Admissions

• Applicants are only admitted for the Fall semester.
• The Fall 2024 admission application will open on September 1st, 2024.
• There is only one Psychology PhD application. Applicants should choose one area of study when applying. Please refer to our “Areas of Study” page.
• The deadline to apply for all areas EXCEPT clinical science is December 1^st, 2024.
• For clinical science applicants, the priority deadline is November 11^th, 2024. The clinical science area will begin reviewing applications at that time.
• The application will close at 11:59pm PT (Pacific Time) on December 1st, 2024. Late submissions will not be considered.

• Applicants should identify 1-3 faculty members who most closely match their research interests. The maximum that can be listed per application is 3 faculty mentors of interest.
• Clinical Area applicants should review the admission page here to see which faculty are admitting students. All other area applicants should view the faculty page by area.
• Information about faculty and their research/labs,can be found at the links below:
  • Brain and Cognitive Science Faculty
  • Clinical Science Faculty
  • Developmental Psychology Faculty
  • Quantitative Methods and Computational Psychology Faculty
  • Social Psychology Faculty

• Three letters by professors or supervisors familiar with your potential for graduate training and professional contributions to psychology are required.
• Letter of recommendations must be submitted by the December 1st deadline.
• Letter of recommendations must be completed within the application system. Please contact Liason Tech at uscsupport@liaisoncas.com if you have any technical difficulties with the letter of recommendations upload.

• Upload a scanned copy of your transcripts in the online application portal.
• Top applicants who reach the interview round may be required to send copies of their official transcripts.

• The application fee is $90.
• Our department does not sponsor application fees; however, there are some general USC fee waivers that can be viewed here.

If you are you applying to the clinical science area, please see additional admission information here.  It also includes GRE and GPA data for entering clinical science classes that is in compliance with APA Implementing Regulation C-20.

Students are admitted by each specialty area (please refer to the Areas of Study; for admissions to the clinical program, please see this page). Different areas of our department emphasize different coursework, but we recommend that prospective students choosing classes include Introductory Psychology and coursework drawn from the following areas:

• Elementary Statistics
• Research Methods
• Biological Foundations – including coursework such as Comparative Psychology, Behavioral Neuroscience, Sensation and Perception, Learning and Memory, Cognitive Psychology, or Motivation and Emotion
• Developmental, Social, and Personality Foundations – including coursework such as Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Personality
• Cognitive Foundations – including coursework such as Learning, Memory, and Intelligence

More advanced or specialized courses in psychology (e.g., Neuropsychology, Behavior Genetics, Advanced Statistics, Adolescence, Cognitive Development, Interpersonal Relations, Criminal Psychology, Psychology and Law, Organizational Psychology) are desirable, as are courses in the biological, physical, and social sciences and in mathematics. Students with outstanding records, but with less background in psychology will also be considered.

Please direct all questions to the Office of Graduate Admissions “Ask USC” portal (under Graduate Admission). You may also submit a question (see Ask Us link at top of page) if your question is not answered.

The USC Graduate School is committed to providing detailed information on the inputs, outcomes, and overall characteristics of its PhD programs. Please feel free to review more in-depth data here (select Psychology): https://graduateschool.usc.edu/about-us/phd-program-characteristics/