How We Rank PsyD Programs

The ranked set is the American Psychological Association’s list of accredited doctoral programs with the degree Psy.D., in clinical, counseling, school or combined psychology, read on October 12, 2026. 124 programs are on it: By APA’s own status: 103 “Accredited”; 16 “Accredited, on contingency”; 1 “Accredited, on probation”; and 4 “Accredited, inactive”.

A program is ranked when all three of these hold:

• APA lists it with any status except “Accredited, inactive”, which APA uses for a program that is not admitting students.
• A new student can start it: its school’s own pages carry no closure, teach-out or paused-admissions notice.
• It is in the United States or Puerto Rico.

117 programs clear that bar. The 7 that do not are never scored: 4 are listed by APA as inactive and 3 carry a notice on the school’s own pages announcing a closure, a teach-out or paused admissions. Accreditation does not set a program apart on its own: a program on contingency or on probation is ranked on the same factors and shows its exact APA status wherever it appears.

Cost (20 Points)

The full-time tuition for one year that the program publishes for its incoming class in the cost table APA requires every accredited program to post, using the out-of-state figure where a public university lists two. Scored on a log scale between the 5th and 95th percentile of ranked programs, lowest tuition scoring highest, so a few thousand dollars between two low-cost programs counts for more than the same gap between two expensive ones.

• Uses the tuition the program itself publishes for the incoming class
• Tuition published per semester is counted at two semesters a year, unless the program states how many terms a full-time student pays for in a year; quarters and trimesters are counted at three
• A price per credit on its own is not converted into a yearly figure, so a program that publishes only that is scored as having no published tuition
• Remission promised to every admitted student is subtracted; aid some students receive is not
• Where a program states a share of tuition that every incoming student pays, the cost is that share of its tuition
• A program with no published tuition scores as if it cost more than most programs (the 25th percentile of the cost bar), and cannot outscore the best program that does publish one
• Fees, books and living costs are shown on each program where published, not scored

Cohort years differ across programs because each cost table names its own year: the oldest cost table behind the ranking is for the 2022-2023 cohort and the newest for the 2026-2027 cohort, and each program’s card prints its year beside its tuition.

Source: Each program’s APA disclosure, Program Costs table.

Graduate Earnings (20 Points)

Median earnings of the school’s graduates with a doctorate in clinical, counseling and applied psychology (federal field 42.28), four years after completion, or one year after where that is the figure published, from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. Scored on a dollar scale between the 5th and 95th percentile of ranked programs. Scorecard counts graduates who received federal aid, by school, so a school that also awards a PhD in the field reports one figure for both degrees.

• Measured for this field and degree level at this school, not school-wide
• Scorecard withholds small graduating classes; those programs score at the peer median

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, Field of Study.

Completion (15 Points)

From the attrition table APA requires every accredited program to post: the share of students who entered in the years the table covers and did not leave the program for any reason other than earning the degree. Students still enrolled count as not having left. Entries a program printed inconsistently, such as a figure repeated down a whole column or a table that is not the entering-cohort table APA asks for, are left out. Percentile among ranked programs.

• Read from the program’s own attrition table, one figure across every entering class it reports
• Entries a program printed inconsistently (a figure repeated across a whole column, a table that is not the entering-cohort table APA asks for) are left out
• A program whose table is not published, or has nothing left after that, scores at the peer median

Source: Each program’s APA disclosure, Attrition table.

Internship and Licensure Outcomes (15 Points)

The average of two percentiles among ranked programs: the share of the program’s students in the APPIC internship match from 2021 to 2025 who matched to an internship accredited by APA or the Canadian Psychological Association, counting students who withdrew, and the share of the program’s graduates who passed the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology on their first attempt, from the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. Where only one is published, that one alone. This factor carries 15 points, including the weight that would have gone to online delivery, which does not apply to APA-accredited programs (see Factors Left Out).

• Internship match: APPIC Match Rates by Doctoral Program, 2021 to 2025, at least 10 students in the match
• Licensing exam: ASPPB, first-time takers 2021 to 2025, as ASPPB publishes it (5 or more takers)
• A program with neither figure scores at the peer median

Source: APPIC Match Rates by Doctoral Program; ASPPB EPPP Scores by Doctoral Program.

Track Record (10 Points)

The program’s students registered in the APPIC internship match each year, 2021 to 2025 on average, on a log scale between the 5th and 95th percentile of ranked programs. It is counted for the program itself, where federal completion counts can combine a school’s PhD and PsyD graduates.

• A log scale keeps the largest programs from swamping the rest
• A program with no students in the match in those years scores at the peer median

Source: APPIC Match Rates by Doctoral Program.

Credential Alignment (10 Points)

Every ranked program is accredited by the American Psychological Association. Full accreditation scores 10, accreditation on contingency (a newer program that has not yet shown the outcome data full accreditation requires) scores 5, and accreditation on probation scores 0.

• Accredited: 10
• Accredited, on contingency: 5
• Accredited, on probation: 0

Source: American Psychological Association, Commission on Accreditation.

Program Reputation (10 Points)

A rating from 0 (little-known) to 4 (among the most recognized programs in the field), produced by an automated language model from each program’s published facts. It is not a survey of psychologists. The model rates one program at a time, so a rating never depends on the programs beside it, and every program is rated the same way. Percentile among ranked programs.

• Rated program by program, in the field, not for the school as a whole
• No individual rating is printed on any page; a program’s card shows only the bar it earns among ranked programs
• A program that has not been rated scores at the peer median

The ratings were made on October 15, 2026.

Source: An automated language-model rating of each program’s published facts, made the same way for every program.

Credential Alignment Tiers

The three APA statuses a ranked program can hold score 10 for “Accredited”, 5 for “Accredited, on contingency” and 0 for “Accredited, on probation”, each out of 10. The tier moves a program’s score by at most 10 points, so a program on contingency is ranked beside the rest on its other factors.

• The scale. Each factor is scored on a 0 to 10 bar. The weighted total of those bars, times 10, is the score out of 100, to one decimal. It is an absolute score, not scaled to the top program, so no program reads 100 unless it is the best on every factor.
• The peer group. Every ranked PsyD program is scored against every other, nationally. State and specialty pages keep the national scores.
• Figures that are not published. A factor with no published figure for a program is scored at the median of the ranked programs, at full weight, and is not shown, so a program cannot rise because a number is unpublished. Cost is stricter: an unpublished tuition scores at the 25th percentile.
• A program with no published tuition. A program with no published tuition cannot outscore the best program that publishes one.
• Ties. Ties are broken by Cost, then Graduate Earnings, then program name. Scores are shown to one decimal and programs are ordered by the unrounded score, so two programs can show the same score at different ranks.
• Independence. Sponsored listings never change a score or a rank.
• Lists and state pages. Specialty, need, outcome and state pages filter and sort the national scores. They never score again, so a program holds one score wherever it appears.

How Tuition Is Counted for a Year

Programs print tuition for different periods, so the Cost factor first turns each into a yearly figure by one set of rules. A program’s card prints the figure and the period exactly as the school published them. The yearly total counted for scoring is never printed as the school’s own.

• A figure with no period, or one printed per year, is the program’s yearly tuition: APA’s disclosure table asks for the incoming cohort’s yearly cost.
• A figure per semester is counted at two semesters a year. A figure per quarter is counted at three quarters and a figure per trimester at three trimesters, a year each.
• When a program states how many terms a full-time student pays for in a year, such as three semesters with a summer term, that number replaces the count above.
• A figure per term, without a named period, is counted only when the program states how many terms a year has.
• A price per credit is never converted into a yearly figure, so a program that publishes only that is scored as having no published tuition.
• Where a public university lists an in-state and an out-of-state price, the out-of-state price is used for every program alike.
• Tuition the program says it waives for every admitted student is subtracted, down to zero. Aid that some students receive is not.
• Fees, books and living costs are shown on each program where published and are not scored.

How Completion Is Counted

The Completion factor reads the attrition table APA requires every accredited program to post. For each entering class the table gives how many students entered and how many left for any reason other than earning the degree. The factor adds up every class the table reports and takes the share that did not leave, so one small class cannot swing it, and students still enrolled count as not having left. A column a program printed inconsistently, such as a figure repeated down every row or a table that is not the entering-class table APA asks for, is left out, and a program whose table has nothing left scores at the peer median.

How Match and Exam Rates Are Counted

The internship match rate is the share of a program’s registered students in the APPIC Match, 2021 to 2025, who matched to an internship accredited by APA or the Canadian Psychological Association. Students who withdrew stay in the count of registered students, as APPIC counts them, and a program needs at least ten registrations to have a rate. The exam rate is ASPPB’s first-time pass rate for the EPPP, 2021 to 2025, as ASPPB publishes it, for programs with at least five takers.

This is why the outcomes factor weighs the match rate and the exam rate together at 15 points, and why no page calls either rate a program’s quality. A program’s rate is shown with the number of students behind it.

These measures are not scored, and each has a reason.

• Online Experience. Methodology v2 scores how much of a school’s teaching happens online. The American Psychological Association does not accredit a doctoral program delivered substantially or completely online, so every ranked program trains its students in person, and a university-wide online share would describe other students. Its weight goes to internship and licensure outcomes, which every accredited program reports the same way.
• Admission rate. APA no longer requires programs to publish admissions figures, so an admission rate is missing for many programs, and it would reward turning applicants away rather than training them well.
• University-wide graduation rate. A university’s graduation rate describes its undergraduates. The Completion factor uses each program’s own attrition table instead.

This is Methodology v2, version 2.0, updated October 14, 2026. A change to a weight, a rule or an input raises the version and is recorded here, newest first.

• Version 2.0. First edition, on Methodology v2 with program-level doctoral inputs.