2027 Edition
Choosing among PsyD programs in California means weighing 18 APA-accredited options across 16 cities. Palo Alto University in Palo Alto, California is the top-ranked of the PsyD programs in California, 5th nationally at 73.7 out of 100.
By Trevor Rupe, Contributor at Savo Media Group
All 18 are clinical psychology programs in APA’s accreditation list. Every one is at a private institution.
California’s degree rule turns on the degree field and the school’s regional accreditation, not on APA accreditation, and the board decides whether each degree qualifies. Pay here runs above the national median: BLS reports $116,000 for clinical and counseling psychologists in California, against $100,580 nationwide (May 2025). School psychologists earn more, at $127,780.
The five highest-ranked PsyD programs in California, in order. The number on each card is its place in California, and its national rank is beside the school.
Full profile of Palo Alto University in Best PsyD Programs
Sources: APA record, ASPPB, APPIC and the school’s APA disclosure, read October 14, 2026.
Ranks 2nd: it registers about 64 students a year in the APPIC internship match (the most in California); it retains 94% of the students who enter; and 73% of its 289 first-time EPPP takers passed.
The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, runs a requirement-based PsyD on trimesters, with clinical practica in all three years of academic residency and optional focus areas that add electives, a related practicum and dissertation research.
The Wright Institute's PsyD in Clinical Psychology follows a fixed, sequential curriculum that is requirement based rather than unit based, with students expected to take four courses each trimester. Coursework spans three years of academic residency, and students are in clinical practica in all three years, tied to their classes through the Case Conference/Professional Development Seminar sequence. A qualifying examination comes in the spring of the second year, students work to complete the dissertation in the fourth year, and the internship is completed in the fifth year. The school names faculty strengths in contemporary psychoanalytic, cognitive behavioral, family systems, social justice, brief treatment and relational approaches.
Applicants need a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited U.S. school by the start of classes and three prerequisite courses, including human development and abnormal psychology, which can be completed after admission; GRE scores are optional. Students with prior graduate coursework may be able to waive required courses, but waived coursework does not shorten the program because of the three-year residency requirement. The Institute admits students each year for the fall trimester at its campus in Berkeley, California. Focus areas range from psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapy training to child assessment, neuropsychological assessment, health psychology, first responder psychology and community and multicultural practice, and the Wright Institute Scholarship assists students with financial need.
Scored under methodology v2.0
Sources: APA record of The Wright Institute (Clinical Psychology), ASPPB, APPIC and APA disclosure of The Wright Institute (Clinical Psychology), read October 12, 2026.
Ranks 3rd: 96% of its 81 registered applicants matched to an accredited internship (the highest in California); it publishes tuition of $36,000 for the first-year cohort; and it retains 90% of the students who enter.
Loma Linda University's practitioner-scholar PsyD in Loma Linda, California, offers clinical child, health psychology and neuropsychology specializations as well as a generalist path, and places students in supervised clinical settings from the end of the first year, including Loma Linda University Medical Center.
The Clinical Psychology (PsyD) program is influenced by the practitioner-scholar model, and the school describes it as about two-thirds clinical preparation and one-third research training. Students complete 122 units of core, specialization, elective and doctoral research coursework, including required courses in spirituality and clinical psychology and in wholeness and health, plus 80 units of practicum, pre-internship and internship, and students can specialize in clinical child psychology, health psychology or neuropsychology or follow a generalist path. Supervised clinical work starts at the end of the first year, continues with individuals, couples and families in the psychology clinic during the second year, and moves to Loma Linda University Medical Center and community settings in years 3 and 4; the comprehensive examination currently includes the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology, and a doctoral project with a formal proposal and a public defense comes before the one-year pre-doctoral internship.
The program's preferred criteria for an admission interview include a bachelor's degree in psychology or a related discipline and an undergraduate GPA of 3.0 or higher or a master's degree GPA of 3.3 or higher; the GRE is not required but may be submitted, and the department requires a structured pre-admission interview. New students start only in the fall quarter, application materials are due December 1, and the program is designed for five years of full-time enrollment, including the internship. Loma Linda University is a Seventh-day Adventist-affiliated university: students agree to uphold its values, and those with classes on campus attend a weekly chapel service, though students need not be church members. Funding beyond loans is limited and competitive; the department gives typically 6-8 partial tuition remission awards to first-year students, and teaching assistants are typically paid hourly through Federal Work Study.
Scored under methodology v2.0
Sources: APA record of Loma Linda University (Clinical Psychology), ASPPB, APPIC and APA disclosure of Loma Linda University (Clinical Psychology), read October 12, 2026.
Ranks 4th: 85% of its 40 first-time EPPP takers passed (higher than 13 of 14 other programs in California); it publishes tuition of $37,020 for the first-year cohort; and its school's doctoral graduates in this field earn a median $106,857, four years after completing.
A seminary-based PsyD in Pasadena, California, whose 242-unit curriculum includes 28 units of theology and 20 units on integrating psychology and theology, with Neuropsychology and Culture and Community tracks.
Fuller's Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology uses the practitioner-scholar model to train professionals to provide psychotherapy and assessment services and to develop, implement and evaluate treatment programs. Clinical training runs year by year: sessions with client actors in the first year, a caseload of around ten clients at the in-house clinic in the second, a year-long assessment clerkship at one of 80 training sites in the greater Los Angeles County area of California in the third, a year-long pre-internship practicum in the fourth, and a one-year internship in the fifth. Each student is placed in a faculty research lab to complete a dissertation.
Applicants submit official transcripts showing a bachelor's degree, essays including a religious autobiography, a CV and four references, one pastoral and three academic; applicants with a bachelor's or master's degree in psychology or a closely related field and a GPA of at least 3.0 need no further prerequisite coursework, and the GRE is not required. Requests to transfer a prior master's degree or courses are evaluated individually after matriculation. Admitted students agree that continual adherence to the seminary's Statements of Community Standards is a condition of enrollment, and students earn a Master of Arts in Psychology after completing 88 selected units.
Scored under methodology v2.0
Sources: APA record of Fuller Theological Seminary (Clinical Psychology), ASPPB, APPIC and APA disclosure of Fuller Theological Seminary (Clinical Psychology), read October 12, 2026.
Ranks 5th: it registers about 53 students a year in the APPIC internship match (more than 16 of 17 other programs in California), and 88% of its 263 registered applicants matched to an accredited internship.
Alliant's Psy.D. in San Diego, California, takes four years of full-time study in a practitioner-scholar model, and students can add an emphasis or experience area ranging from clinical health and family/child psychology to trauma-focused forensic work and Buddhist psychotherapy.
Part of the California School of Professional Psychology, the program follows a practitioner-scholar model that emphasizes the application of theory and research to clinical practice. Entering students spend ten hours a week at a practicum agency, second- and third-year practica are chosen from a list of pre-approved sites, and the fourth year is a full-time internship; every student must apply to at least 11 APA-accredited internships. Proposal development and clinical dissertation groups lead to an applied clinical dissertation, and students take a written and oral Clinical Proficiency Examination in the spring of the third year.
Applicants need a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution, a GPA of at least 3.0 or a GPA exemption petition, and preparation in psychology through a psychology degree, an 80th percentile or better score on the GRE Psychology Test, or four prerequisite courses. The 120-unit degree is taught on the ground on a semester calendar at the San Diego, California, campus, up to 30 units of earlier graduate psychology work can transfer, and students complete 40 hours of personal psychotherapy. The school says its doctoral course requirements are designed to fulfill the programmatic requirements for licensure in California.
Scored under methodology v2.0
Sources: APA record of Alliant University, San Diego (Clinical Psychology), ASPPB, APPIC and APA disclosure of Alliant University, San Diego (Clinical Psychology), read October 12, 2026.
The figures below come from the 18 PsyD programs in California that this ranking includes, each read from the source named beside it.
18
APA-accredited PsyD programs ranked in California
APA directory64%
Median first-time EPPP pass rate across 15 programs
ASPPB74%
Median accredited internship match rate across 17 programs
APPIC$44,032
Median yearly tuition across 17 programs
Program disclosuresAcross the 15 programs with a published first-time EPPP pass rate, results run from 21% to 97%, with a median of 64%. ASPPB reports 75% for all accredited doctoral programs.
The 17 programs with at least 10 APPIC registrations from 2021 to 2025 matched 35% to 96% of their registered applicants with APA- or CPA-accredited internships, with a median of 74%.
17 programs list a yearly tuition, from $33,320 to $83,400, with a median of $44,032. Each figure is the full-time yearly tuition in the program’s own cost table.
ASPPB adds its own caution: “Please note that care should be exercised if comparisons across schools and programs are made.”
A PsyD is a degree, and the license comes from the state. These are the rules a graduate of PsyD programs in California meets for a license there, each linked to the page it was read on.
Licensing board: California Board of Psychology.
BLS counts 12,840 clinical and counseling psychologists in California, with a median annual wage of $116,000. School psychologists number 8,340 at a median of $127,780.
$116,000
Median annual pay for clinical and counseling psychologists in California
Occupation: Clinical and Counseling Psychologists, SOC 19-3033.BLS counts 12,840 employed in California.
$127,780
Median annual pay for school psychologists in California
Occupation: School Psychologists, SOC 19-3034.BLS counts 8,340 employed in California.
Percentiles are points in each occupation’s pay distribution, not experience levels. BLS lists an area in every state its counties reach, so a metropolitan area that crosses a state line appears under each state.
APA lists these programs in California, and they are not ranked. The statement for each is quoted below with the page it was read on.
This program is currently not accepting new students.
Read October 14, 2026 on the Alliant University, Fresno program page
As of early 2026, the Emeryville branch campus is no longer accepting new students.
Read October 14, 2026 on the Alliant University, San Francisco Bay program page
APA lists this program as inactive: it is not admitting students.
Accredited - Inactive
Read October 12, 2026 on the APA record for University of San Francisco
We are no longer accepting additional cohorts into this program.
Read October 13, 2026 on the University of San Francisco program page
In the 2027 ranking, Palo Alto University in Palo Alto, California is first among the PsyD programs in California, with a score of 73.7 out of 100 and 5th place nationally. Its program page is Palo Alto University’s program page for its Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology. The score weighs cost, graduate earnings, completion, internship and licensure outcomes, track record, credential alignment and program reputation, and the methodology page shows each weight.
17 ranked programs in California list a yearly tuition, from $33,320 to $83,400, with a median of $44,032. Each figure is the full-time yearly tuition in the program’s own cost table. A program card labels its tuition figure with the period and rate its school printed, and Read More lists the in-state and out-of-state prices where the cost table gives both.
No. California’s statute asks for an earned doctorate in a listed field from a regionally accredited school and never names APA accreditation, and the board makes the final decision on each degree. APA does appear in the board’s rules as one of three accepted credentials for a predoctoral internship, beside APPIC and CAPIC membership. See California Business and Professions Code 2914.
California counts 3,000 hours of supervised professional experience, in two years of 1,500 hours each, with at least one year after the doctorate. The board’s regulation, title 16, section 1387, sets out the settings that count.
Two: the EPPP, which ASPPB writes, and the California Psychology Laws and Ethics Examination. The Board of Psychology licensee FAQ names both. The EPPP is the knowledge-based exam, and California is no longer implementing a two-part version.
BLS reports a median annual wage of $116,000 for clinical and counseling psychologists (SOC 19-3033) in California for May 2025. The 10th percentile is $62,900 and the 90th is $188,050. School psychologists (SOC 19-3034) have a median of $127,780. Percentiles mark points in the pay distribution of everyone in the occupation, not years of experience.