University of East London

Admissions Procedures

Eligibility screen

Each application is first reviewed by the admissions team for basic eligibility criteria, including

•   residence and right to work in the UK;
• academic qualifications;
• English language facility; and
• positive academic and clinical references.

Assessment Day

Applicants who meet the basic eligibility criteria are invited to sit tests (at our campus, or a campus of one of our partner courses) on one of our Assessment Days on DATES.  Applicants must achieve scores on these tests that place them in approximately the upper 50th percentile of the cohort of applicants, in order to progress to the next phase of admissions.

Application Rating

For applicants achieving high scores on our Assessment Day tests, application forms are then reviewed in detail by programme staff and/or local NHS clinical psychologists, and rated for the essential and desirable entry criteria, including:

• capacity to undertake full time work and study over the course duration;
• research appraisal skills and project or service development experience;
• relevant paid clinical or research employment experience, settings, and range;
• commitment to work in the UK NHS and realism regarding the challenges of training;
• satisfactory completion and preparation of the application; and
• respectful communication with the programme and admissions team.

Panels Day

Application Ratings are combined with scores on the Assessment Day tests to short-list applicants to attend one of our Panels Days. On the Panels Day, applicants will attend a Competence Panel and a Peoples' Panel. Current trainees are actively involved in supporting applicants on Panels Days.

Competence Panels are conducted by members of the programme staff, along with clinical psychologists who offer placements; these involve short tasks and questions concerning contemporary psychology practice.  Peoples' Panels are designed and provided by members of our Peoples' Committee of service-users, carers, and their representatives; these involve a short task facilitated by members of our committee.

Applicant performance on the Panels Day are scored on domains capturing the essential and desirable employment criteria.  

Provisional and reserve offers are allocated based on the order of total scores obtained in the Assessment Day, Application Ratings, and Panels Day.

Employment Checks

Trainee clinical psychologists are employees of the host NHS trust, during placement and teaching.  Therefore to secure a place on the programme, applicants must be acceptable to the NHS for employment as a trainee clinical psychologist in a full-time capacity, including working to the current regulations of the relevant employing trust.

Training as a clinical psychologist involves working with children and vulnerable adults: throughout the admissions process and the training programme we take stringent measures to ensure the clients trainees work with are kept safe. 

The university and NHS trust staff will verify applicant identity, eligibility for UK employment, and all qualifications claimed in the application, using formal procedures requiring original documents.  In addition, all offers of a place are dependent on satisfactory checks including: 

• Disclosure & Barring Service enhanced checks;
• HR fitness to practise review;
• professional conduct disclosure;
• Occupational health (OH) assessment;
• evidence in support of any disability or requests for adjustments, and evidence of any social disadvantage claimed for contextual admissions purposes

Applicants are asked to complete, sign, and return a declaration form including:

• any criminal charges and cautions,
• protection of children and people who use services,
• work-related professional or disciplinary matters, and
• personal health and learning needs, relevant to study and employment.

For applicants who attend a Panels Day, we provide brief feedback on their performance in the outcome letter. Unfortunately, due to the large number of applications received each year, we are not able to provide individual feedback for applicants who were not invited to a Panels Day.

Equal opportunities

Widening access to the profession of clinical psychology is important to the programme. We are committed to ensuring the profession is more inclusive, valuing people bringing experience from a range of backgrounds.

We work with other local programmes, as well as collaborating on a national level within the Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology (GTiCP) and BPS Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) to widen access and improve equality, diversity, and inclusivity for people from under-represented groups or marginalised groups.

We keep our admissions processes under constant review and aim to ensure they do not discriminate against people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act (2010).

The University and the relevant NHS Trust work to equal opportunities policies and no applicant is discriminated against on grounds of ethnicity, belief, gender, sexual orientation, physical disability, or age.

Contextual admissions

We use contextual admissions data to identify and support applicants from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their potential. This applies to applicants: 

• who have been in care during school years;
• have been a carer, during school years;
• whose family was in receipt of income support (or Universal Credit) during school years;
• who are (or were) a refugee and/or under humanitarian protection of the UK government

Please note that we require candidates who are offered a place to provide evidence to support any statuses they have claimed as part of their application.

Applicants with disabilities

Applicants with disabilities will be offered reasonable adjustments and support at key stages of the admissions procedures, including accessing the Assessment Day tests and attendance for the Panels Day, upon request.

Please note that reasonable adjustments are applied on the basis of the disability (rather than a diagnosis), where a disability is a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on the ability to do normal daily activities.