Entry requirements

Here is our shortlisting criteria document for 2025 entry

In order for an application to be considered, the following criteria must be met:

• Eligible for Home Fee Status
• Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC) with the BPS
• English language requirements
• Complete application form, including both suitability statements (references) and transcripts.

Eligibility for Home Fee Status

Places on the Programme are currently funded by the British National Health Service (NHS), and are open to home fee status applicants who can apply through the Clearing House.  

We no longer have places for international applicants who are self funding and we cannot accept applications from anyone without Home Fees Status.

Please see the following webpages for more guidance on eligibility for home fee status for EU applicants: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/international/fees-and-funding/eu-students

Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC) 

All applicants must provide evidence for eligibility for Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC) Membership  of the British Psychological Society (BPS).

English language

If English is not your first language and your university qualifications were not taught and examined in English, you need to submit evidence of your ability in English language with your application. This should be a computer based IELTS test. The minimum scores needed are: 7 with no element below 6.5.

Complete application form

Please ensure that your application form is complete, including both suitability statements (references) and transcripts. Due to the high number of applications we receive, we do not chase applicants for missing information. Incomplete applications will not be considered.  

In addition to the above requirements, applicants must meet the below criteria:

Academic qualifications

Applicants must have either: a BPS-accredited undergraduate psychology degree awarded a 2.1 or higher; or a non-psychology undergraduate degree awarded a 2.1 or higher and a completed accredited psychology conversion degree. 

For non-UK qualifications, equivalence data will be provided. Undergraduate degrees awarded a 2.2 will be considered if there is clear evidence on the application form of mitigating circumstances which impacted on the degree grade. 

Research experience

Applicants must meet at least one of these criteria to demonstrate appropriate research experience: 

• Evidence of achieving a 1st (70% and above) in an undergraduate psychology research project. 
• A completed relevant Master’s degree involving research. This includes a psychology conversion Master’s degree.
• A work role involving substantial research (e.g.: experience of working on a clinically relevant research project or service evaluation). 
• Relevant published research in a peer reviewed journal (manuscripts in preparation or submission cannot be considered) where the applicant is named as an author.
• A completed PhD in a relevant discipline.

Please note, applicants need to meet one (not all) of these criteria. The applicant should clearly demonstrate that they were involved in both the design and evaluation of the research project(s).

Clinical experience

Applicants must have experience of working in a paid clinical work role under the supervision of a psychological professional for at least 18 months full-time (or the equivalent in part-time roles) at the time of applying. This clinical experience must involve working in a recovery- or change-oriented way with clients, using psychological model OR involvement in complex assessment and formulation work, such as neuropsychological assessment work.

The programme does not offer accreditation of prior learning.

Shortlisting deductive reasoning test

For 2025 entry, we are introducing an online ability test as part of the shortlisting process. All applicants who meet the above criteria will be invited to undertake an online deductive reasoning test. Following the shortlisting test, the highest scoring applicants will be invited to interview. If you have applied to one or more of the other programmes that utilise this approach, you will only be asked to do the test once. Your results will then be shared with the programmes you have applied to. 

If you are an applicant with a disability which will impact on your ability to undertake the screening test, please contact us via dclinpsyadmissions@sheffield.ac.uk as soon as possible with details of how your disability impacts on your ability to complete the screening test and any appropriate documentary evidence and recommendations from a professional for reasonable adjustments where available. We will also contact all applicants in early February 2025 to request this information. 

Practising the tests beforehand can help ensure that all applicants, regardless of background, can demonstrate their ability. Please visit the SHL website (https://www.shl.com/shldirect/en/practice-tests/) to complete their practice tests - you only need to do the Deductive reasoning test (Mobile-Enabled, Interactive) for the Sheffield programme. SHL practice tests are only examples of the type of questions you will be given and do not indicate the difficulty level of your actual test. A wide variety of practice tests from other sources are available online, many of which are free of charge.

Important: You can complete a full online test by registering to do a practice but you can only complete this once. However, you can register under a new email address to do this again as often as you wish. Practice questions are also provided in the live test for you to familiarise yourself with the style of questions and how to interact with the test. It is very important you take the opportunity to do these practice questions before trying to complete the test itself.

This is not a maths or English test - it looks at how you reason. Use the practice questions to help you to understand the way in which the questions work. You can use tools such as writing notes or using a calculator during the tests if they help you but you may not need to. 

This is adaptive testing so the questions get harder if you keep getting them correct! As a result, all candidates find the test extremely challenging regardless of how well they do and all candidates are likely to get questions wrong. Although our approach encourages applicants with a wide range of abilities, our standards for entry remain very high and require applicants to demonstrate doctoral-level standards.

Candidates will be invited via an email from SHL to take the online test at a time and place convenient to them. Candidates must complete the test during the screening window noted above using the invitation link. Candidates who do not receive an email on the day the window opens should contact the programme urgently to resolve the issue.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to reschedule the screening test due to any individual circumstances. However, we provide a large window which is sufficient to allow for flexibility in when candidates choose to complete the test. Please note that we cannot provide technical support outside of office hours. Candidates should leave sufficient time to allow them to deal with any difficulties that may arise.

The test will take approximately 30 minutes to complete (including time to read instructions etc). There is a standard time limit of 18 minutes for the deductive test which has 12 items.

The statistical model for the testing system is available online in the technical manual - please do not ask us to supply this to you as we cannot do so. The model uses a combination of work rate (number of questions answered), hit rate (number answered correctly), and question level (altered dynamically for each question based on your performance on the previous questions so far) which is combined with a comparison group at a particular ability level to produce a population percentile for your performance. Concepts such as punitive marking are not relevant to the statistical modelling which is used in this form of dynamic ability testing.

The test is intended to put significant time pressure on candidates and everyone will find it hard to finish in the time provided. Not completing all questions within the time limit or getting questions wrong is not indicative of a poor performance. This is just an aspect of the testing process which is intended to identify the limit of a candidate's ability in a particular area.

For further information about the test please visit the Lancaster course website.

Equal Opportunities and Diversity

The programme operates an equal opportunities policy and no applicant will be discriminated against on grounds of ethnicity, religion, age, disability, sexuality or gender.

Candidates with knowledge and experience of other cultures or minority groups are particularly welcome to apply. A current driving licence is highly desirable.

The programme reserves the right to use Positive Action where appropriate within the provisions of  the Equality Act (2010). Such action is permitted in order to address the underrepresentation of applicants with specific protected characteristics within the profession. We use the personal demographic details provided by the Clearing House in this Positive Action process. Therefore this is only possible where appropriate consent has been given for applicant information to be used in this way. 

Disability Confident Scheme

In line with the Equality Act 2010 and our achievement of Disability Confident status, (previously known as 'Two Tick' or 'double tick'), we welcome and encourage candidates to declare whether they have a disability on the application form.

All applicants who applied under the Disability Confident Scheme who, following the shortlisting test, are placed on the interview reserve list, will be automatically offered an interview.

Further enquiries concerning entrance requirements should be made to the Selection Team. Please check our programme website, and in particular our frequently asked questions section before contacting the programme with queries.