Which psychology programs retain the most students?

• According to an annual APA survey, attrition rates are lowest in clinical, counseling and school psychology programs.^1,2
• Between 2011 and 2015, clinical psychology programs had attrition rates under 4 percent, followed by counseling psychology at about 4 percent and school psychology averaging just below 5 percent.
• Attrition rates in experimental and industrial/organizational subfields were consistent at about 6 percent. There were larger variations in other subfields over the five-year period, with most in the 6 to 13 percent range.³

For more information about attrition in master's and doctoral programs, see Survey Data.

By Daniel Michalski, PhD⁴, Caroline Cope, MA⁴, Garth Fowler, PhD⁴, Luona Lin, MPP, Peggy Christidis, PhD, and Karen Stamm, PhD. For more information, contact cws@apa.org.

¹APA surveys graduate departments of psychology to collect information for the annual publication Graduate Study in Psychology—a print and online resource for prospective applicants to graduate psychology programs.

²Attrition is defined as the ratio of withdrawing students over the sum of total enrollment and withdrawals for an application cycle.

³The "Applied Other" category includes applied behavior analysis, educational, community, forensic, sport, quantitative and behavioral psychology programs.

⁴Author is a staff member of APA's Office on Graduate and Postgraduate Education and Training.