited cannot escape the stigma attached to professional or non traditional schools of Psychology. I think as Neuhaus noted, it is a measure of snobbery. One of the posters claimed the non PhDs and non traditionals performed poorly in terms of knowledge. Whether his reporting is accurate or that is a representative sample are other questions completely.

 

There is snobbery on Student Doctor, but they do have some good reasons behind some of their views. Fielding was recently on probation with APA. PsyD graduates have lower match rates with accredited internships than PhD graduates. Some of Alliant's campuses have absolutely terrible match rates with accredited internships and internships overall. Their PhD graduates tend to fare better than their PsyD graduates when it comes to matching, overall, and matching with an accredited internship.

https://www.appic.org/Portals/0/downloads/APPIC_Match_Rates_2011-14_by_Univ.pdf

 

There is A LOT of snobbery on Student Doctor. I can't even enter the forums anymore. It gets downright hostile.

 

That's certainly a reason to criticize an institution.

I think it's fine to criticize a specific institution. Marywood University had the accreditation of its nursing program revoked mid-year once. When it was restored people simply sighed with relief and went back to the program. Personally, I would have very serious reservations about any professional program that had its accreditation yanked mid-year. But if I started using that event to attempt to prove to people that all nursing graduates from Marywood were a complete joke I might very well find support. But that wouldn't make my points any more valid. I'm sure that Marywood has some high quality graduates. I'm sure they also have some people who don't perform very well at all. You know, like every other institution. There's a difference between institutional criticism and attempting to cast all (or most) graduates as ill-prepared, unprofessional and undeserving of being in the profession.

But every institution typically has something it can be criticized for. Want to criticize Alliant for low match rates? That's fine. It's a completely valid criticism. But I, personally, would take many of these match rates with a grain of salt anyway simply because some of the numbers are really too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Let's look at Alliant (Fresno). There were 19 registered applicants. Of those 19, 10 were matched and 5 withdrew with 4 being not matched. So, they have a match rate of 53% for their clinical forensic psych PhD program.

Their Clinical PsyD program didn't do as well. But, it would be a bit unfair to compare the Clinical PsyD to the Forensic Clinic PhD, especially when they seem to also have a clinical forensic PsyD. So, comparing apples to apples...

Their clinical forensic psyD had 12 registered applicants with only 4 placed, 2 not matched and 6 withdrawals.

And so it goes for the bulk of the schools on the list. Their rates are based on their success or failure to match fewer than 20 applicants. When you get to the Chicago School of Professional Psychology you actually start hitting some numbers that you could have some fun with. In 2014, they had 107 matches out of 117. When you are playing with really small numbers you can make the rates say anything you want. Look at the schools that had one registered applicant that now get to boast a 100% match rate. If they have two applicants the following year they can, in fact, boast a 100% increase in applicants!

Also, 4 of 6 Capella grads were matched. Not too shabby for a school whose degrees are often written off as "worthless" by critics of for-profit schools.

I'm not saying the match rates are completely worthless but they really only tell a certain story. And they certainly don't support stories like "Alliant grads lack professional knowledge." Maybe they do. But the match rates neither support nor refute those claims.

Perhaps those poor match rates follow from the school have a justifiably bad reputation. Perhaps those poor match rates follow from the school having an unjustifiably bad reputation. Maybe there was just a lot of competition and those applicants had very little to set them apart from others. In most cases, people withdrew from the match. And we really don't know why. We can speculate. But we can't know. And, even if we did know, it is unlikely that those reasons have anything to do with some of the snotty claims made on the other forum about Alliant grads.

It's a bit like when law schools use placement in positions (which require bar admission) as a selling point. Yeah, it's true, I might heavily consider a law school that places 97% of their graduates in actual law jobs. But then again, those could be jobs working for the guy with his face on the side of the bus.

Meanwhile, a school that only places 50% of their grads in positions requiring bar admission might have the other half starting out as associates at Goldman Sachs. Who is the success? The Touro Law grad who is fixing speeding tickets or the Harvard Law grad who is on a path to become a managing director at Blackstone? It depends upon your goals.

 

I still go to SDN on occasion to get tips. Some of the members are a bit elitist, but there are quite a few qualified individuals in the fields listed. PsyDs generally accept more students, but their APA internship and EPPP pass rates are generally lower than that of PhD students.

EPPP Pass Rates Study | Student Doctor Network (APA-accredited only)

Online PhD/PsyD programs without APA accreditation are probably even lower, but not everyone is looking for licensure in that case. Obviously there are multiple factors contributing to the numbers, but there is a trend. Baylor and Rutgers are generally the only colleges mentioned with PsyDs they respect wholeheartedly. Both have a 100 and 98.6% pass rate as well.

At a minimum, I think aspiring psychologists need to strongly consider programmatic accreditation if they want to practice in the United States. It's an uphill battle, and many settings become off-limits without it (e.g. working for the VA). There are pros and cons to the Vail and Boulder models, but whether it's the overall cost, or the EPPP pass rate, one has to weigh their options and resources when deciding on a program.