Benefits and risks of obtaining a DETC Psy.D?

I believe it does matter what type of school one attends in the grand scheme of things. For example, ABA vs Non-ABA, school reputation, jurisdictional admittance and yes accreditation all matter even after one passes the bar. The applies in a similar fashion to psychology, engineering, medicine, counseling, and social work. You are in part correct in that if a law school graduate passes the bar they are eligible to practice law. What happens after makes a difference and its good to advise a student of possible costs, limitations and benefits so that students can make an informed decision.

"All states recognize that graduation from an ABA-approved law school satisfies the legal education requirements that a person must meet to be eligible to sit for the bar examination. In many states, a person may not sit for the bar examination unless that person holds a J.D. degree from an ABA-approved law school. Other states have additional requirements that a student must meet in order to qualify to sit for that state's examination, including allowing some graduates of non-ABA approved law schools to sit for that state's bar examination."

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/resources/faq.html

 

No -- but it does suggest that DL law schools do a poor job of identifying the small group of people that could realistically benefit.

Why are there such high (80-90 %) attrition rates at DL law schools? The most obvious possibilities are either:

(1) DL law schools do a poor job of legal training, or else
(2) DL law schools admit large numbers of people who are poorly qualified to undertake legal training.

Both of these are reasons for the legal community to disrespect DL law programs.

No, because I've never suggested that DL law programs should be terminated. However, I do think that DL law degrees would be significantly more respected, and would potentially find greater acceptability, if DL law programs were more selective.

For example, they could screen applicants for legal aptitude using the LSAT -- which is standard operating procedure at every other law school. In practice, there is a high correlation between LSAT exam score and bar exam score. It's reasonable to assume that the small group of DL students who do succeed at the bar exam would succeed at the LSAT exam as well. By limiting enrollment and focusing on the students most likely to succeed, the DL schools would greatly reduce attrition, greatly increase bar pass rates, and greatly increase their respectability.

So why don't they do this? They could, but it would dramatically decrease their enrollment (probably by 75% or more), and therefore their revenue. Since most DL law schools are for-profit institutions, they have no incentive to increase quality by sacrificing quantity.

Official ABA policy on admissions is:

In contrast, the current DL law school policy on admissions seems to be:

Which of these two policies is more likely to generate respect and prestige?

 

Caldog, a similar situation exists in the majority of RA distance online doctoral programs which also do not have a stringent screening and admission policies and have significant attrition rates as well. There are no admission tests and grade point averages below B are usually acceptable in many cases. A cursory admissions interview with a faculty member will result in the admission of many students with marginal academic competency to pursue and successfully complete a doctoral degree program. The bottom-line is money, and a number of these for-profit schools are seeking as many students as possible to increase their revenues.

 

It would be in the best interest of the prospective student, as an adviser, to inform as to the current advantages and disadvantages of attending schools that have different accreditation, programmatic accreditation vs non-programmatic accreditation.

 

You're missing the whole point, if a law school graduate passes the bar exam, he or she will be able to practice law, irrespective of whether the degree is from a traditional law school or a DL law school. Not every lawyer gets to attend an ivory league law school and land a job with a prominent law firm, as there plenty of lawyers in private practice that do well without having attended such schools. It isn't a prerequisite to passing the bar exam.

 

Yes, BUT not to point out the alleged disadvantages of attending a specific school program (ie, doctoral program) with a specific accreditation status, without first possessing data and evidence to support one's advice. To do so is unethical.

 

Yes I understood your original post very well.

 

Sure. If a state requires a regionally accreditated APA approved program, I would point out the possible disadvantages of attending a non APA approved DETC accredited Psy.D program to a prospective Florida student. The evidence would be simply to contact the appropriate state agency, college and universities, and provide evidence in regards to documentation that states educational requirements.

 

You avoid the point, as usual. I'm not commenting on the quality of the students' performance. I made that clear. It's the degree that will be less-than-useful. This is true of degrees at all levels from DETC-accredited schools.

 

There's a lot of merit in this, if you look hard. Schools like UoP are, essentially, open-admission. They take in a lot of very marginal candidates. Their product--the graduate--is, IMHO, of acceptable quality. But they allow a lot of people to spend a lot of money in order to get weeded out by the rigors of academic work.

On the other hand, aren't most DETC-accredited schools for-profit and open-admission?

 

IIRC, there is no dissertation requirement for this PsyD program and so this litmus test will never be available. Curious that.

 

Of course! And that is the gist of the matter, in that RA distance learning and DETC schools are not so dissimilar in certain respects.

 

Yes, but the litmus test is still viable because the other DETC doctoral programs require a dissertation. BTW, there are RA free standing Psychology programs that also do not require a dissertation but a doctoral project, just as does the DETC Psy.D program.

 

But the value of their degrees is very much different. But without a study comparing andragogical processes in each, once cannot draw the conclusion you suggest.

Or did you do that for your Ph.D.?

 

People earning a living, supporting a family and not having enough time to study. Finances. Decided it wasn't for them. Not able to cut it. I'm sure there are many reasons.

Is this based on first hand experience? Or are you quoting from a particular study?

Okay, I understand, your argument is about the legal community's disdain of DL law programs. Do you think that members of the legal community have a duty to point this out during a trial, that the opposing counsel graduated from a DL law program and is not competent? Should they then file a motion asking the court to refer the case to a member of the bar that graduated from a traditional B&M law school?

Would this apply to the 98 DL graduates that you pointed out passed the bar exam? Looks like they did pretty good without it. Inadvertantly, I think you just made a case for eliminating the LSAT, based on those 98 DL graduates that made it through law school and passed the bar.

In theory, I agree with what you are saying, but it would seem to me that LSAT or not, many of these DL students will phase out anyway, so there is no real harm in their enrolling in a DL law school program. I also agree with what you are saying about reducing attrition and increasing bar pass rates, but I would think that it should be really left up to the school to decide.

Okay, so this is really about DL schools making money and not regulating it the way you think it should be regulated. It sounds like you would like to see that "75% or more revenue" - based on your projected decrease in enrollment - re-distributed among traditional law schools. Maybe it would be easier if the traditional law schools lowered their standards, to pick up some of the rift raft from their DL competitors.

Prestige isn't going to help a law school graduate pass the bar exam. If a prospective student desires to enroll in a DL program and is eliminated by virtue of their own inability to meet a law school's program, then that is tough luck. Law schools by nature have a way of eliminating students who aren't cut out for law. My position is that if a prospective student wants to give a DL law school a try, then they assume the risk.

I don't see any harm in those law programs and for the "small number" of graduates that do succeed, I say good for them. Let's keep the non-traditional - non-traditional - as it provides a basis for those that are unable to pursue a traditional path of study. The internet and distance education has levelled the educational field. It is understandable that some people may not embrace it.

 

This is true. But RA distance programs with these characteristics don't get much respect either.

On the other hand, there are obviously some RA distance doctoral programs which do have rigorous entrance requirements. For example, applicants to the the Indiana State PhD in Technology Managment program must meet the general B&M admissions requirements of Indiana State, and additionally show a 3.5 GPA, minimum scores on the GRE or GMAT, five letters of recommendation, and three years of validated work experience.

So at least RA distance doctorates with serious entrance standards exist. I'm not convinced that the same is true for DETC distance doctorates.

 

Speaking about being evasive, that is your sole claim to fame on this forum (LMAO).

However, enough already with your "perspicacious" scholarly predictions that have a history of being proven inaccurate. For example, your vehemently supporting MIGS and predicting that it would become accredited which never occurred as well as your prediction that NCU would not receive RA accreditation when in fact they did.

So, your current prediction that the degree (from DETC) will be "less-than-useful" is merely wishful thinking and many of us are not taking it seriously. What we recall is that you chose the easiest route to complete your doctorate at a so-called RA school (nicknamed the "Name it and Frame it" degree program) that at the time had a dismal track record for scholarly academic rigor (this school has since improved its academic standing and requirements) resulting in this institution being placed on probation by the Ohio Board of Education. In fact significant numbers of graduates of your school completed essay-like dissertations that were farcial and yet received their doctorates in spite of their sub par academic work.

And you have the gall to lecture us as to the necessity of rigorous scholarly academic standards that you claim are lacking in DETC-doctorates without having one iota of data to support your denigrating views of these programs. It is laughable because degrees from DETC schools in general can an do meet the professional and personal needs of significant numbers of students, although obviously not all, and to make global aspersions against these programs is doing some posters a major disservice.

 

Those are all very good reasons for failing to complete a law program. However, people who enroll at ABA law schools face exactly the same issues, yet have far lower attrition rates. Why?

Personally, I think it’s likely that the DL law schools admit people who are poorly qualified for the study of law, which is a very rigorous undertaking. I can’t document this, but this is because the DL law schools -- unlike ABA schools -- don’t release any statistics about the qualifications of their students.

The reality is that in most US states, DL grads are deemed unqualified by the state bar, and so will never make it to trial in the first place.

No, because those 98 DL grads would likely have done fine on the LSAT, just as they did on the bar. The point of the LSAT would be to identify the 500 people who will likely not succeed.

No, I don’t think that Kaplan’s revenue should redistributed to, say, Stanford or Hastings. However, I do think that a school – even a for-profit school – should meet minimum certain standards for educational success, as well as for business success. If a school fails 80-90 % of its students, then perhaps something is wrong.

Concord Law School (and presumably others as well) encourages students to participate in the Federal Family Education Loan Program. So you, as a taxpayer, also assume risk. Are student loan dollars better invested in programs with a high rate of success, or to programs with a high rate of attrition ?

 

Yes, but you are referring to brick and mortar doctoral programs that have a distance learning component. In the vast majority of these their criteria for admission to their distance program is the same or very similar to that of their traditional ones. However, for a number of the major for-profit online distance degree schools and their doctoral programs, this is generally not the case. In general these schools are quite receptive to accepting students who marginally meet their academic admission requirements.

 

Okay, we'll do it again. This is an assessment on your behalf, but you do not support it with any examples. I've posted more than 15,000 times on three major fora. This would hardly be considered "evasive." Additionally, there is nothing relevant to this forum that I have not been utterly open about. Whatever you do know about me--at least, what little you get right--you know from me. Hardly "evasive."