About

The Department of Counselor Education at Radford University offers a unique blend of courses designed to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for becoming a knowledgeable, thoughtful, skillful and caring counselor. The M.S. in Counseling and Human Development program is intensely clinical and involves significant student engagement in situated learning or clinical practice.

Emphasis on the students’ personal and professional growth and development permeates the entire educational process. Didactic and experiential learning components are provided to ensure that students develop a thorough knowledge of the helping process and their personal role as a facilitator of human development and change. An individual style of counseling is created by a blend of courses, directed experiences, supervised clinical practice and personal growth. This unique combination has proven to be an effective training process for our graduates who seek employment as professional counselors in varied settings or who desire advanced graduate study beyond the master’s degree.

Department of Counselor Education Mission Statement

Radford University’s Department of Counselor Education prepares emerging counselors through an experiential, contextual, and systemic curriculum, infused with foundational and current counseling-related research, counseling and human development needs of clients from diverse backgrounds and culturally diverse populations, and clinical and outreach activities.

The program helps students develop a strong counselor professional identity through ethical and competent practice as well as expanding self-awareness. Students serve as professional school counselors in K-12 public school settings and professional mental health counselors who practice in community agencies and other clinical mental health settings.

Toward meeting the mission, the Department of Counselor Education has the following objectives: 

• To recruit qualified applicants with focus on the inclusion of qualified candidates from diverse and underrepresented populations, (e.g., racial, ethnic, sexual, disabled, economic minorities, etc.);
• To provide experiences that inform and facilitate professional identity through personal and professional growth;
• To teach the effective application of legal and ethical standards of clinical practice;
• To assist students in developing multicultural counseling competencies (e.g., awareness, knowledge, and skills to meet the needs of a pluralistic society);
• To teach the core counseling skills and strategies that are foundational to the helping process;
• To contribute to the counseling profession through professional membership, participation in conferences, and participating in advocacy and social justice initiatives;
• To maintain CACREP and CAEP accreditation;
• To evaluate the program through recommendations from program faculty, current and former students, advisory board, and additional stakeholders and analysis of critical data derived from student learning outcomes.

Admissions Requirements

Admission to our program is competitive and the department values diversity in its student population. Prospective students are selected for the program based on their ability to complete academic requirements of the program, personal qualifications necessary for success in the counseling profession and appropriateness of professional goals.

The admissions committee of the department will evaluate academic qualifications and potential for success in the program based on an admissions application portfolio. Admissions decisions are made based on an overall evaluation of all stated criteria. Failure to meet a minimum criterion in one area will not necessarily be cause for rejection of admission.

Admissions Portfolio

• Minimum undergraduate GPA of 2.75 or higher;
• Official transcripts of all prior undergraduate and graduate work;
• A maximum of 9 credit hours may be transferred into the counselor education program with the exclusion of the following clinical courses: COED 611, COED 641, COED 643 and COED 690-COED 694;
• Three personal reference letters submitted to the Graduate College (Note: Faculty references are encouraged for graduate applications, as faculty members can speak to an applicant’s academic abilities, readiness for graduate-level study, and potential for success in a graduate program); and an
• Admissions essay, limited to three pages, including experiences, interests and other factors central to your decision to apply to the program, how you respect and value cultural differences, and short- and long-term goals and career aspirations related to the program.
• GRE/GMAT: Not required

*Please ensure that all required application materials listed above are submitted by the deadlines indicated below to allow for a complete review of your application. Applications with missing materials, including transcripts, cannot be reviewed until all required items have been received.

Application Deadlines

Applicant admissions portfolios are evaluated throughout the year, but matriculation as a student into the counselor education program is restricted to  fall terms only. Priority admission deadline is January 15 for fall admissions. The space-available admission deadline is March 1 for fall admissions. Special consideration for late admissions will be considered on a case by case basis until April 15 for fall admissions.

Application Review

An interview may be requested. Admission is competitive.