VUL introducing new doctorate in May

[sanantone]

They ask you to contact the Business office to set up a payment plan or to advise them if you use using financial aid loan or a private loan.

If you're not utilizing financial aid, they're asking for the first installment payment before sending an acceptance letter. The email in the image I linked to is clear, and it's from July 2022. It even gives instructions on how to submit the initial payment. This is not what colleges and universities typically do. After you've received your formal letter of acceptance, then they start sending information on setting up financial aid or a payment plan.

Makes sense what you are saying, only reason I can imagine they do this is because people start the program and then back out. I don't understand why the school wants payment before an acceptance letter is sent but if that is how they choose to do business it's their policy I guess. From my understanding, each cohort has 100 students so maybe it is like a deposit?

Acceptance isn't the same as matriculation. Normally, a school will send out more acceptance letters than available spots knowing that not all of the accepted students will decide to enroll. For programs that expect there to be more students enrolling than spots, they'll ask for a deposit to reserve a seat in the program after the acceptance letter is sent.

Sorry, this isn't worth quibbling about as I don't think this was a real issue for those enrolled. Also, the VUL DHA program, in reality, is an open program as long as you can provide evidence of completing a master's program (I wish they would screen out some who don't have a healthcare background or have plans to work in healthcare / social work).  I did however hear other issues around not getting a bill on time or being double billed which caused some undue stress and is more of a reflection of the university being understaffed. Again, this is a professional doctorate, not a Ph.D. or a rigorous one that you'll find at a RA university.   Nobody should have those expectations or do those types of comparisons.

I've applied to non-competitive doctoral and master's programs. Everyone is pretty much the same. The acceptance letter gets sent first. Having open admissions makes it more unusual to require upfront payment. Deposits are normally seen at elite MBA programs, for example. It's not a big deal; it's just one of VUL's many strange practices. I find the misleading information on the utility of RA vs NA to be more concerning.