The Graduate Admissions Committee for the Ph.D. ABA concentration reviews complete applications shortly after the priority deadline. Applications will continue to be processed and reviewed up until the cohort is filled. Students are notified about their application status once the cohort is filled or by mid-April.
We typically contact prospective students for the first round of interviews sometime in mid to late January.
Yes, you will complete requirements for the master's prior to being advanced to doctoral candidacy.
For more details on program requirements, review our Ph.D. program page which links to the current Graduate Catalogue of required courses.
The ABA concentration does accept applications from those who already have a master's degree as long as they meet all admissions requirements.
If your master's degree is in psychology, you will still need to take any required classes as part of our master's portion unless you have already taken an equivalent course. Thus, having a master's in psychology may not speed up your degree.
If you have a master's degree in a field outside of psychology, you are required to take all required course, research, and practicum experiences in the doctoral program. That is, having a master's degree will not speed up your degree; you would be earning another master's degree and a Ph.D. in psychology.
Classes and practicum experiences can run five days a week, and all courses are in person. On some days, your classes will start at 8 a.m. and go until 9 p.m. In addition to classes, you are expected to be available in the lab and/or for your assistantship duties on campus as well as your practicum on campus and in the local community. Thus, it would be difficult to add in a long commute and complete the Ph.D. program.
We offer competitive, full-time (20 hr/week) Graduate Teaching Assistantships each year for a total of four years. If you receive one of these, you will be helping with the teaching mission of the department by being a TA for a faculty member or, in later years, being an instructor of a section.
If your faculty research mentor has a grant, you could be paid as a research assistant (RA) and help conduct the research on the grant.
Currently, we offer to pay some tuition per year for Ph.D. students in the ABA concentration to help offset costs for in-state tuition and fees. For students who are not NC residents, out-of-state tuition remissions are available for the first year.
For the current tuition covered, please contact the graduate coordinator. Graduate tuition rates and fees can be found here.