The program requires six graduate-level courses as prerequisites to the program. It is the program's policy not to accept additional transfer courses. The required courses are Human Growth and Personality Development, Psychological Assessment, Psychopathology, Research Methods and Advanced Statistics, Counseling Theories, and Group Counseling.

Fifteen credits are completed by students through required courses in their master's programs and transferred into the Psy.D. program. Although a three-credit course in Group Counseling is a prerequisite to the program, it is not accepted as a transfer course.

Effective 2019, students are asked to complete a Transfer Evaluation and Substitution application and provide syllabi for the six graduate-level courses, unless courses were taken at Saint Elizabeth University, for consideration to the Director of the Program prior to enrollment.

The Director of the Program reviews the materials and evaluates the courses for content, level, and mastery (i.e., as evidenced by a grade of B or above). For example, if an applicant submits a syllabus for a Master's course to fulfill the Counseling Theories prerequisite, the Director reviews the syllabus to ensure that counseling theories are in fact adequately covered at a Master's level in the required text and journal readings, as well as in-class discussion and out of class assignments. If so, the Director will allow that particular course to fulfill the Counseling Theories prerequisite.

If an applicant does not have one or more required Master's level prerequisites, the applicant may be admitted to the program on condition that the required prerequisites are taken during the summer before the applicant's first year or during the first year of the applicant's doctoral studies. The applicant will be permitted to take up to two prerequisite Master's courses in the first year of the doctoral program.

Occasionally, an applicant will not have taken the required Master’s prerequisites but will have a significant amount of professional work experience in a given topic area. Or, an applicant will have taken a prerequisite course but have obtained a grade lower than a B in the course, prior to obtaining a significant amount of professional work experience in that topic area. In these cases, the Director and the Associate Director for Clinical Training will review the applicant’s 3-6 page statement of goals and autobiographical considerations, and curriculum vitae. They will further pose questions to the applicant about the applicant’s professional experience in order to gain a detailed understanding of the nature of that experience.

Based on this review, the Director and the Associate Director for Clinical Training will determine if the professional experience is a suitable substitute for the Master’s course prerequisite or if the professional experience may be considered to, in effect, lift the applicant’s grade to a B in order that the course may fulfill the prerequisite.