About the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology

Approximately ten students are accepted each year to this four-year program. Students take three years of graduate courses within this program on the campuses of all four schools from faculty in each of the four institutions. They also fulfill eight clinical training practica in public and private mental health settings throughout the Hampton Roads area. Degree requirements include an empirically-based dissertation and a one-year clinical psychology internship in an off-site setting. Students must compete nationally for these internship placements.

This program enjoys national recognition. It has been accredited by the American Psychological Association on a continuous basis since 1982. It has received strong, positive reviews from site visitors and is widely recognized as a rare consortial training model in which there is an unusually high ratio of faculty to students. The Virginia Consortium offers clinical psychology students the unusual opportunity to be trained side by side with medical students in course work, clinical practica, and applied research. Especially when considered collectively, faculty across the four schools are diverse with respect to ethnicity, gender, and philosophical orientations. They represent a wide range of specialty skills. Several faculty enjoy national and international reputations of excellence.

Student applications outnumber available positions by about 13:1, and minority student representation has averaged 20 percent over the past six years. All students have been financially supported by the program at a moderate level.