PhD programs to accept me?

[RANSOMSOUL]

Thanks for the additional breakdown. The whole arena is very interesting and I am enjoying the complexity of all the layers of these programs.

[Ideas]

With online programs, almost all of the students are going to be working full-time. So, even though a program might be marketed as being two years, it could take longer based on how much time the student has to dedicate to completing a dissertation. From what I've seen, most EdD programs require a dissertation. Even the ones without a dissertation usually have an applied project that will take just as long. Then, you have some unethical, primarily-online schools that purposely slow down students. Another issue with schools that don't have many full-time professors is that your dissertation chair could quit at any time, and finding and getting acquainted with another one will slow you down.

Have you heard of people who finished any doctoral level program in 2 years or less? How much less?

So if someone wasn't working, there are some that are definitely 3 years or less... but only in a few fields?

[Sagan]

There was a time--back when students designed their own programs--that one could do a PhD at Union Graduate School in two years. I know of at least two cases personally. (In fact, the minimum in-program requirement at Union was originally 12 months.) However, it took an extremely disciplined and driven person who also had a very clear vision of what he/she was going to do to finish the degree. more typical was a degree that took 4-5 years.

In doctoral study, the main variant regarding time-in-program is not the design of the program. Rather, it is the time spent proposing and conducting the dissertation.

[sanantone]

With online programs, almost all of the students are going to be working full-time. So, even though a program might be marketed as being two years, it could take longer based on how much time the student has to dedicate to completing a dissertation. From what I've seen, most EdD programs require a dissertation. Even the ones without a dissertation usually have an applied project that will take just as long. Then, you have some unethical, primarily-online schools that purposely slow down students. Another issue with schools that don't have many full-time professors is that your dissertation chair could quit at any time, and finding and getting acquainted with another one will slow you down.

Have you heard of people who finished any doctoral level program in 2 years or less? How much less?

So if someone wasn't working, there are some that are definitely 3 years or less... but only in a few fields?

Like Sagan said, most of the time differential happens during the dissertation phase. Some students get stuck, and some students procrastinate since it's basically a self-paced process with a time limit of 5-10 years. Arizona State University's Doctor of Behavioral Health is designed to be completed in exactly 18 months full-time, but it's a very expensive program. There might be full-time students who take a little longer, but the project they require doesn't appear to require nearly as much as a dissertation.

My program is only 41 credits worth of coursework (plus 12 credits for the dissertation). Even though I only attended full-time for one year, the reason why I was able to finish the coursework so quickly was because I took six credits each summer.