Once you have completed all the course work, you must pass a comprehensive exam and write and defend a dissertation or other scholarly product. If you want to be a professional psychologist in clinical, counseling, school, or other health service areas of psychology, you will also have to complete a 1-year internship as part of your doctoral study in these areas of practice. You may wish to consider a doctoral program in a professional school rather than at a traditional university. Professional schools typically place greater emphasis on training students for professional practice and less emphasis on research. In choosing applicants, these programs may look for candidates who already have clinical experience or other work experience in applied psychology.
Institutional accreditation certifies that an institution has met minimum standards of quality.
It is granted by one of seven regional accrediting organizations recognized for this purpose by the U.S. Department of Education. Membership in the APA requires that one's doctoral degree in psychology or equivalent be from an accredited institution. Most state licensing boards in psychology also have such a requirement, though some require that the licensure applicant have graduated from an accredited doctoral program in psychology. The latter is what we refer to as specialized accreditation. Specialized accreditation only applies to professional programs.