Transfer Credit Policy

The program’s Transfer Credit Policy allows for a transfer up to 12 graduate credits into the PhD program. Transfer credit decisions are made once an applicant has been admitted into the program.

General Course Qualifications: • Courses must be taken in a master's or doctoral program from the psychology department of a regionally accredited college, university, or professional school. In general, such courses have been assigned a PSY prefix to the course number. • Courses must be taken within the past five years. • Grades in the courses must be B or better. • The course content must be judged equivalent to a current course in the Fielding Psychology Program curriculum by meeting similar learning objectives. NOTE: Courses that are primarily applied, rather than Academic in nature, are unlikely to meet these criteria. Thus, the course needs to include assignments/activities that foster a critical analysis of your learning. • There must be at least one scholarly paper. Assessment solely by exams is not sufficient. • A significant portion of the readings need to come from primary sources (reading authors and research articles in the original). • These transfer units can only be applied as credit for courses numbered PSY 702, 703, 705-708, 711B, 712.

The rules and procedures for determining transfer credits are as follows: • Transfer credits will only be awarded at the time of admission to the graduate program. There will be no retroactive granting of transfer credits for students currently in the program. • Transfer credits must be requested by incoming students upon submission of enrollment materials. • Decisions regarding transfer of credits will be made by the Clinical Psychology Program Director and processed by the Records Office. • Incoming students will be informed of decisions regarding transfer credit requests at or before the New Student Orientation in Santa Barbara.

The following are suggested ways of determining if the course being considered for transfer credit is comparable to our core knowledge area assessments:

• What textbooks and/or readings have been required for the course? The books and readings should be scholarly and at graduate level. Please provide full citations. • Did the course require scholarly writing? Graduate level classes assess learning through written papers. Courses that assess learning primarily through a combination of discussion, brief essays, and/or multiple choice tests, do not transfer. • To what extent did the course include theory and research? Many courses proposed for transfer credits are applied in nature and, thus, do not reflect the level of conceptual scholarship required in doctoral level classes.

The following guidelines pertain to requests for transfer credit for specific courses:

• Developmental Bases of Behavior (PSY 702) - The most common reason for not granting transfer credits in this area is because the coursework did not take a lifespan approach and focused only on one stage of development, e.g., childhood.

• History and Systems (PSY 703) - This knowledge area focuses on the philosophical underpinnings of psychology as reflected in historical theories and models. A historical approach to a specific topic (e.g., behavior modification) is not sufficient.

• Social Bases of Behavior (PSY 705) - In order to receive transfer credit, coursework must cover multiple topics in social psychology, e.g., attitudes, prejudice, group behavior, person perception.

• Cognitive and Affective Bases of Behavior (PSY 706) - Students may erroneously believe that coursework in cognitive therapy is appropriate for this area, but it is not.

• Biological Bases of Behavior (PSY 707) -This should be a relatively sophisticated course in physiological psychology.

• Psychopathology (PSY 708) - The coursework should include a critical examination of diagnostic systems and also deal with issues in psychopathology.

• Psychotherapy Research (PSY 711B) - Coursework must include content that focuses on the nature and process of psychotherapy as well as research and evaluation of psychotherapy. A course on a specific model of psychotherapy or research methods is not acceptable.

• Multicultural Psychology (PSY 712) - Note that this area refers to the general topic of multicultural concepts and issues, not just intervening therapeutically with specific ethnic groups.

Emily Eccles Clinical Psychology PhD student

You can obtain an application fee waiver by attending an online webinar with Dr. Connie Veazey, Assistant Program Director. Your Admissions Advisor will then add the application fee waiver to your account.

Steps to follow: \ 1. Sign up for a webinar: Periodically you will receive emails informing you of upcoming live webinars with a registration link. Keep an eye out for those emails and please be sure to register. You will receive a system generated email with log-in instructions after registering. 2. Attend webinar (remember time-zone adjustment if you do not live in the Pacific time-zone) 3. After your attendance at the webinar, the application fee waiver will be attached to your record. If this waiver is not apparent, please contact our office at 805-898-4026 and an Admissions Advisor will waive the fee at that time.

WEBINAR Time zone adjustments: - All webinar communications reference the webinar time in PACIFIC time-zone, so you need to make a time zone adjustment if you do not reside in the Pacific time-zone: 4PM PT = 5PM Mountain time = 6PM Central time = 7PM Eastern time