The Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania will be accepting applications for the PhD program for the 2024-2025 admissions cycle beginning October 1, 2024. The deadline for applicants who wish to matriculate in Fall 2025 is December 1, 2024 (Note that this deadline is earlier than the one indicated on the School of Arts and Sciences webpage.)

UPDATE: The GRE requirement is optional for Fall 2025 admission. This requirement will be waived for all applicants, but is a manual process. Please be patient while checklists are updated.

Please note, we only accept applications for a PhD in Psychology. We do not admit students to pursue a terminal Master’s degree.

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Faculty members considering applications for Fall 2025 admission:

• Professor Geoffrey Karl Aguirre

• Professor Dolores Albarracin

• Professor Michael Arcaro

• Professor David Brainard

• Professor Elizabeth Brannon

• Professor Emily Falk

• Professor Loretta Flanagan-Cato

• Professor Maria Geffen

• Professor Philip Gehrman

• Professor Matthew R. Hayes

• Professor Sara Jaffee

• Professor Joseph Kable

• Professor Daniel Moriarity (Will review applications but not actively recruiting)

• Professor Gareth Roberts

• Professor Nicole Rust

• Professor Nacho Sanguinetti

• Professor Anna Schapiro

• Professor Robert Schultz

• Professor Martin Seligman

• Professor Alan Stocker

• Professor Rebecca Waller

Application Guidelines

1. Before submitting an application, we strongly encourage applicants to contact faculty with whom they are interested in working to discuss their research interests and confirm that working with the faculty member would be a good fit.

   All members of our graduate group are eligible to advise students in our program, and a list of those indicating they will look at applications for Fall 2025 will be added to this webpage before the application opens on October 1, 2024.

2. Once you have contacted a faculty member and determined that the lab and the program are a good fit, you should proceed with your application.  Please note that when selecting more than one faculty member in the new application, it requires that you hold the Control (ctrl) key for Windows or the Command key for Mac to click on multiple names.
3. The GRE General test is optional for application to Penn Psychology’s graduate program. We believe that the results of the test can provide valuable information in a student’s dossier – information that is different from the other elements and might allow a student to reveal intellectual distinction that would set them apart. At the same time, we are aware that the GRE is expensive and can present a barrier to application to PhD programs. It is in the interest of removing this barrier that we have made the GRE optional. If you do choose to submit GRE scores, they must be sent before the Dec. 1, 2024 admissions deadline. Please be aware that ETS (who makes the GRE) has a fee reduction program that halves the cost of the GRE for students who may not have the means to pay for the test.
4. Applicants whose native language is not English must prove English proficiency through the following approved tests, unless they graduated from an English-speaking university (i.e., a university in an English-speaking country): TOEFL iBT Test (standard/in-person), TOEFL iBT Special Home Edition, TOEFL ITP Plus for China solution, or IELTS. TOEFL must be submitted electronically through ETS using the institution code 2926. An official copy of the IELTS scores must be mailed directly from IELTS to the Graduate Division, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Walnut Street, Suite 322A, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228.

5. Personal Statement: All applicants must include a personal statement that addresses the following question:

   Please describe how your background and academic experiences have influenced your decision to pursue a graduate degree and led you to apply to Penn. Your essay should detail your specific research interests and intellectual goals within your chosen field. Please provide information about your educational trajectory, intellectual curiosity and academic ambitions. If you have overcome adversity and/or experienced limited access to resources or opportunities in your field of study, please feel free to share how that has affected the course of your education. We are interested in your lived experiences and how your particular perspective might contribute to the inclusive and dynamic learning community that Penn values and strives to create.

   The personal statement helps us evaluate the fit between your interests and skills and the Penn Psychology program. It should describe why you want to pursue a PhD in Psychology, why Penn is the right place for you to do it, what sorts of skills and experiences make you qualified to pursue a PhD in a research-intensive Psychology program like Penn’s, what kinds of questions you are interested in studying, and who on the faculty you would like to work with. Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact potential advisors in advance of writing the personal statement, to ensure that the research questions the applicant hopes to pursue are a good fit with research topics Penn faculty are working on. If you hope to study a question that members of our Psychology Graduate Group are not interested in pursuing, then Penn would not be a good fit for you. Please also look at the websites of faculty members whose labs you would like to join; they might have additional instructions for information they would like you to include in the personal statement. The personal statement is typically around two pages, single-spaced.

6. You must arrange to have 3 letters of recommendation sent to Penn and submit all components of the application before the December 1, 2024 deadline. These include a personal statement, a transcript, and a CV.
7. Pay your application fee. Penn offers application fee waivers for some applicants. Departments are not involved with the application fee waivers. All fee waiver requests for hardships, McNair Scholars, etc., should be submitted to the Graduate Division of Arts and Sciences using the Application Fee Waiver Form. Please follow the instructions closely. A request for a fee waiver should be submitted well in advance of the application deadline for your program and is separate from your application for admission.  Do not submit your application until you receive a decision regarding your request.Please note that application fee waivers are not provided for international applicants. If there are any questions about application fee waivers, please contact the Graduate Division of Arts and Sciences.
8. You will hear from us in mid-January if you will be invited to interview. Interviews will be held virtually. Interviews are usually in late January/early February. Admissions offers are usually made in mid-February.

Is Penn’s program right for you? See this handy decisions tree, reposted from the University of Houston Psychology website, to help you determine a route to your desired Psychology career.

Additional questions? Visit this list of FAQ about the application process.

For further questions, please contact Paul Newlon at grad_coordinator@psych.upenn.edu.