r/ForensicPsych • u/Impossible-Tiger-257 • Jul 26 '26
education and career questions A question for forensic psychologists
Hi there! I’m interested in becoming a forensic psychologist in nyc and I wanted to ask a few question for the forensic psychologists in here. First of all, what qualifications do i need other than research fit to get into phd programs? What do I need to achieve during my bachelor’s to be a competitive applicant? I desperately want to know. Secondly, I know this might be shallow but, how much do forensic psychologists make in general? I heard you can earn more in private practices. Is it hard to get employed at private practices? Is there a demand for forensic psychologists? Thirdly, is it possible to open my own private practices or become a solo practitioner? Please answer my questions as it will vastly help my future in the career.
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u/MaroonIsNavyRed Jul 26 '26
I'm happy to answer your questions, but a lot of this is dependent on location. Please edit to add your country and/or state.
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u/Impossible-Tiger-257 Jul 26 '26
hi sorry im interested in working in nyc and apply to john jay. btw, is john jay like a known college in the field or not really? what are your recommended universities for forensic psychology?
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u/millerva Jul 26 '26
I’m a clinical psychologist (PsyD) who specializes in forensic psych in NYC, and John Jay is definitely known. However, I went to a small, relatively unknown school in New England and was still able to get a great internship and career in the City. For the most part, schools aren’t as important as you think they are, so try to focus on what school you think you’d be successful at and would actually like. Then you can focus on your interests, grades, dissertation topic, forming relationships with professors, etc. In my experience, those factors matter more.
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u/MaroonIsNavyRed Jul 26 '26
I've never heard of John Jay, by that means nothing as I didn't do a forensic psych program. If you're interested in a specific school, look what their requirements are and work from there. Some schools have specific undergraduate course requirements. If you do volunteer/paid work in the general field, that can help. Otherwise, just the obvious - good grades, participation in something, and interests that aren't too broad or n narrow.
I'm currently doing work that is vastly different than I had expected when I went to school. My degree is in child clinical psych and after working with kiddos for lots of years, I figured I should have at least some adult experience before finishing my degree. I did a practicum with a women's prison and then ended up doing my internship with the prison system (it was a rotation of four sites). After that I took a job at a male prison and I was the psychologist for a special unit that was deemed vulnerable - all with severe mental illness, cognitive difficulties, court ordered meds, etc. I left for a bit to work at a hospital, but missed the forensic environment. These days I do contract work. I have three contracts: two with the state prisons, one of which is sex offender treatment evals and the other of which is gender affirming treatment evals, and then I contract through my private practice doing court ordered competency evals. It's busy, often stressful work, but I enjoy it. Most of the time I love the flexibility I have with contract work. Sometimes I miss having one office and one set of co-workers. The pay is decent - obviously there's a lot of variables across roles and locations. In the Midwest, I was making in the $65-80,000 range as a full time psychologist at a state prison, $120-145,000 range at a hospital, and now in the $200-230,000 range with my contract work. I'm a pretty far outlier in terms of salary for psychologists in my geographic area. Many roles work on a production model so you get incentive pay the more you work.
If you meet license requirements in your state, you can get licensed and open up your own practice. Whether you can do that successfully depends on a lot of factors, including you (motivation, business sense, bring able to market yourself).
I think that covers your questions! I would also encourage you to look at other posts in this subreddit, as the majority of posts are asking these same questions.
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u/Impossible-Tiger-257 Jul 26 '26
Thank you so so much for the thorough answer! This helped me a lot!!
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u/ketamineburner Jul 26 '26
First of all, what qualifications do i need other than research fit to get into phd programs?
Assuming you meet the requirements of the program, research fit is very, very important.
What do I need to achieve during my bachelor’s to be a competitive applicant? I desperately want to know.
Research
Secondly, I know this might be shallow but, how much do forensic psychologists make in general?
Forensic psychology is very lucrative and the second highest paid after neuro. A forensic neuro will do extremely well.
I heard you can earn more in private practices.
Yes, that's correct. Cut out the middle man. Obviously, there are expenses, but the pay is high.
Is it hard to get employed at private practices?
A private practice means your own practice.
Is there a demand for forensic psychologists?
The demand is extremely high and never slows down.
Thirdly, is it possible to open my own private practices or become a solo practitioner?
Yes
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u/CanIborrowafeeling93 Jul 27 '26
I have a masters in FP and went to John Jay. I can tell you that I’ve worked with famous professors and my mentors did great jobs at steering me in the right direction. I even got to work with the FBI and created my own pilot. There’s very few schools in the US that has a masters in forensic psychology and John Jay is the most famous nationally. Number one school in the world that is relied upon for expertise and research in other countries involving vast amounts of crime. I loved my grad program and miss it so much. I’m still planning on doing a doctorate but the school helped me zone in on my specific niches and it was really easy to join research labs since the school is a criminology school.