Applications
Applications for the clinical science program are due Dec 1. Application procedures can be found here: https://support.psyc.vt.edu/grads/program/application-procedures. Please refer to the Recruitment section on our main program webpage for the current list of faculty recruiting graduate students.
GRE Scores: For applicants to the Clinical Science training program, GRE scores will be neither required nor accepted. All applicants are evaluated holistically.
In preparation for our program, we recommend following guidance from the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology (CUDCP) on the preferred coursework and competencies for entering a health service psychology graduate program, which can be found here: CUDCP Preferred Predoctoral Competencies_2021.pdf. These suggestions and competencies are meant to serve as aspirational guidelines, and are neither necessary, nor sufficient for entering our program. Our admission review process is further described below.
We use a holistic review process when making admissions decisions. While we consider undergraduate grade point average (GPA), we also consider letters of reference, a personal statement from prospective students, research experience, research interests, "fit" of research interests with our faculty, and commitment to Departmental and University values of service, inclusion, and diversity. Other characteristics taken into account are the quality of the prospective students' writing samples, the degree of difficulty in undergraduate course selection, and phone and personal interviews.
We follow a mentoring model of selection in which individual faculty choose finalists from a pool of applicants. There are no strict cutoffs for acceptable GPAs. Other scholarly accomplishments, particularly research experience and scholarly productivity, are desirable and may offset lower GPAs. We look especially for compatibility between individual faculty interests and the research interests and actual research experience of individual applicants. Given this process, it is very important to nominate a preferred advisor on your application.
Individual faculty contact prospective applicants. Offers of admission are made based on the candidate meeting Program, Departmental, and Graduate School requirements, plus the number of available applicant slots for the faculty advisor and the program. We typically conduct interviews of prospective candidates in February.
Offers of admission can be extended during a large time period. Most of our initial offers of admission are extended by March 15 but can continue until April 15 based on number of acceptances and available slots.
Accepted students are offered full tuition remission and a full (20 hour) graduate assistantship.
As a member of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology (CUDCP) we adhere to CUDCP's guidelines for offers into doctoral clinical psychology programs, CUDCP grad offers and acceptances policy.