The Marshall University Doctorate Psychology program was recently ranked 38th nationally. Director Dr. Keith Beard announced the news on the Best Counseling Degrees website. 

In 2002, the program had their first class and was later accredited by the American Psychological Association in 2006. 

“We were very surprised at the ranking since the first graduating class was only 10 years ago,” Beard said. “I think it speaks volumes to the quality of students, staff, faculty and supervisors that we have in the psychology department program. It’s great to be recognized for the hard work that everyone has put into making this program a success.”

The program’s goal is to provide, develop, supervise and achieve quality services for citizens in the community. 

“The goal is to always move higher,” Beard said. “We continue to implement new things we are doing in the program, examine what we are doing and revise aspects that aren’t working. We believe that we are continuing to improve in the areas that were used to evaluate professional doctoral programs for this list.”

The ranking was based on the program’s pass rate on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology, complete rate, internship match rate and cost of the program.

The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards oversee the EPPP, the national licensing exam for the field of psychology.

“Our goal is to train doctoral-level, professional psychologists to provide a variety of mental health services to rural and under-served populations,” Beard said. “So, our focus wasn’t on reaching a particular ranking but to train the best psychologists that we can. It just so happened that this resulted in a ranking of 38th out of 77 Psychology Department programs in the nation.”

Carli Plute can be contacted at [email protected].