Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology Admission Requirements

Application Deadline Information

Requirements for All Applicants

The Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology program is a full-time, five-year, residential program that operates on a cohort model and begins in fall only. The program considers individual and group interviews and the qualifications and qualities of the entire applicant pool when making final admissions decisions. Applications are reviewed holistically.

1. Application Deadline: December 15.
   • NOTE: All supplemental items, including the GRE, must be submitted by the deadline in order to be considered for an interview.
2. Interview, by invitation only: Interview Day in early February. Exact date to be determined.
3. Bachelor's Degree from a regionally accredited institution.
4. GPA 3.5 minimum.
5. GRE General Test.
   • Quantitative score: 150 minimum. Composite score (Quantitative plus Verbal): 300 minimum.
   • Test scores must be fewer than five years old.
   • For registration information and test-center locations, go to http://www.ets.org.
     • Wheaton College Institution Code: 1905.
   • There is a GRE At Home option.
   • Test scores must be submitted by the deadline in order to be considered for an interview.
     • Unofficial scores are acceptable, but the official score report will be required when it is available.
6. Official transcripts from all colleges where a degree was earned or is currently being earned
   
   • Applicants will be required to provide official transcripts from each institution where they have received or will receive a degree prior to enrollment in Wheaton College Graduate School. Applicants who have earned more than 25% of their degree from institutions outside of their degree conferring school will be required to supply official transcripts for those credits in the event they are not explicitly listed on their original transcript with course names and grades. Graduate Admissions will reserve the right to request additional transcripts as may be needed to meet departmental requirements or demonstrate proof of program-specific prerequisites.
   • E-transcripts preferred. Must be addressed to nancy.crane@wheaton.edu.
   • Mail hard copies to Graduate Admissions, Attn: Nancy Crane, 501 College Ave., Wheaton, IL 60187.
7. Application Form. Includes affirmations of the Statement of Faith and Community Covenant.
8. Three Recommendations, which are online forms.
   • Academic. A professor from whom you have taken a class preferred. Alternatives: a college-level instructor from whom you have not taken a class or an acquaintance with a doctorate.
   • Pastoral. Can be a Christian leader other than a pastor.
   • Professional: Can be someone with whom you have had a supervisor-employee relationship, e.g., in a ministry, internship, or other non-paid context.
   • Letters are recommended, but not required, as supplements to the forms.
   • For help choosing recommenders, preview the questions in the forms at the bottom of this page.
   • Recommendations from relatives not accepted.
9. Two Essays.
   • Personal Statement.
   • Professional Statement.
10. Resumé (chronological) or Curriculum Vitae (CV).
11. Sample Research Paper.
    • Ten pages minimum and follows APA Style.
    • Sole authorship. If the sample is a group project, it must be from a published article.
12. Application Fee. USD $50, non-refundable.

NOTE: Applicants may request in the application form to be considered for both the Ph.D and Psy.D. programs. The faculty will then determine which program is the better fit for the applicant, and if an interview invitation is extended, it will only be for the recommended program.

Prerequisites

Six courses, three semester hours each. All prerequisites must be taken from a psychology department, not, e.g., an education- or sociology department. The courses can have different names at other schools. Students can apply before completing all six prerequisites, but all of the courses should be done before matriculation.

1. General Psychology
2. Abnormal Psychology
3. Personality Psychology
4. Research Methods in Psychology or Statistics for Psychology
5. Physiological Psychology
   • Can be taken remotely as a Wheaton summer tutorial.
6. One Course from the following.
   • Cognition
   • Developmental Psychology
   • Learning
   • Sensation/Perception
   • Social Psychology

Additional Requirements for International Students

International students, and permanent residents of the US whose native language is not English, are required to take either the TOEFL iBT Test,  IELTS Academic Test, or Duolingo English test with the minimal scores indicated below:

• TOEFL iBT Test: 100 with at least 20 in each category
• IELTS Academic Test: 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each category
• Duolingo English Test: 120

Applicants who wish to waive their English proficiency test, please refer to the English Proficiency page for details.

An International Transcript Verification Report is needed for students who completed degrees outside of the United States.

Please review Graduate International Admissions for full information.

Transfer Credit Policy

Students with prior graduate coursework can transfer up to twelve credit hours from the following courses only.

1. Advanced Social Psychology
2. Biological Bases of Behavior
3. Cognition and Emotion
4. History and Systems of Psychology
5. Lifespan Development
6. Psychopathology

• Courses with grades lower than B cannot be transferred. Wheaton uses semester credit hours. A quarter-hour from other institutions is equivalent to .67 of a semester hour.
• Where and how the credit is to be specifically applied in transfer will need to be petitioned and negotiated after matriculation. The sole exception to this will be for transfer credits that might affect first-semester course enrollment.
• No transfer credit will be granted for previous graduate-practicum or field-placement courses. All transfer-credit requests should be submitted by October 1 of each year.
• Graduate credit earned in biblical and theological studies will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Wheaton College School of Biblical and Theological Studies.

Time-to-Completion. Program data indicate that the vast majority of students entering the program with transfer credits will complete the Wheaton College Ph.D. program in essentially the same time as students entering the program with a bachelors degree only.

Additional Scholarship for a Completed Master's Degree. Ph.D. program only. Students with a graduate degree in a field closely allied with clinical psychology (e.g., clinical mental health counseling, marriage and family therapy, and social work) will receive an additional scholarship of $10,000, pro-rated over four years, in recognition of prior training in a related discipline.