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Palo Alto University's two-year Bachelor degree completion programs are designed for transfer students who have completed approximately two years of college coursework at a community college, UC, CSU or other university, as well as the majority of their general education requirements. Similar to a community college transfer to CSU, students should complete the majority of their general education classes before transferring into PAU’s undergraduate programs. Students who are ready to transfer from a community college to a CSU will find transitioning to PAU’s undergraduate programs quick and easy.

Transfer Requirements

• Completion of Intermediate Algebra or higher
• Completion of most General Education requirements
• For applicants to the Psychology and Social Action Online program, you must be located in a state in which we are authorized to provide online education.
• Completion of Introduction to Psychology or higher
• At least 84 transferrable quarter units completed at the time of enrollment. Only courses from regionally accredited institutions with a grade of C or higher are transferable, and must be at the 100-level (non-remedial) or equivalent in order to be eligible for transfer.

Transferable units may be:

• Introduction to Psychology
• General Education units
• Lower-division or upper-division elective units
• Upper-division transfer units applicable to major requirements
• Alternative forms of general education or elective units, such as AP tests, IB tests, CLEP and US Military credit.

For applicants to the MA in Counseling Online program, you must be located in a state in which we are authorized to provide online education. 

A GPA of 3.0 or higher is recommended. For those whose undergraduate major was not psychology, four additional courses are recommended, but not required, for the MA in Counseling program: 

• Developmental psychology
• Physiological or biological psychology
• Personality or abnormal psychology
• Statistics

Applicants must hold a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution or the international equivalent. For applicants to the MS in Psychology program, you must be located in a state in which we are authorized to provide online education.

Recommended Qualifications

A GPA of 3.3 or higher is recommended. If the undergraduate major was not psychology, four prerequisite courses are required for the MS in Psychology program:

• Developmental psychology
• Physiological or biological psychology
• Personality or abnormal psychology
• Statistics

GRE scores are not required for admission to the master's degree program.

The PhD program requires the following prerequisites for entry into the PhD in Clinical Psychology program:

• Biopsychology (e.g. Sensation and Perception, Brain and Behavior)
• Abnormal Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Statistics

The four mentioned courses will help ensure that all incoming students have a smooth transition into graduate school.

Coursework: In order to ensure a smooth transition into graduate study, PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium strongly recommends 18 semester hours (27 quarter hours) of Psychology coursework including courses in: General Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Statistics, Biopsychology, and Developmental Psychology.

Clinical Experience: To ensure that applicants have an understanding of the career to which they are committing themselves, strong preference is given to applicants with some form of clinical experience (e.g., crisis line, assessments, case management, therapy, etc.).