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Vanderbilt University Clinical Psychological Science
The Clinical Science Program in Psychological Sciences at Vanderbilt University subscribes to the clinical scientist model of training, with the primary goal of training clinical scientists. The Clinical Science Program is part of the outstanding program in Psychological Sciences at Vanderbilt that includes over 60 faculty spanning two departments (the Department of Psychology and the Department of Psychology and Human Development).

All students complete a core set of required coursework, research, and clinical training. This includes courses in the biological, social, cognitive, and affective bases of behavior; human development; individual differences; research design and statistics; psychopathology; psychological assessment; psychological intervention; and professional ethics.

In addition to these core requirements common to all students, the program has sufficient flexibility to allow students to concentrate their training and to develop specialized expertise in given areas that draw on the strengths of our faculty and the opportunities for research and clinical training. Students can focus their training in the following areas:

• Psychopathology , including the identification, etiology, treatment, and prevention of psychopathology in children, adolescents and adults. Within psychopathology students can further concentrate their training in any of three areas:
• Developmental psychopathology , including the identification, etiology, treatment, and prevention of psychopathology in children and adolescents (particularly with respect to mood disorders), and the study of typical and atypical development (particularly with respect to autism and intellectual disabilities). Faculty who are involved in the mentoring of students in this area include Drs. Bachorowski, Cole, Compas, Dykens, Garber, Hollon, Smith, Walker, and Weiss.
• Adult psychopathology , including the identification, etiology, treatment and prevention of psychopathology in adults including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, schizophrenia, and psychopathy. Faculty involved in the mentoring of students in this area include Drs. Bachorowski, Benning, Davis, Garber, Hollon, Olatanji, Park, Schlundt, Tomarken, Walker, Weiss, and Zald.
• Developmental disabilities , including the identification, etiology and treatment of autism, Prader-Willi Syndrome, and Williams Syndrome. Faculty mentors include Drs. Bachorowski and Dykens.
• Clinical neuroscience , including neuropsychological, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging approaches to studying normal and abnormal behavior. Faculty mentors include Drs. Benning, Cole, Compas, Hollon, Olatunji, Park, Tomarken, and Zald.
• Basic emotional processes , including the biological, cognitive, and interpersonal factors influencing basic emotion-related processes, as well as individual differences in affective traits. Faculty mentors include Drs. Bachorowski, Benning, Dykens, Garber, Hollon, Olatunji, Smith, Tomarken, and Zald.
• Prevention and intervention , including the development and evaluation of optimal interventions for various psychopathologies, the prevention of diabetes and other biomedical disorders, and the identification of potential etiological or vulnerability markers that are linked to heightened risk for depressive disorders among children and adolescents. Faculty mentors include Drs. Compas, Garber, Hollon, Olatunji, and Weiss.
• Health psychology , emphasizing a biopsychosocial approach to health and illness throughout the life span, including chronic and recurrent pain, cancer, and eating disorders. Faculty mentors include Drs. Compas, Garber, Olatunji, Schlundt, Smith, and Walker.
• Quantitative analysis , including the application of advanced statistical techniques to the study of psychopathology and other clinical issues. Faculty mentors include Drs. Cole and Tomarken.

All students take the following courses as part of their core training in clinical science: Advanced Statistics (two semesters), Clinical Research Methods, Psychopathology, Psychological Measurement, Introduction to Psychotherapy, Cognitive Assessment, Psychological Assessment, Ethics and Cultural Diversity, and courses in the fundamental areas of psychological science (biological, social, cognitive, and affective bases of behavior; human development; and individual differences). 

Applicants to Our Program

We typically receive from over 300 applications each year to our program. Applicants apply to the Clinical Science Program and can express an interest in any of the areas of concentration listed above.

Year	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Applicants	376	363	321	301	301	317	332
Admitted	17	13	12	10	14	6	9

A number of criteria are considered in reviewing applications for admission. These include undergraduate grade point average and performance on the GRE. However, we also carefully consider applicants’ research and applied experience and the degree to which applicants’ research interests represent a good match with the research of our faculty. Characteristics of our admitted students for the last 7 years are:

		2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Undergraduate GPA		3.47	3.74	3.37	3.71	3.73	3.68	3.78
GRE	Verbal	632	670	624	656	706	635	689
	Quantitative	752	718	721	740	738	700	745
	Analytical	705	727	--	--	--	--	--
	Psychology	710	696	672	716	--	--	--

Program Costs.  For the 2011-2012 academic year, semester tuition rates are approximately $15,120 per semester for students taking a full graduate course load of 9 credits per semester. However, tuition costs for all students admitted to the program are covered through support associated with teaching assistantships, research assistantships, or fellowships for up to 5 years.

Financial Support

All admitted Ph.D. students receive funding for up to five years of study. The financial package includes full tuition, a monthly stipend that is highly competitive with comparable programs around the country, and a health insurance package. Based upon presented qualifications, selected students are nominated for additional honor scholarships and fellowships awarded by both the college and the graduate school. These merit awards supplement the baseline financial package. Financial support for students comes from a wide range of sources. Teaching assistantships and fellowships are available from Vanderbilt University. As of September 1, 2011, our program is supported by two Training Grants from the National Institutes of Health that provide fellowships for several of our students. Students are also supported by research assistantships on grants awarded to our faculty; as of September 1, 2011, the Clinical Science faculty had active research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Cancer Institute. Our students have been highly successful in obtaining individual predoctoral fellowships, including National Research Service Awards from the National Institutes of Health and predoctoral training fellowships from the National Science Foundation.

Student Financial Aid
Financial Aid Awarded		2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
	1st year	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
	2nd year	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
	3rd year	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
	4th year	100%	100%	100%	100%
	5th year	100%	100%	100%

Attrition. Over the past 7 years, 50 applicants have enrolled in the Vanderbilt University Clinical Psychological Science program. Three of these students have left the program, an overall attrition rate of 6%. Of these 3 students, 2 transferred to clinical psychology programs at other universities and 1 completed a Masters degree and left to pursue graduate work in another area of psychology at another university.

Research

Clinical faculty research areas include:

• Basic cognitive and emotional processes, including the biological, cognitive, and interpersonal factors influencing basic emotion-related processes, as well as individual differences in affective traits.
• Clinical neuroscience, including neuropsychological, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging approaches to studying normal and abnormal behavior.
• Developmental psychopathology, including the identification, etiology, treatment, and prevention of psychopathology in children and adolescents (particularly with respect to mood disorders), and the study of typical and atypical development (particularly with respect to autism and mental retardation).
• Prevention and intervention, including the development and evaluation of optimal interventions for various psychopathologies, the prevention of diabetes and other biomedical disorders, and the identification of potential etiological or vulnerability markers that are linked to heightened risk for depressive disorders among children and adolescents.
• Health psychology, emphasizing a biopsychosocial approach to health and illness throughout the life span.
• Quantitative analysis, including the application of advanced statistical techniques to the study of psychopathology and other clinical issues.

Underlying each of these areas is a common philosophy that emphasizes theoretical development, empirical validation, methodological rigor, and the establishment of links between normal and abnormal processes using multiple methods and levels of analysis.

The Program faculty enjoy strong relationships with the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development; the Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience; the Departments of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Medicine in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine; the Vanderbilt University Institute for Imaging Science; the Vanderbilt Brain Institute; the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; the Center for Developmental Medicine; the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies; and Meharry Medical College.

A strong focus of Clinical Science at Vanderbilt is the integration of research with professional expertise. Students are actively involved in research on a continuing basis throughout their graduate training. The primary orientations are cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, and neurobiological. The program is able to provide students with a wealth of training experiences, both scientific and professional, that is unmatched even by programs much larger in size. Students are involved in clinical practicum work at a number of Vanderbilt sites and more broadly throughout the greater Nashville community. They receive supervised research and clinical training in a wide variety of agencies that serve children, adolescents, and adults, and that address a wide spectrum of psychological problems.

Clinical Internship

As with practicum training, the clinical internship is carefully planned to meet each student’s career goals and needs. Our students intern at highly regarded, APA-approved internship sites. The vast majority of our students are matched at the internship ranked as their first or second choice. Evaluations of internship placements indicate both that our students are well prepared for internship by our training program and that they find the internship experience to be highly rewarding.

Year	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Applied for Internships	6	9	4	8	6	5	7
Percent Obtained Internship	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Percent Obtained Paid Funded Internship	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Percent Obtained APPIC Member Internship	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Percent Obtained APA Accredited Internship	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

Our Graduates

Graduates of the Clinical Science Program over the last decade occupy important positions in academic as well as service institutions, and have research interests that are at the cutting edge of clinically and socially relevant issues. Their success is evidence of the effective combination of research and clinical training we offer, and of their own commitment to professional, research, and academic careers in clinical psychology.

Year		2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Doctoral Degrees Awarded		3	6	8	4	8	6	3
Years in Program	Mean	10	7.6	6.4	7	6.25	6.17	5.67
	Med	9	7	6	7	6	6	6
Percent less than 5 years		0	0	12.5	0	0	0	0
Percent 5 years		0	0	12.5	25	12.5	0	33
Percent 6 years		0	17	25	25	62.5	83.3	67
Percent 7 years		33	33	25	0	12.5	16.7	0
Percent greater than 7 years		67	50	25	50	12.5	0	0

Note. Data in this table includes the internship year. For example, a student who graduated in 6 years spent 5 years on campus and 1 year away on clinical internship.

Psychology licensure

For the period from 2001-2008, a total of 45 students received their PhDs from our program during that period.  Of these 45 graduates, 35 (77.8%) are currently licensed psychologists.

Accreditation

The graduate training program in Clinical Science is fully accredited by the American Psychological Association (last accredited 2009; next site visit 2014). For more information concerning accreditation, contact:

Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Phone: 202-336-5979
Website: http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation

For more information, please contact the program Co-Directors: Jo-Anne Bachorowski or Bruce Compas.