ABA Degree Programs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington
University of North Carolina Wilmington is also featured in our ranking of the Top 25 Best Applied Behavior Analysis Programs.
The University of North Carolina Wilmington offers an undergraduate degree program in psychology that prepares students for studying applied behavior analysis at the graduate level. It also offers two distinct ABA degree programs at the graduate and doctoral levels. The master’s program with an ABA concentration takes 30 months to complete and includes 53 credits of classes. Students will take three required courses first, which include two research practicums and a class on research methods. They will also do a thesis over their last two semesters to earn six more credits.
Some of the other courses in the ABA concentration include Learning and Behavior Analysis, Personality and Social Psychology, Applied Behavior Analysis: Behavior Reduction and Ethical and Legal Issues in Mental Health. A large component of the program is an internship that is worth six credits. The university requires that students do 1,000 hours of clinical fieldwork over two semesters. Past students worked in organizations across North Carolina, including the May Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders and Central Regional Hospital. Students who complete the ABA program can sit for the board certification exam.
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A Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology with a concentration in ABA is also available from the university. This program includes two practicums and eight required classes such as Applied Behavior Analysis: Behavior Reduction and Advanced Topics in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Students will also take courses that go over the methods and techniques that ABA professionals use and the ethics of working with others.
All ABA doctoral students must meet the same requirements that other doctoral students do. They need to take five advanced psychology classes, including Developmental Psychology and Cognitive Psychology. Doctoral students also take three research classes and do two research practicums. They can then begin working on a dissertation. The university gives students up to four semesters or two years to finish their dissertations. They will need to get approval from the Department of Psychology to work on the subjects they choose.
About the University of North Carolina Wilmington
The University of North Carolina Wilmington is a public university that is part of the University of North Carolina System. Established as a junior college in 1947, it opened as Wilmington College. Most of the more than 200 students who signed up for classes that first year were World War II veterans who used the new military benefits awarded to soldiers by the federal government. Though it gained regional accreditation, it operated as a community college for many years, with the state overseeing its operations. Wilmington College earned the right to offer bachelor’s programs and award bachelor’s degrees in 1963 and became the University of North Carolina Wilmington a few years later after joining the UNC System.
Some of the names that the university uses today include UNCW and UNC Wilmington. UNCW offers internships for students in most of its programs and can help them find locations to work across the state and in other southern states. It now offers more than 100 majors and degree programs at the bachelor, master and doctoral levels to more than 16,000 students every year.
University of North Carolina Wilmington Accreditation Details
UNC Wilmington has regional accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which means that any new student or returning student can apply for financial aid. Accreditation of this type also gives the university the right to design programs and create requirements for those programs and to give students credit for the courses they took at other colleges. Some of the programs offered by UNCW that also have accreditation include those in music, nursing, technology and public policy.
University of North Carolina Wilmington Application Requirements
The final deadline for ABA graduate student applications is April 15, but the university has a soft deadline of January fourth. UNCW can fill all the open spots in the program before the final deadline passes, which is why it encourages students to apply early. Prospective students must have a bachelor’s degree and a record that shows they took research and statistics classes and scored at least a B in each one of those courses. Students who did not major in psychology must also submit an official GRE score. UNC Wilmington requires an application, $60 application fee and three letters of recommendation from those applying to the graduate ABA program.
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Doctoral students will face similar admissions requirements. They need a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a GPA of 3.0 or higher in those classes. UNCW will also accept students who majored in other fields but took at least 21 credits of psychology classes and maintained the same GPA. Those without a psychology degree will also need to submit a GRE score and a score from the GRE psychology subject test, but those with psychology degrees only need to submit the general GRE score. The university also requires a statement of purpose that is at least 500 words long and a current resume. Students will provide their transcripts and three letters of recommendation too. UNC Wilmington requires that all prospective doctoral students conduct an on-campus interview too.
Tuition and Financial Aid
UNC Wilmington offers different tuition rates for different types of graduate and doctoral students. They pay $4,720 per year as a North Carolina resident and $18,548 as a nonresident. Both residents and nonresidents pay $2,738 per year in fees too. The total cost of attendance comes to $26,377 for residents and $40,205 for nonresidents each year.
The university offers multiple types of financial aid for students too. Graduate teaching assistantships require that students work five to 20 hours a week. Students can apply for graduate assistantships and research assistantships that ask them to do other things too. All these programs provide students with enough funding to cover their first two years in a degree program. A special program offered by the university will lower the cost of tuition down for nonresidents to the same rate that residents pay, but there are only a small number of spots available in this program. Students can also use alternative and federal loans. Federal loans are available for students who use the FAFSA. Loans and assistantships help students pay for the ABA degree programs offered by the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
