Dear Incoming Students,

Welcome to Palo Alto University’s MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. I am very proud of our program and the students, faculty and staff that work together to accomplish its mission in educating and training the next generation of professional mental health counselors. I strongly believe that after you get to know PAU and its offerings, you will come to share my positive feelings and excitement.

Here are some other highlights of what the program can offer to support you as a student:

• A collaborative community of faculty and staff committed to your success.

• A cohort model of instruction where you will get to know your fellow students.

• Individual attention and support from your faculty advisor.

• Classes conveniently located online at our Mountain View campus.

• A degree specially designed to meet educational requirements for licensure as an LMFT and LPCC in California and other states (please check specific state licensure requirements outside of California).

• Guaranteed class availability if students register by the registration deadline. 

• Outstanding and diverse faculty.

• Open, direct access to myself as Associate Chair - I am just an email or Zoom call away. 

We are especially excited that in January 2017 our MA in Counseling program was awarded accreditation by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). CACREP is now the recognized national standard for accreditation of counseling programs across the United States and we are so pleased to be a part of it.

Please email me to talk further. I hope to hear from you soon and I look forward to seeing you at the New Student Orientation.

Sincerely,

Szu-Yu (Darlene) Chen, PhD
dchen@paloaltou.edu