Royal Holloway

Who can apply

We accept applications from candidates with a right to work in the UK.

We accept applications from candidates with Home Fees status. We do not accept applications from candidates with Overseas Fees status. Please see Entry Requirements - Residence Requirements.

We do not accept applicants who have not yet completed their undergraduate or conversion course.

At the time of application, the trainee's degree must satisfy the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) of the British Psychological Society (BPS).

Graduates with a first degree in a field other than Psychology must have completed a BPS approved Conversion programme prior to application or completed the BPS exam conferring GBC and will be expected to meet the same experience requirements as other applicants. 

There may be restrictions on applying to NHS-funded clinical psychology training if candidates have recently undertaken other NHS-funded training in psychological professions. Please see Health Education England’s website for more details.

Academic

All applicants must have:

• GBC confirmed at the time of application
• 2:1 or 1st class level degree in Psychology, recognised by the BPS for GBC, or have a recognised "conversion" degree, with a 2:1 or 1st class level in the conversion degree. We only consider the class of degree that confers GBC. We will consider applicants with a 2.2 degree in psychology if they have a postgraduate degree in a field related to clinical psychology.

Clinical

A year or more of experience relevant to Clinical Psychology is required at the time of entry to the course. 

Relevant clinical experience would normally be either paid or as part of a postgraduate degree. Voluntary experience is only acceptable in the context of other non-voluntary clinical experience. Lack of any direct experience in the NHS may be a disadvantage.

Clinically relevant experience could be: (a) direct clinical or clinical research experience (which may be part of master's or doctoral research); (b) as an Assistant Psychologist, Research Assistant, Graduate Mental Health Worker, Support Worker, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner or any other role that involves significant client contact where the applicant is engaged in activities relevant to clinical psychology. Applicants with experience of other social, healthcare or research posts will also be considered.

References / Statements of suitability

If the experience reference is not written by a current referee, the candidate will need to explain why.

Documents required

Your application must include:

• A document confirming your GBC status.
• An academic transcript for your undergraduate psychology degree, and if your undergraduate degree was not in psychology, an academic transcript for your conversion course.

International applicants

We cannot consider applications from candidates who do not have the pre-existing right to work in the UK regardless of their fees status.

If English is not the first language of applicants and university qualifications were not taught and examined in English, evidence of ability in English language will be required. This should be a TOEFL or IELTS academic test if possible, taken within two years of the start of the course. If candidates require a visa to study in the UK we can only accept IETLS academic test scores. The minimum scores needed are:

• 88 for internet-based TOEFL (with 26 for writing), 
• 570 for paper-based TOEFL 
• 6.5 for IELTS academic test (with 7 for writing).