Admissions & applications

As part of your application, you must submit a list of counselling prerequisite courses that you have already completed or are planning to take.

Please review the counselling psychology prerequisites page for more detailed information.

Applicants must document their counselling-related experience(s) in a field experience chart (FEC).

Counselling-related experience is defined as working with vulnerable populations in a position where the applicant's main role was to help individuals or groups with personally meaningful goals or needs.

Your work experience should involve person-to-person and/or group helping relationships in which

• you play a facilitative role in learning, personal and emotional growth, and/or psychological development, and
• you are required to demonstrate professional and ethical behaviours, effective interpersonal skills and personal awareness.

Work experience must also include supervision involving evaluative feedback from a professional of a higher administrative position (i.e., not peer consultation) with clearly stated roles and responsibilities for the individual and the supervisor. You can meet this requirement through volunteer work experience, but preference may be given to applicants with sustained relevant, paid work experience.

Some examples of counselling-related experience include, but are not limited to:

• teaching
• leading youth groups
• support work
• social work
• at-risk youth/community outreach
• addictions services
• victim support services
• volunteer counselling
• crisis lines
• hospice care

Please note that self-employed work can be included on your resume as professional experience but does not count towards the work experience requirement.

If your job involved some hours direct work with clients combined with administrative tasks, case management, training, or other tasks not eligible as counselling hours, you can differentiate between the total number of hours worked on the job and number of hours of direct helping experience on the field experience chart.

Please record your hours as a total number of hours, not as hours per week, number of weeks or a date range.

Resumé

Resumés must be submitted as part of your online application. Include the current date, your name, address, phone number and email address on the first page.

Please document all work experience and include a brief statement about what was gained or learned from each experience. All gaps in your work history should be included and explained.

The purpose of the counselling skills evaluation (CSE) is to provide a detailed qualitative assessment of your counselling skills and professional character.

You must provide 2 completed CSEs: one from your CNPY 417 (or pre-approved equivalent) course instructor and another from a supervisor in a counselling-related setting. These referees must be different from those who fill in your assessment reports.

You must send a blank CSE form to your referees. They will then email the completed form directly to the graduate programs office by Jan. 1.

If you are a current student who is thinking about applying for the graduate program in the future, you can ask your CNPY 417 instructor to complete the CSE ahead of time. We will keep the evaluation on file until you apply.

We require assessment reports from 2 academic or professional references. (At least 1 academic reference is preferred.) These 2 referees should be different from the 2 referees who fill in your counselling skills evaluations.

You will be asked to provide the names and email addresses of your chosen assessors as part of your online application. We will then email the assessment report link directly to them after you submit your application. Please make sure to contact your referees to confirm their willingness to provide you with an assessment before listing them in your application.

You can return to the assessment section of your application and check whether the assessment reports have been completed by your referees, make changes to your referee information, or re-send an assessment request if necessary.

Assessment reports are due Jan. 1.

As part of your online application, you must provide a concise personal statement (i.e., a letter of intent) using the provided template that answers the following:

• why you want to enter a graduate counselling psychology program
• how you dealt with an interpersonal conflict
• what role you see personal change playing in your education and professional identity as a counsellor

If you are applying for the thesis-based MA, you must complete and submit a research statement.

Please note that the number of thesis-based students admitted each year varies, depending on the availability of faculty members for supervision. Thesis-based applicants will be selected based on the match between applicant research and faculty research expertise.

Thesis-based applicants who are not admitted to the thesis-based MA will be automatically considered for the course-based MA.

If your first language is not English, you must provide proof of English language proficiency. This can be in the form of a TOEFL, IELST or MELAB test result. We do not accept other tests, including Duolingo.

Please note: the CNPY program requires higher language proficiency scores than those required by Graduate Admissions and Records. 

Minimum test scores

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)

We require a minimum score of 95 from the internet-based TOEFL (IBT). You must also score at least 21 points each in the listening, speaking, reading and writing sections.

We require a minimum score of 575 on the paper-based TOEFL.

UVic's TOEFL institution code is 0989.

IELTS (International English Language Testing System)

We require minimum overall band score of 7.0 on the IELTS. No individual component can have a score lower than 6.5. We will only accept results from the Academic IELTS.

MELAB (Michigan English Language Assessment Battery)

A score of 92 on the MELAB will be accepted as proof of English proficiency.

This is only required if you are offered admission. Please await department instructions before proceeding.

As a condition of admission to the counselling psychology program, you must undergo a criminal record check in compliance with the BC Criminal Records Review Act. Full admittance to the program requires a successful criminal record check.