Master of Arts in Counseling - School Counseling

UNC Charlotte’s Master of Arts in School Counseling equips graduate students to be multiculturally competent and socially aware K-12 licensed professional school counselors who lead comprehensive, developmental, and collaborative school counseling programs. The program prepares students to be leaders, advocates, and system change specialists capable of assessing, developing, implementing, and sustaining data-based programs that provide services for all. UNC Charlotte School Counseling students are trained to serve both as counselors and educators in K-12 schools. Graduates will be competent in individual and group counseling and effective at consultation and collaboration with teachers, parents, community agencies as well as other community resources and important stakeholders. School Counseling students require three clinical experiences: a 150-hour practicum and two internships at 300 hours apiece. Placements can be in public or private schools at elementary, middle, or high school levels and are supervised by our faculty and an onsite school counselor. Students are encouraged to complete at least two of their clinical experiences at different school levels to obtain a range of school counseling experiences. At the completion of their training, candidates will be eligible to obtain credentialing as a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and apply for K-12 licensure as a professional school counselor in North Carolina. Pathways to clinical licensure as an LCMHC-A in North Carolina are also available.

Admission to the Graduate School requires a student to show evidence of successful completion of a U.S. bachelor’s degree program or its foreign equivalent from a regionally accredited (in the U.S.) or an officially recognized/approved or accredited institution abroad. An applicant’s academic credentials, if earned outside of the U.S., are reviewed for the purpose of assessing institutional accreditation, as well as the U.S. equivalency of the degree and grades.