Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology
Note: The GRE scores requirement has been suspended for program admissions in 2023-2024.
Admission Requirements
The applicant must meet the School of Graduate Studies’ current minimum general admission requirements as published in the graduate catalog.
- A four-year bachelor’s degree from a recognized college or university. For U.S. degrees, accreditation must be by one of the six regional accrediting associations.
- Eighteen (18) hours of undergraduate work in psychology including a course in General Psychology, Developmental, Abnormal, Statistics, and Experimental Psychology.
- A cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 3.2 for all undergraduate work.
- Satisfy the School of Graduate Studies’ English Language Proficiency requirements as published in the graduate catalog.
- A year of biological science (biology, physiology, etc.).
- A semester of college algebra.
- General background in other social and natural sciences also recommended.
- Graduate Record Examination— Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytic Writing. (a) Must score at or above the 30th percentile in Analytic Writing. (b) In addition, combined percentile ranks in Verbal & Quantitative must exceed the 60th percentile (i.e., Q+V > 60th percentile), OR applicant must have an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.75.
In addition to the other materials required in the application (personal statement, resume, etc.) applicants will complete an essay, following the prompt below:
“An important mission of our program is to improve inclusion by expanding the diversity of our students’ backgrounds and experiences. Please explain, in less than 300 words, how your membership in our PhD program would serve this mission. We are particularly interested in experiences that have shaped your unique perspective on the world; e.g., having been a McNair Scholar, being bilingual, having attended a tribal college or HBCU, having done research or service work with diverse or historically underserved populations, etc. Note that the program defines diversity in very broad terms, including but not limited to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, national origin, race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status.”
Personal Statement: Applicants are required to submit a personal statement. Applicants should use their personal statements to tell us about themselves and to describe why they are applying to the program, what kind of research they would like to do at UND, which faculty member(s) they see as a potential research advisor, and what they would like to do after earning their degree.
Curriculum Vitae: Applicants are required to submit a CV that lists applicants’ educational and work experiences. Particular attention will be given to scholarly activities. Therefore, the CV should include 1) a listing of all research assistantships, including the semesters they occurred and a brief description of responsibilities, 2) a listing of all publications and research presentations, 3) a listing of all other scholarly activities, such as an independent thesis, research conducted through a McNair/TRIO scholarship, and any research awards sought or obtained.
Quantitative Skills Coursework: Applicants must include either in their CV, or as a separate document, a listing of all the courses they have taken in which quantitative reasoning skills have played a significant role (for example, any course in math or statistics), along with the letter grade earned in each course.
Degree Requirements
Students seeking the Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of North Dakota must satisfy all general requirements set forth by the School of Graduate Studies as well as particular requirements set forth by the Psychology Department.
- Minimum of 60 credit hours beyond 30 credits from Masters degree work is required for the Ph.D. (minimum of 90 credit hours total).
- Maintenance of at least a 3.0 GPA for all classes completed as a graduate student.
- Completion of “Scholarly Tool” coursework to develop skills in research design including:
- Completion of an empirical dissertation;
- Graduate students in the clinical psychology Ph.D. program are required to meet a number of eligibility criteria to take comprehensive exams and establish candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. An assessment will be conducted after the student successfully completes all of the requirements for the Master of Science degree in general psychology. To remain in the Ph.D. program and proceed on to comprehensive exams, practicum assignments, dissertation research, and remaining coursework, the student must have:
- earned a cumulative graduate grade point average of at least 3.5;
- completed his or her M.S. degree within three years of enrollment;
- gained the approval of a majority of the core and associated faculty of the clinical psychology doctoral program.
Students failing to meet one or more of these requirements will be terminated from the Ph.D. program in clinical psychology.
- Completion of the comprehensive examination for the Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.
- Completion of the following for the Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology:
Course List Code Title Credits One calendar year of full-time internship (usually during the fifth year) 3 Practicum experience which includes PSYC 580 Clinical Practice 8 PSYC 587 Supervised Field Work 13 Clinical coursework PSYC 570 Clinical Assessment I:Basic Issues in Clinical Assessment 4 PSYC 571 Clinical Assessment II:Advanced Issues in Clinical Assessment 4 PSYC 573 Theories of Psychotherapy 3 PSYC 574 Advanced Therapeutic Interventions 3 PSYC 575 Behavior Pathology 3 PSYC 579 Professional Issues and Ethics in Psychology 3 PSYC 594 Special Topics in Psychology 2 Foundation coursework in History of Psychology PSYC 505 History of Psychology 3 Social Bases of Behavior PSYC 560 Advanced Social Psychology 3 Biological Bases of Behavior PSYC 537 Physiology of Behavior and Psychophysiological Measurement 3 Cognitive/affective bases of behavior PSYC 539 Cognitive Psychology 3 Developmental Basis of Behavior PSYC 576 Child Psychopathology and Treatment 3 or PSYC 551 Advanced Developmental Psych Diversity Elective PSYC 521 Diversity Psychology 3 Research Credits Master’s Thesis 6 Dissertation 13 Total Credits 83