Womack Educational Leadership Department
Frequently Asked Questions
The Womack Educational Leadership Department offers an Ed.S. (i.e., Specialist in Education) in Professional Counseling degree with concentrations in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and School Counseling. Both concentrations are accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs (CACREP).
The Clinical Mental Health Counseling concentration is a 61-hour degree program designed to train students to work with children, adolescents, and/or adults in mental health settings. Students who complete the concentration will have met the educational requirements for licensure as a professional counselor with mental health service provider designation (LPC MHSP). Click here to learn more about clinical mental health counseling: What is a Mental Health Counselor?
The School Counseling concentration is a 61-hour degree program emphasizing developmental school counseling. Students who complete the concentration will have met the educational requirements necessary for licensure as a school counselor in elementary, middle, and high school settings. Click here to learn more about the field of school counseling: School Counselor Roles & Ratios
In both concentrations, students start by taking foundation courses to orient them to the field of counseling as well as their areas of focus – clinical mental health counseling or school counseling. As students progress through the program, they take skills courses to learn the fundamental skills of counselors such as listening, paraphrasing, empathizing and summarizing; helping clients through the different stages of counseling in a practicum experience at the MTSU Center for Counseling and Psychological Services; and diagnosing and treating mental disorders. During the final phase of the program students continue to take courses that are specific to their concentrations and complete a two-semester internship in a mental health or school setting.
The MTSU program is a trauma-informed program meaning that faculty believe it is important for students to understand the impact of trauma (with a “Big T” or a “little t”) on human development. As such, they infuse trauma content into every class.
Pillars of the MTSU professional counseling program include an infusion of three key elements throughout the curriculum ensuring the development of highly skilled clinicians able to competently serve a widely diverse range of people and needs. The MTSU professional counseling program is:
The cornerstone of the MTSU Professional Counseling Program is the MTSU Center for Counseling and Psychological Services, a non-profit training clinic staffed by counselors-in-training in the program, who are under the supervision of the program faculty.
Dr. Robin Lee is the coordinator of the Professional Counseling Program. Please contact robin.lee@mtsu.edu for more information about clinical mental health and school counseling concentrations.
The MTSU Professional Counseling Program is voluntarily accredited by the Council on the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs (CACREP). Graduation from a CACREP accredited graduate program is becoming increasingly essential in securing state licensure for counseling. Explore CACREP accreditation and its benefits: CACREP Benefits
Our master’s degree programs – clinical mental health counseling and school counseling – have been phased out. Starting in Fall, 2019 they became Ed.S. (i.e., Specialist in Education) degrees.
An Ed.S. is a degree located between a master’s degree and a doctoral degree in length and is specific to programs that are located in a university’s college of education. Students must complete a minimum of 60 hours of graduate coursework to earn it. One of the primary reasons Professional Counseling faculty made this change was to better reflect the amount of time students put into their graduate studies. In other departments, for example, one can earn a master’s degree by completing 30 hours of graduate coursework while counseling students are required to complete double that amount of coursework. Another reason faculty made the change was for financial reasons. For school counseling graduates an Ed.S. degree oftentimes means being paid at a higher level by the school district that employs them. This is not usually the case for clinical mental health counseling graduates, however, in that agencies that employ them are more interested in whether they are license-eligible (i.e., LPC), regardless of degree type.
An Ed.S. degree/a degree that is earned in a college of education is looked at no differently than a master’s degree by licensure boards for licensure purposes. Licensure boards simply want to verify that a student a) earned a graduate degree in the appropriate field (i.e., counseling/school counseling) and b) that they completed graduate coursework required for licensure purposes.
Click here to learn about the differences between a master’s degree and a specialist in education degree: Master’s Degree vs Specialist in Education
No. Our program is a traditional, in-person program offering maximum direct contact between faculty, students, and peers in the classroom and the clinic. Face-to-face learning opportunities provide mentoring, collaboration, and supportive learning in academic and clinical settings. Peer-to-peer interactions build collegial skills and relationships that follow our graduates into the professional field. We offer two (2) online classes as part of the program. While there are two online classes, many are blended, meaning that some of the content is offered online and some are offered in person.
The majority of our classes (during the fall and spring semesters) are offered one night a week from 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. A couple of classes are offered on the weekends. Summer classes are essentially “accelerated” meaning that a large amount of content is covered within a relatively short period of time (anywhere between three and five weeks depending on the class). Summer classes can meet Monday – Friday for three hours (during the May session) or in various permutations (including weekends) depending on the class.
Classes are offered at the College of Education building (on-campus) and the MTSU Center for Counseling & Psychological Services (off-campus: 503 E. Bell Street).
You can search for classes here: Dynamic Schedule
- Select your term/semester and click on “Submit.”
- Under “Subject” scroll down to “COUN – Counseling.”
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Class Search.”
It depends. If you have an undergraduate GPA that is 3.00 or above then no admissions exam is required. If your undergraduate GPA is below 3.00 then you may take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) – in which case, we will only consider the Verbal subtest score from this test for admissions purposes (minimum test score required = 146).
In cases where applicants have undergraduate GPAs that fall below 3.00 the Professional Counseling faculty will consider how they performed during the final 60 hours/two years of their undergraduate programs. If the GPA is 3.00 or above during this time period then the faculty may determine that this is sufficient. However, a graduate admissions exam would be required to evaluate an applicant’s potential for doing graduate work. It is possible that other application materials (e.g., admission test score; recommendation forms; supplemental application/written essay; resume) that are particularly strong could offset the low GPA. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
The MTSU Professional Counseling Program has become increasingly competitive in the past few years. While we wish we could accept everyone who is interested in becoming a counselor, our acceptance numbers are based on CACREP standards. Therefore, our program accepts between 25 and 30 students per year. Approximately 40% of the students who apply to our program are accepted.
February 1 is the application for students who intend on starting their studies in the summer or fall. September 1 is the application deadline for students starting their studies in the spring.
From time to time, prospective students miss the application deadlines. However, they are still eligible to take a couple of classes. The Professional Counseling faculty allow students to take up to two graduate classes when they register with the College of Graduate Studies as non-degree seeking students. This means that a student has not been accepted into a graduate program but has been granted permission by the graduate school to take a limited number of graduate classes (with the understanding that faculty have the final say as to whether a student can take a course). These classes will apply toward the degree if students apply and are accepted into the program. Typical counseling classes that are taken early in the program include:
- COUN 6110 – Introduction to Professional Counseling
- COUN 6830 – Theories and Techniques of Counseling
- COUN 5655 – Foundations of Clinical Mental Health Counseling
- COUN 6160 – Foundations of School Counseling
Students who take classes as non-degree seeking students (in hopes they will be accepted into a program) are taking a risk as there is no guarantee they will be accepted into the program. It is based on a positive review of their application materials and a successful interview. It is important to note that non-degree seeking students are not eligible for financial aid.
Three (3) classes (i.e., nine credit hours) is considered a full load at the graduate level. Most students take three classes while others take two classes per semester if their circumstances do not allow them to take as many classes.
It takes two-and-a-half to three years to complete the 61-hour program, including classes during the summer months. We are a year-round program, so some courses are only offered during the summer term.
Yes. All students complete a one-semester practicum experience at our counseling training clinic (MTSU Center for Counseling & Psychological Services) or a middle school prior to internship. Students must complete a 100-hour experience; 40 of those 100 hours must include direct services to clients.
Following practicum, students complete a 600-hour internship experience, which is usually completed across two semesters. This entails working at the internship site (a mental health agency or school) three to four days a week. Paid internships are not guaranteed (school counseling interns can be job-embedded, which means they will be employed full-time as a school counselor, receiving a salary). Clinical mental health counseling students typically complete their entire experience in one mental health setting. School counseling students usually complete one semester at an elementary school and one semester at a high school. However, opportunities are available to complete a one-semester internship at one school level. Students must spend 240 of the 600-hour requirement providing direct services to clients/students.
From time to time, students are able to do this if they are in the right place at the right time. Because in recent years there have been more school counseling jobs available than there have been licensed applicants to fill them, the state has allowed students to work as school counselors under a “job-embedded license” while they are completing their degree in school counseling, if the program faculty agree to the arrangement. This is decided on a case-by-case basis. The MTSU Professional Counseling program policy permits students to do this only in the last year of the program (i.e., the internship year) and preferably during their final semester of internship. If a school district is unable to find a fully-licensed school counseling applicant and offers a student a position, then they must send an “Intent to Hire” form to Patti Agnew in the MTSU Office of Professional Laboratory Experiences. Potential students can also contact Patti for more information on the full process of working under the Job-Embedded-School-Counseling-Licensure-Track provisions. The Program Coordinator will present the prospective student’s request to the Professional Counseling faculty for consideration.
Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Graduates from the school counseling concentration are eligible to take classes to meet the licensure requirements as a professional counselor (LPC/MHSP) with the approval of the Professional Counseling faculty. Students who are not graduates of MTSU’s school counseling concentration may be eligible to take some classes for LPC purposes, but not internship (which is a requirement for licensure). Prospective students should contact Dr. Robin Lee (Robin.Lee@mtsu.edu) so she can review their transcripts and let them know which courses they would need for licensure purposes. They would register with the College of Graduate Studies as a “non-degree seeking student” to take classes.
School Counseling
Prospective students may apply to take courses to meet the licensure requirements as a school counselor. They are not required to have graduated from MTSU’s clinical mental health counseling program for this purpose. The admissions requirements are the same as for those seeking the Ed.S. degree although the admissions test (i.e., GRE or MAT) score may be waived on a case-by-case basis.
First, prospective applicants should contact the program coordinator – Dr. Robin Lee (Robin.Lee@mtsu.edu) – and send her a copy of their undergraduate and graduate transcripts. She will let them know what courses they need in order to meet the Tennessee requirements for school counseling licensure. If prospective applicants decide to pursue this coursework then they should apply online to the College of Graduate Studies and select, “Addition of School Counseling Classes to Previous Masters” from the pull-down box choices. The prospective applicant should subsequently follow the steps to apply to the school counseling program.
Graduate assistantships (GAs) are limited and competitive. They are available for 10 or 20 hours per week although the 10-hour assistantship (which includes a small monthly stipend and the 50% tuition discount) is the norm. Graduate assistants assist faculty members with both teaching and research and perform a wide variety of other duties depending on the faculty needs and the assistant’s skills and background. Information about student assistantships and a link to the application can be found on the College of Graduate Studies website.
In addition to applying for an assistantship with the program, students may want to apply for a GA position in non-academic offices across the university. A list of these departments that do not have students of their own from which to select GAs can be found by clicking on the “Non-Academic Offices Offering Graduate Assistantships” link on the College of Graduate Studies website.
Please see the Handbook for scholarship information specific to the Professional Counseling program. In addition, students may search and apply for scholarships here: Scholarships
No. An undergraduate degree in any field will suffice.
No. There are no pre-requisites for the program.
According to the College of Graduate Studies, you may not use any courses to fulfill the requirements of the Ed.S. if those courses are used to fulfill the requirements of another graduate degree. It is possible to transfer a maximum of 12 credits of select courses if courses were taken but not used to fulfill the requirements of a graduate degree. Faculty determine if a course is transferable. Skills classes such as Pre-Practicum in Counseling (i.e., counseling techniques), Practicum in Counseling, and Diagnosis & Treatment Planning in Counseling are not transferable. (Note: Although a prospective student may desire to transfer in 12 credits, the faculty may only approve 9, 6, 3, or 0 credits.) Individuals wishing to transfer to MTSU’s Professional Counseling program must meet the same admissions requirements as anyone applying to the program.
Degree requirements can be found on the official Professional Counseling, Clinical Mental Health Counseling Concentration, Ed.S. page.
Degree requirements can be found on the official Professional Counseling, School Counseling Concentration, Ed.S. page.
Most clinical mental health counseling students find jobs in local mental health agencies after graduating. School counseling graduates are in high demand, given the reputation of the program and new schools that are continually being built in the middle Tennessee area. As a profession, the field of counseling is growing faster than many other professions. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of “mental health counselors is projected to grow 23% from 2020 to 2030, much faster than the average for all occupations” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). School counseling as a field “is projected to grow 11% from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all occupations” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – School Counseling).
The following are excellent resources for exploring the field of professional counseling:
| Clinical Psychologist | Clinical Mental Health Counselor | |
|---|---|---|
| Education tequired | Doctoral degree | Master’s, Educational Specialist, or doctoral degree |
| License type | Licensed Psychologist | Licensed Professional Counselor |
| Training model | Scientist-Practitioner | Practitioner-Scholar |
| Theoretical traditions | Psychodynamic Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy | Humanistic, Eastern Philosophies |
| Primary area of focus | Psychological testing, therapy, research | Therapy |
You may contact the Professional Counseling program coordinator, Dr. Robin Lee, for additional questions.