Admission
Central to our program is the highly selective group of graduate students who enter and successfully complete the program. We typically admit only 6-8 new students each year from a pool of over two hundred applicants, with admissions tailored to fitting students' research interests with availability faculty mentors. We advise applicants to clearly state their career goals and research interests, and describe how these interests fit with those of the University of Arizona faculty mentors.
Our program is not designed as “one size fits all” and would not be a good match for applicants with primary interest in service provision. Students who thrive in our program are those who wish to become clinical scientists.
We require that applicants have GRE scores of over 550 in each of the three tests (Verbal, Quantitative, Analytic, and Subject) and a GPA of over 3.0. However, as can be seen in our current Student Data, the students whom we admit are usually far above these cutoff scores. We seek to admit students who have a strong academic record, who demonstrate aptitude for research, and whose interests and career goals match what the program has to offer. Students applying to the Clinical Psychology Program should demonstrate undergraduate academic achievement, with course work in the biological, behavioral, and social sciences. It is also expected that applicants will have had prior relevant research experience and strong letters of recommendation from research supervisors. Click here for further information regarding our specific Admission Procedures.

The program encourages application from students representing diversity in culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, age, and language. The University of Arizona is located 45 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico, with multicultural population that reflects the richness of the Southwest. Our location offers students many opportunities to work with diverse populations, teach a diverse body of undergraduate students, and include minority representation among research participants. In addition, as a growing cultural center with liberal atmosphere, Tucson is hospitable to individuals with diverse sexual orientations. We have been successful in obtaining NIH and NSF minority fellowships and supplements, and our faculty are involved in outreach activities and research projects that address Hispanic and Native American groups in our community.

Current Students
Entering students are academically talented (e.g., median GRE scores in the past five years were 700 and 660 for Quantitative and Verbal GREs, respectively), they have an undergraduate grade point average over 3.5, and they demonstrate strong aptitudes and interests in clinical research. They are also a diverse group, with about a quarter representing ethnic minority groups and with each cohort including one or more international students. Some of the entering students (no more than one per year) have been respecialization students with Ph.D.s in other areas of psychology, aiming to become clinical scientists.

Once admitted to the program, students are encouraged to focus their research efforts on areas that are consistent with faculty research strengths, especially those of their faculty mentors (see list of faculty research interests). The minor area can be selected from among other department course sequences and programs (e.g., Neuropsychology; Social Psychology; Psychology, Policy and Law; Cognition and Neural Systems; Evolutionary and Comparative Psychology), or from areas outside the department (e.g., Sociology; Speech and Hearing Science; Family Studies; Neuroscience). The Clinical Psychology Program at present offers optional - although not mutually exclusive - areas of concentration in Clinical Neuropsychology, Health Psychology, Family Psychology, Psychotherapy Research, Addiction research, and Mental Health Evaluation and Policy. In all of these areas, the program encourages students to think critically about current research and practice and to contribute to scientific dialog through publications, conference presentations, and other formats of professional exchange.

The current students are a cohesive and welcoming group. They prepared a Grad Student Manual, designed to help incoming students hit the ground running and “younger” students to learn from the experience of “older” students.

Student support

The psychology department guarantees five years of financial support to all entering graduate students. For clinical students, at least one of these years is typically funded by a community externship site where the student gains supervised clinical experience. Support for other years come from sources such as teaching assistantships, research assistantships, fellowships, and training grants. This assistantships come with a stipend per semester of approximately $6355, a full out of state tuition waiver, and a full health insurance waiver. A limited number of in-state registration waivers are also available. These are awarded at the discretion of the department head. For further information about financial aid offered through the University as well as student loans, please visit the webpage for the office of student financial aid at http://financialaid.arizona.edu/. In addition to office space, graduate students have access to computer and laboratory facilities, a variety of clinical research populations, and a large undergraduate subject pool.

Program graduates

A recent alumni survey indicates that Ph.D. graduates of the clinical program are highly satisfied with their current jobs and with their prior experiences in graduate school. Given our goal of producing clinical psychologists committed to science, it is also noteworthy that 58% of recent graduates now hold academic or predominantly research appointments and that most of our graduates, including those in clinical-service positions, are professionally active and productive. Across all types of employment, our graduates on average devote 40% of their time to research and program evaluation activities. Graduates report that the program prepared them well for conducting and consuming research, as well as for clinical work. We are fortunate to have attracted excellent students whose match with the program has proven fruitful.

Finally, students graduate from the program in a timely manner: The median years to graduation (including internship) is 6 years, and the average is 6.4 (SD=2.2).