Program Statistics

graduation rate

Does every student graduate from the GCGP?  

The UW GCGP is committed to the success of each of our students. While admission to the GCGP is not a guarantee of graduation, to date, every student who has enrolled in our program has successfully earned their degree. We haven’t had any students choose to leave the program without graduating (student retention rate = 100%, student attrition rate = 0%).  

JOB PLACEMENT RATE

Does every student get a job after graduation?  

In the midst of an exceptionally challenging job market for genetic counselors, the overwhelming majority of our graduates have gone on to find jobs in the genetic counseling field. Most graduates find work within 3 months of graduating. For some graduates, finding a job that meets their requirements has taken longer. Graduates who have the fewest restrictions tend to find jobs more quickly than those who are location-limited or have a specific specialty they want to practice in.  

What is the GCGP’s job placement rate?  

86.7% of our graduates have gotten a job in genetic counseling since graduating. 66.7% of our graduates have gotten a job within 3 months of graduating. Of note, many of our graduates choose to wait until after taking the ABGC Board Exam in August to begin their job searches. Others have been limited by factors such as location and specialty, which has increased the amount of time it takes to find a job after graduation. We are committed to the success of our students and continue to support their job searches even after they have graduated.

Does graduating from the GCGP guarantee a job in Seattle? 

Unfortunately, there are not enough genetic counseling positions in Seattle for every graduate of the GCGP. Training with us gets you exposure to a wide array of institutions in the Seattle metropolitan area and helps you establish working relationships with genetics professionals. In addition, we leverage our own professional networks to help students find jobs after graduation. Students also have access to the UW Career Center staff and programming both while enrolled and after graduation. We also remind our graduates that taking a job outside of Seattle does not close the door to relocating back to the Pacific Northwest in the future.  

ABGC Board Pass Rate

The GCGP strives to prepare each of our graduates to pass the ABGC Board Certification Exam on their first attempt. Our overall pass rate is 91.30%. Our cumulative first-time pass rate (FTPR) is 78.26%; however, this number has been steadily rising since we graduated our first class.

We recognize that performance on the ABGC Board Certification Exam is an important consideration for prospective applicants, so we would like to provide some additional details about our approach. After the scores came back for our first class, we went back to our curriculum and identified opportunities to incorporate more exam preparation. We also reviewed our course content and reinforced core exam content areas based on the 2023 ABGC Exam Content Outline. These changes have resulted in a steady uptick in exam performance without compromising our primary objective – to train excellent genetic counselors who are equipped to meet the needs of our patients, clients, and communities.

questions?

If you have more questions after reading our program statistics, contact us.