General

Qualifying process completion enables students to 1) file for doctoral candidacy, and 2) begin to make arrangements for the dissertation proposal meeting, which thereby affects eligibility for internship. Counseling Psychology students are encouraged to plan ahead and to consult with their advisers in deciding the timing to the qualifying process. For example, a student who submits and passes the qualifying process and the necessary coursework during the 6th semester (spring of the 3rd year) will advance to candidacy that summer, or the following academic session/semester. Summer faculty schedules can hinder necessary approval steps. Therefore, a tight timeline leaves little time to have a dissertation proposal meeting occur before October 1st of that year, which is a program requirement for applying to internship.

Assignment of Adviser

Students should contact their faculty adviser no later than their 4th semester to begin the process. The CP program expects that a student’s program adviser will also be the student's qualifying process adviser. If for any reason a student wants a different qualifying process adviser, they should begin by notifying their program adviser. Students will then need to petition the CP faculty to be allowed a different adviser, whether this is another CP faculty member or a faculty member outside the program. Prior to petitioning the CP faculty, the student should have contacted the potential adviser and solicited their agreement to chair the qualifying process pending CP faculty approval. 

Document

The qualifying document is viewed as a trial run for the dissertation and will be evaluated as such. The “feasibility” of the study will be a factor in evaluating the document – i.e., the study should represent a contribution to the literature, be something that is practical to accomplish (i.e., a type of project that could reasonably be accomplished in a dissertation), and be well-designed.

The student must submit for examination a document comparable to a scholarly work in the field. The options are:

1. A document that includes an integrative review of the literature and a proposal for a study that addresses an important issue arising from the review of literature (““Traditional Qualifying Process Format”, below); or
2. An article describing a research study on which the student is the first author and which is written under the supervision of a UT-Austin Educational Psychology faculty member. The manuscript is expected to be submitted to a respectable journal.

Process for Students not Passing on Their First Try

Students who are not on probation will be given another opportunity to go through the qualifying process (either one semester or one year later). For students on probation, the CP faculty will consider whether another opportunity to go through the process, or termination (with an option to earn a Master's degree), or termination (with no option for a Master's degree) is the most appropriate recommendation to make to the GSC.