Quick Answer
What ABA faculty love most about their own programs varies widely, no single feature dominates. The most common thread, named by 10 of the 60 professors we surveyed, is a small cohort model with close individualized attention. University-based clinics, diverse practicum placements, full funding, and unusually deep faculty credentials round out what programs pointed to as truly distinctive.
Ask a professor what they love most about their own graduate program, and you’ll rarely get the same answer twice. That’s actually useful information on its own. It tells you these programs aren’t interchangeable, and the specific thing worth asking about depends on what you personally care about.
We put this question directly to more than 60 professors running ABA graduate programs nationwide, as part of our ongoing faculty interview series. Their answers don’t converge into one dominant theme the way some of our other findings do. Instead, they sketch out a handful of concrete, recurring differentiators worth asking any program about directly, alongside a long tail of things that are truly unique to one school.
Program Director, MA in Applied Behavior Analysis, University of Arizona
Dr. Hartzell directs the University of Arizona’s Master’s in Applied Behavior Analysis program. Her own answer about what she loves most leans directly into the university’s research history: multiple researchers there have contributed to the field’s development in behavior analysis, positive behavior support, and single-subject research design, a track record she treats as a defining feature of the program rather than a footnote.
In This Guide
Small Cohorts and Individualized Attention
Of the 60 professors we asked this question, 10 specifically pointed to small class sizes or a close-knit cohort model as what they love most about their own program, the single most-cited answer, though still far from a majority.
Faculty Voice
“The program is small, which allows for students to get to know their professors, and vice versa. Sage cohorts are small enough to allow that professional relationship to develop.
When a program brings this up unprompted, it’s worth asking what “small” actually means in practice, total enrollment, average class size, and how much individual contact with faculty that translates into once you’re not in the admissions conversation anymore.
University-Based Clinics for Hands-On Training
Three of the 60 programs specifically named an on-campus or university-run clinic as a defining feature, giving students supervised clinical experience without having to arrange an outside placement for at least part of their training.
Faculty Voice
“We have established a university based clinic called QC ACES, which gives students the opportunity to see multifaceted applications of behavior analytic principles.
Other programs described a similar setup with its own name and its own specific service menu:
Faculty Voice
“Our program has a university-based clinic (CARES) that offers behavioral assessment, intervention, consulting, diagnostic assessment, and professional development.
If a university-based clinic matters to you, ask specifically what services it offers, whether students rotate through it as part of required coursework or need to seek it out separately, and whether its activities and supervision can count toward applicable BACB supervised fieldwork requirements. Also check any separate licensing requirements in the state where you intend to practice.
Diverse Practicum Placements
Three of the 60 programs specifically highlighted the range of settings their practicum placements cover, rather than funneling every student into the same type of site.
Faculty Voice
“We are particularly proud of the diversity of experiences we provide for field work within the community. Each of our students completes field experiences in hospital, clinic, schools, adult services.
This connects directly to a question worth asking whichever program you’re considering: are placements arranged for you across a genuine variety of settings, or will you likely end up wherever you can find your own supervisor, working with whatever population that site happens to serve?
Full Funding for Research-Track Students
Two of the 60 programs specifically mentioned tuition waivers or stipends as part of what they’re proudest of, a detail that matters enormously for anyone weighing a research-focused or doctoral path against the cost of getting there.
Faculty Voice
“We emphasize a non-competitive environment in which all students receive a tuition waiver, stipend, and funding for research projects and travel.
Ask directly whether full funding applies to your specific track, not just the program broadly, since eligibility can vary even within one school.
Faculty Credential Depth and Research Pedigree
Two of the 60 programs specifically pointed to unusually deep faculty credentials, multiple BCBA-Ds on staff or dual credentials in a second field, as their defining strength.
Faculty Voice
“Our faculty are unique because they are dually credentialed as behavior analysts and school psychologists.
Faculty Voice
“At JSU, we have 4 BCBA-Ds in the Psychology Department and one basic behavior analyst with over 45 years of experience in the field.
It’s not just about the number of credentials on a faculty page. Research history counts too, and it’s not always advertised as clearly as a clinic name or a funding package:
Faculty Voice
“University of Arizona has a rich history in Applied Behavior Analysis. Many researchers from the University of Arizona have advanced the field in Applied Behavior Analysis, Positive Behavior Support, and single subject research.
What Else Programs Pointed To
Beyond these five recurring themes, professors named things unique to their own school: specific research labs, long-running community partnerships, active alumni networks that keep helping new graduates find placements and jobs, and program cultures they described as collegial rather than competitive. None of these showed up often enough to carry a percentage of their own, but they’re exactly the kind of detail worth asking a program directly about, since it won’t show up in a ranking list.
How to Use This When Comparing Programs
None of these five features makes a program automatically better than one that doesn’t have it. A large program without a dedicated clinic might have stronger community placements. A program without full funding might have a faculty bench most PhD applicants would envy. The point isn’t to rank programs by which boxes they check, and it’s worth reading this alongside who actually enrolls in these programs, since the features that matter most tend to depend heavily on your own starting point.
Questions worth asking directly, since these features often aren’t advertised the same way across programs (our list of the best ABA graduate programs is a reasonable starting point for narrowing down candidates):
- What does the program consider its single strongest feature, and does that match what you actually care about?
- If small cohort size is the pitch, what’s the actual enrollment number, and how does that translate into faculty contact time?
- If a university clinic or funding package is mentioned, does it apply to your specific degree track, or only to a different one at the same school?
- What do currently enrolled students or recent graduates say matches or contradicts what the program tells prospective applicants?
Frequently Asked Questions
What do ABA professors say makes their program stand out most?
There’s no single dominant answer. The most commonly cited feature, named by 10 of the 60 professors we surveyed, is a small cohort model with close faculty attention, but university-based clinics, diverse practicum placements, full funding, and faculty credential depth each came up as well.
How often did professors point to a university-based clinic as a defining feature?
Only 3 of the 60 programs we surveyed specifically mentioned a university-based clinic as a defining feature. That doesn’t tell us how many of the 60 programs actually have their own clinics, it tells us that relatively few professors chose to highlight one in response to this particular question. Where university-based clinics exist, ask what role they actually play in student training.
How often did professors point to full funding as a defining feature?
Only 2 of the 60 programs specifically highlighted tuition waivers or stipends in response to this question. That doesn’t establish how common funding is across ABA graduate programs generally, since programs may offer funding without faculty choosing to name it here. Ask whether funding is available for your specific degree track and what conditions apply.
Does a small class size actually matter for ABA training?
Multiple professors specifically credited small cohorts with stronger faculty relationships and more individualized attention. Whether that matters more to you than other features, like clinic access or funding, depends on what you’re looking for in a program.
How should I compare what different programs say they offer?
Ask each program directly about the specific feature it emphasizes, rather than assuming similar-sounding claims mean the same thing across schools. Enrollment numbers, funding eligibility by degree track, and current student feedback all help separate marketing language from what’s actually available to you.
Key Takeaways
- No single feature dominates what programs are proudest of. Small cohorts came up most often, named by 10 of 60 programs, but that’s still far from a majority.
- University-based clinics and full funding came up relatively infrequently as defining features, each mentioned by only a small handful of the professors surveyed.
- Faculty credential depth shows up in different forms, from sheer BCBA-D headcount to dual credentials to quieter research pedigree.
- The most useful comparison tool is a direct question, not a features checklist, since similar-sounding claims can mean very different things at different schools.
- A lot of what makes a program distinctive won’t show up in a ranking list, so ask about the specifics that matter to you directly.
Ready to compare what different ABA programs actually offer?
See which programs match the features that matter most to you.
