Admissions & Application

Admission Requirements

Complete applications are due on or before December 15 for entry the following Fall term.

Minimum requirements for admission to the Ph.D. program in School Psychology:

  1. Bachelor or Master degree in educational psychology, psychology or related field is preferred, but not required (students without a graduate degree wishing to pursue the Ph.D. may be admitted first to the M.A. or M.Ed. degree program in Educational Psychology);
  2. Undergraduate grade point average of 3.0 or above.
  3. If applicable, graduate grade point average of 3.5 or above.
  4. Three letters of recommendation.
  5. Graduate Student Applicant Statement of Interest and Career Goals which includes
    • Statement of Interest and Career Goals, and preferably includes the name of the faculty person(s) whose research group you wish to join and/or includes your research interests,
    • Curriculum vita or resume.

Our goal is to admit 5 to 6 students annually, with selected persons entering in the Fall semester. As you will see from our student admissions data, applicants accepted into the program generally have very competitive GRE and GPAs.

Minorities and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply, as are individuals from disciplines other than psychology.

Admission Procedures

In order to be given full consideration as a graduate student applicant to the UGA School Psychology Program the five steps listed below must be completed on or before December 15. An individual’s application must be complete prior to the faculty reviewing the application. Please realize that prior to the program receiving your graduate application materials, the materials must be processed through the graduate school.

  1. Complete the application process through the Graduate Admission website (http://www.grad.uga.edu/gradschool/). When completing this process you will need to include the information for three references, within the mandatory fields presented in the online application.
  2. Send completed application form to the Graduate Admissions Office. Note that applicants select “School Psychology” as their degree program objective.
  3. Have official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate courses and scores on the Graduate Record Examination mailed directly to:Graduate Admissions Office
    Graduate Studies Building
    The University of Georgia
    Athens, Georgia 30602
  4. Have the Statement of Interest and Career Goals sent to:Graduate Coordinator
    Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology
    630 Aderhold Hall
    The University of Georgia
    Athens, Georgia 30602-7143
  5. Complete the Graduate Student Applicant Statement of Interest and Career Goals, also providing the information requested on that sheet, and return with your application materials. This form can be found at SPY Student Applicant Statement

Please attend closely to the Graduate Admissions Frequently Asked Questions.

Please address any questions you may have regarding admission procedures and the status of your application materials to Adrienne Durham, who is the assistant to the graduate coordinator.

Summary of Admissions Process

The admission process for a PhD program is most definitely different than that which you likely experienced when applying to your undergraduate institution. It also tends to differ quite a bit from program to program within and across universities. Below is a summary of the UGA School Psychology graduate admissions process.

The first step in the applicant process is for applicants to complete the five steps of the admission procedure listed above. All steps listed must be completed on or prior to December 15th to be given full consideration for admissions into the program. It is important to be aware that prior to the faculty viewing your materials, the materials must be processed by the UGA Graduate School, sent to the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology, and finally given to the faculty. Thus, applications submitted on December 15th are generally not provided to the faculty until after the first of January. We encourage those individuals who believe they may be competitive for a university, college, or graduate school assistantship to submit your materials prior to the stated deadline, as the faculty must on occasions submit assistantship application materials in late December.

The UGA School Psychology Faculty dedicates a substantial amount of time and effort to their graduate students. When selecting students, we are not simply selecting individuals who we will provide didactic instruction in the classroom, but students with whom we will spend numerous hours in and outside of the classroom perfecting their clinical and research skills in order that they can enhance the lives of school children and the practice of school psychology. Considering the time that we dedicate to our students and the fact that our graduate students will represent the UGA School Psychology Program while they are students as well as after they are students, we do our best to select applicants who we fill will meet the needs of our program and whose own needs will be met by our program. The School Psychology Faculty look for a diverse group of well-rounded individuals with multidimensional experiences. For these reasons, the admission process is a time consuming process taken very seriously by the faculty and current graduate students.

Following the December 15 deadline, program faculty review each completed application and then meet collectively to discuss which students they wish to invite for interview day. Generally, in early January those students selected and agreed upon by all faculty as appropriate to invite to interview day are contacted and invited to the annual interview day. It is strongly encouraged that invited applicants attend interview day.

Interview day is generally organized by our graduate students, who assist applicants in finding a place to stay, driving them to the pre-interview night dinner, and answering the many questions that applicants have. Typically the night preceding the actual interview day, a dinner gathering is held so that current students, faculty, and applicants can interact in a casual setting. On interview day, applicants have both individual and group meetings with faculty. Interview day generally runs from 8:00AM to 4:00PM. During the lunch break, applicants go to lunch in small groups with current students at some of the many local favorite restaurants.

After interview day and additional interviewing of individuals who are not able to attend interview day, the faculty again meet to discuss who they wish to accept into the program. These individuals are informed of their acceptance and must provide a response by April 15th. Final acceptance is granted by the Graduate School.

Please address questions regarding the school psychology program to Dr. Scott Ardoin via e-mail. Dr. Ardoin is currently in charge of graduate admissions for the UGA School Psychology Program.