A rant about Capella from one of its grads...

Touro University International is an open admissions institution so you will get all kinds of students.
I'm glad to hear that your experience there is good though. Just don't invite Simon over or he'll act like he is above everyone else.

 

Not exactly. Only "above" you!

 

This is just about the point where these threads go seriously south. Can we avoid that eventuality in this case?
Jack

 

Cool! Counselor Sensitive-Simon still feels a huge need to prove himself to others and can't stand not having the last word. So much for today's counselors. Peace

 

We are now one response from a closed thread. Don't do it.
Jack

 

I am not sure I agree with that entirely; open admissions imply to me that qualified or not students will be accepted. The admission requirements for the PhD program include that learners must hold a Masters with at least a 3.4 GPA from an accredited institution. Also, an accredited graduate course in research methods or statistics is required. Further, they've added this requirement last year in response to the accreditation evaluation: "possess writing and oral communication skills sufficient to conduct and deliver the results of meaningful research. They must submit an essay that includes current personal, intellectual and professional interests..." plus the usual 'subjective' stuff.

Susanna

 

Some years back Touro had some very lax admission requirements but it seems like they've changed this a bit. Actually, Touro's 3.4 GPA for entry into their PhD programs is good and is probably keeping away plenty of marginal students away. The other online schools should also raise their GPA admission standards. So far, Capella requires a Masters 3.0 GPA for their doctoral programs and a personal essay. Walden also requires that learners come in with a Masters 3.0 GPA.
Unfortunately, NCU only requires an approved or accredited Masters for entry. Hopefully, they will change this soon.

 

At NCU, in my doctoral classes, I have never seen the functional illiteracy that is sometimes found elsewhere.

 

Given that NCU is the new kid on the block, this may change over time as they become better known and they can afford to be more selective. The difference between taking classes with NCU as compared to other universities is students work at their own pace. You never have to be concerned about getting stuck with a group of underachievers [unless you count yourself].

The B&M PhD program I was accepted into required a 3.5 graduate GPA, three letters of recommendation, and an essay for admission but their mentality towards DL students seemed to be "out of sight out of mind." I took one class with them and went back to NCU.

 

We know that online graduate schools are required to establish minimum established GPA's for admission to their doctoral programs. However the validity of these minimum GPAs are highly questionable due to the variability of grading from one school to another. In fact some schools have tougher grading protocols than others. Therefore, GPAs as they exist in our current "liberal"acadamic climate may not be very reliable predictors for future doctoral level academic performance.

During the past twenty years or so, a number of traditional undergraduate and traditional graduate schools have been extremely generous handing out high grades for questionable academic performance. A blatant example of this was noted in a recent article in a business journal indicating that several ivy league graduate business schools including Princeton University do not give any grades at all to their students in MBA programs! The rationale was that students were complaining that their grades were being compared to their peers resulting in job recruiters selecting the more highly qualified students for available jobs. Unfortunately for all, what these job recruiters found was that many of these ungraded students lacked critical analytical skills and were not viable candidates for employment. Therefore, Princeton and the other business schools reviewed their "brilliant" nongrading policy and reinstated grading in spite of student protests.

I also recall an experience when attending an open house admissions session for one of the largest traditional graduate psychology schools in the states approximately eight years ago. There I met a number of students who were doctoral candidates in Clinical and Organizational Psychology. In fact, the level of communication skills and intellectual presentation of these students was not commensurate with graduate level academic work. If many of these students were held to the academic standards of the 1960s and 70s they would have probably not obtained a bachelors degree! In fact, when I and my peers graduated with a bachelors degree in Psychology and applied to doctoral programs ONLY those students who achieved just about a straight A GPA with very high GRE and Miller Analogy scores were admitted. No special admission concessions were alloted to students who achieved less than this high level of academic standard.

 

Actually, I haven't seen much of that in my experience. The great majority of students write fairly well. What I have seen every now and then are students who come wanting an easy RA degree. Fortunately, the majority of these eventually leave.

 

Are you a student in a doctoral program?

 

<<In fact, when I and my peers graduated with a bachelors degree in Psychology and applied to doctoral programs ONLY those students who achieved just about a straight A GPA with very high GRE and Miller Analogy scores were admitted. No special admission concessions were alloted to students who achieved less than this high level of academic standard>>

That remains true, I believe, among those B&M schools that were in existence then and continue to exist now. Most remain highly competitive.

The difference is the emergence of professional schools of psychology (many of which are for profit) and of distance learning. These have provided what is essentially an unlimited number of seats for doctoral learners. Inevitably, since the number of doctoral school slots has grown from... what would you guess... 500 per year in the 1960s? ... to whatever it is now (5,000 per year? more?) ... the entrance requirements have fallen.

-- GME

Phd Learner Capella

 

But back then, before our nation became a nation of lawsuits, becoming a psychologist was not as hard as it is today and most states did not require a doctorate.

Getting into a decent doctoral program in clinical psychology was not that difficult before the college boom in the late 80s and early 90s. During this time, the popularity of clinical psychology grew exponentially. Before you knew it, about half of all undergrad students at my college became psychology majors. Where an average PhD program in, say, world history would typically receive 20 applications a year, the average graduate clinical psychology program would get hundreds.
Consequently, graduate programs in clinical psychology gradually became much more competitive and difficult to get into.

This movement led to the rise of the tuition-driven private institutions with more egalitarian admission policies. Actually, this is not a bad thing. As long as they adhere to decent academic standards, this high stressed nation of over 400 million people needs a lot of clinical psychologists.

 

NCU also offers a 25% military and federal employee discount, and a 10% discount if you prepay.....making it even more reasonable!

 

Good point!

Thanks.

 

While I agree with your general point, I would hasten to point out that Clinical Social Workers have been around for a long time.
Jack