Admissions

All applicants must meet the admission requirements for graduate study at Montclair State University.  Please refer to the Office of Graduate Admissions & Support Services for all application requirements and instructions.  In addition, the applicant must have:

• A bachelor's degree in psychology.
  • For those who were not psychology majors, a minimum of 12 undergraduate credits in psychology including a course in statistics and a laboratory experimental course are required. Please note: an introductory course in psychology does not count toward the minimum credit requirement, though it might be needed as a pre-requisite to other psychology courses.
    • The undergraduate requirements can be taken here at MSU or at another university. Please be sure to check with the Graduate Programs Coordinator to be certain the courses taken elsewhere fulfill the undergraduate credit requirements.
• Achieve acceptable scores on the GRE (the Psychology Subject Test is not required).
• At least two letters of recommendation (three for School Psychology Certification).
  • Letters from academia are strongly suggested.
  • Personal letters of reference are discouraged.
• Interview with faculty and produce a writing sample
  • This applies only to those seeking admission to the M.A. Educational Psychology: Child/Adolescent Clinical concentration and to the School Psychology Certification program.
• For School Psychology Certification: a master's degree in psychology or a relevant field may be considered for admission. Applicants who do not hold an advanced degree should also apply for the MA Educational Psychology or the MA Psychology degree program.

Deadlines for applying to any of our programs are as follows:

Our graduate degree programs in the Department of Psychology maintain rolling admissions with admissions for both Fall and Spring.  This means as soon as you are ready to apply, please do so online by visiting the Office of Graduate Admisssions & Support Services website.

The School Psychology Certification program only accepts students for Fall admission.

The Admissions Process:

• Interested candidates should adhere to the application guidelines of the Office of Graduate Admissions & Support Services.  Upon handing in the required application materials, the Office of Graduate Admissions & Student Services will review the applications and forward them to the Department of Psychology.
• The Department of Psychology then reviews the applications and requests interviews (dependent upon program) with the prospective candidates.
• The Department of Psychology then notifies the Office of Graduate Admisssions & Student Services of its' recommendation for admission.
• The Office of Graduate Admissions & Student Services notifies the prospective candidate of the status via postal letter.

Accepted candidates are asked to contact Dr. Valerie Sessa, Graduate Programs Coordinator, to set up a time to complete a work program.  The work program is an outline of the courses required particular to the degree sought and explains which semesters will offer particular courses so that students are on-track to graduating in a timely manner; provided the students agree to adhere to the work program. 

If you have any questions specifically about our programs, please send an email to psycgrad@montclair.edu. Got AIM? If so, log on and see if we're in! AIM Screen Name: PsycGradMSU