Fielding Graduate University has one clearly current forensic psychology option: an optional Forensic Psychology concentration within its PhD in Clinical Psychology. It is not a standalone PhD in Forensic Psychology, a crime-scene investigation program, or a laboratory forensic science degree.
The distinction between forensic psychology and forensic science shapes nearly every aspect of this program. Fielding prepares clinical psychology doctoral students for assessment, consultation, research, and other psychological work connected to courts and legal proceedings. It does not teach criminalistics, DNA analysis, toxicology, fingerprint processing, forensic chemistry, or crime-scene evidence collection.
Fielding is a graduate-only university based in Santa Barbara, California. Its clinical doctorate follows a distributed hybrid model built around online instruction, residential sessions, regional meetings, local clinical practica, and a full-time doctoral internship. The published completion time is five to six years, and the sequence cannot be compressed below five years.
Fielding’s forensic psychology option at a glance
| Program feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Credential | PhD in Clinical Psychology with an optional Forensic Psychology concentration |
| Program type | Clinical psychology doctorate with specialized forensic training |
| Delivery | Distributed hybrid, with digital instruction and substantial in-person clinical and residential requirements |
| Published duration | Five to six years |
| Clinical training | At least 1,520 practicum hours in years two and three, followed by a full-time, year-long internship |
| In-person commitment | At least 600 hours across orientation, residential sessions, professional development seminars, practicum, and internship activities |
| Current tuition | $10,905 per term for 2026-2027 |
| Standard admission threshold | Bachelor’s degree and minimum 3.0 GPA |
| GRE | Not required |
| Accreditation | Fielding is accredited by WSCUC; the Clinical Psychology PhD is APA-accredited |
| Primary career alignment | Clinical forensic assessment, legal consultation, research, and psychology-law practice |
| Not designed for | CSI, criminalistics laboratories, evidence technology, forensic chemistry, or sworn law-enforcement training |
Fielding’s current institutional program inventory does not show a separate forensic psychology master’s degree, certificate, doctorate, minor, or crime-scene program. Readers comparing Fielding with other institutions can browse the broader directory of California schools offering CSI and forensic education, but comparisons need to account for major differences between forensic psychology, field investigation, and laboratory science.
PhD in Clinical Psychology with Forensic Psychology concentration
The doctorate begins with the broader preparation required of a clinical psychologist. Current program materials describe study in psychology foundations, psychopathology, statistics, research methods, ethics, psychological assessment, psychotherapy, multicultural psychology, practicum, and dissertation research. The forensic concentration is added to that clinical core rather than replacing it.
This structure is appropriate for work in which psychological expertise is applied to legal questions. Examples include evaluating a person’s psychological functioning in a legal context, consulting with attorneys, preparing findings for courts, studying behavior at the intersection of psychology and law, and developing the skills needed for testimony or forensic reports.
It is a much longer and more clinically demanding route than a short graduate certificate in forensic psychology. Students complete the full doctoral sequence, supervised clinical practice, research training, a dissertation, and an internship. Someone seeking only an introduction to criminal behavior or the legal system would be taking on far more training than that goal requires.
The program is better aligned with future licensed psychologists who want a forensic area of practice. It is not a route into evidence collection or crime-laboratory employment. A prospective criminalist, DNA analyst, forensic chemist, evidence technician, or crime scene investigator would need a curriculum emphasizing the relevant laboratory sciences or scene-processing methods instead.
What the forensic curriculum covers
The most detailed publicly accessible concentration curriculum comes from Fielding’s 2024-2025 academic catalog. That catalog listed three required concentration courses:
- PSY-765 Forensic Psychology
- PSY-765E Ethics in Forensic Psychology
- PSY-765L Forensic Psychology Lab
The Fall 2026 Fielding course listings include PSY-765L Forensic Psychology Lab, providing current evidence that forensic coursework remains active. The current catalog interface was not accessible during the program review, however, so the complete 2024-2025 concentration structure cannot be presented as an unchanged 2026-2027 curriculum.
The 2024-2025 catalog also listed electives covering several types of specialized forensic assessment. Subject areas included criminal cases, civil court matters, child custody and parental rights, forensic neuropsychology, malingering and deception, and immigration court evaluations. These subjects reflect the central role of psychological assessment in forensic practice.
Malingering education, for example, concerns the assessment of potentially exaggerated or fabricated symptoms. Child-custody and parental-rights work raises a different set of clinical, ethical, and legal questions. Criminal and civil evaluations also involve different referral questions, report formats, evidentiary issues, and professional boundaries. Fielding’s documented elective range therefore extends beyond a broad survey of psychology and law.
Ethics is especially relevant because a forensic evaluator’s responsibilities differ from those of a treating therapist. A clinical relationship focused on treatment does not have the same purpose as an evaluation prepared for litigation or court use. Training in forensic ethics can address role clarity, informed consent, objectivity, limits of confidentiality, records, testimony, and the communication of findings.
Under the 2024-2025 requirements, concentration students also completed a research or advanced academic component. Options included a forensic publication, a conference presentation, additional forensic coursework, or a dissertation with a forensic orientation. This linked the concentration to the research expectations of the larger PhD rather than treating forensic psychology as a set of electives alone.
Clinical and forensic field experience
Fielding’s current clinical program requirements call for clinical practicum to begin in the second year. Students complete at least 1,520 practicum hours during the second and third years.
The final internship is full time and lasts one year. Fielding expects students to pursue an accredited internship through the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers Match. An internship placement can require relocation, which has practical implications for housing, employment, and family responsibilities.
The 2024-2025 catalog added a forensic experience requirement of 500 cumulative supervised hours for the concentration. Those hours could include direct service, indirect service, and supervision completed through forensic practica, internships, or supervised forensic rotations. Because that figure comes from the earlier catalog, it is best understood as the documented 2024-2025 requirement rather than a guaranteed current total.
Taken together, the clinical and documented forensic requirements show that Fielding’s concentration was designed around supervised professional development, not coursework alone. The quality and focus of actual placements will have a major influence on a graduate’s preparation for assessment, reports, consultation, and eventual forensic practice.
Hybrid does not mean fully online
Fielding describes the Clinical Psychology PhD as a distributed hybrid program. Academic work includes online and virtual learning, but the degree also incorporates week-long residential sessions, regional in-person meetings, local practica, and the doctoral internship.
Students must complete at least 600 hours of in-person participation across orientation, national sessions, professional development seminars, practicum, and internship activities. Clinical placements also impose fixed scheduling obligations that differ substantially from asynchronous online coursework.
The distributed format can reduce the need to live near a conventional campus throughout the entire degree. It does not remove geographic constraints. Practicum opportunities have to support the required clinical development, residential sessions require attendance, and the internship may require a temporary or permanent move.
This is therefore a poor match for someone seeking a doctorate that can be completed remotely without travel or daytime clinical obligations. It can work for a student who needs more geographic flexibility than a traditional campus doctorate provides and can still accommodate extended clinical placements, residential attendance, and a full-time internship.
Admissions
The standard published admission threshold is a conferred bachelor’s degree with at least a 3.0 GPA. The GRE is not required.
Clinical Psychology PhD application materials include:
- An online application
- Official transcripts
- A curriculum vitae
- A statement of purpose
- A critical-thinking writing sample
- Three recommendations
- A $75 application fee
Admission is to the Clinical Psychology PhD rather than directly to an independent forensic doctorate. The application therefore needs to demonstrate readiness for clinical psychology training as a whole. Interest in courts or criminal behavior alone does not substitute for the research, writing, interpersonal, and academic preparation expected in a clinical doctoral program.
Fielding lists Summer and Fall 2027 starts for the Clinical Psychology PhD. Additional eligibility conditions apply to the Summer 2027 entry point, including conditions related to GPA and prior psychology and statistics coursework.
Tuition and the practical cost of attendance
Fielding’s centralized 2026-2027 tuition schedule lists Clinical Psychology PhD tuition at $10,905 per term. The university operates year-round across three terms, producing a tuition-only annual figure of $32,715 at the published rate.
That figure is not the total cost of attendance. It excludes books, technology, travel, lodging, personal expenses, and other indirect costs. Fielding also lists a $10-per-term student activity fee, and published attendance charges include a $295 session fee for students. The available materials do not establish how many charged sessions apply to every doctoral student.
Travel deserves more attention here than it would in a fully online academic doctorate. Residential sessions create transportation and lodging expenses. Practicum placements can affect commuting costs, while the full-time internship may create relocation expenses and reduce the student’s ability to maintain unrelated employment.
The program’s five-to-six-year timeline also means that one year of published tuition cannot be multiplied into a reliable total without knowing a student’s enrollment pattern, future rates, and time to completion. The most useful current figure is $10,905 per term, with three terms producing $32,715 in annual tuition before other expenses.
Accreditation and California licensure
Fielding Graduate University is institutionally accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission. The university reports that its Clinical Psychology PhD received a ten-year renewal of American Psychological Association accreditation in 2023.
APA accreditation applies to the Clinical Psychology PhD. The optional Forensic Psychology concentration is not separately APA-accredited. This is a normal distinction between accreditation of a professional psychology doctorate and an internal concentration within that doctorate.
Fielding states that the Clinical Psychology PhD meets California’s educational degree requirement for applying for psychologist licensure. The doctorate is only one part of the process. According to the California Board of Psychology, licensure also requires 3,000 hours of supervised professional experience, including at least 1,500 postdoctoral hours, along with passage of the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology and the California Psychology Law and Ethics Examination. California also imposes fingerprinting, prelicensure training, and application requirements.
The forensic concentration is neither a psychology license nor a professional board certification. Completing it also does not guarantee expert-witness status, court appointments, or independent forensic practice. Those roles depend on licensure where required, relevant supervised experience, demonstrated competence, and the standards applied by courts, agencies, and employers.
Career alignment
Fielding’s concentration is most directly connected to clinical forensic psychology. Potential functions include psychological assessment in legal matters, consultation, report preparation, treatment within forensic or correctional settings, research, and testimony related to an evaluator’s area of competence.
The exact occupational setting can vary. Forensic psychologists may work in hospitals, correctional systems, government agencies, private practice, universities, or organizations that provide court-related evaluations. Specific roles often demand experience with the population and referral question involved, such as competency, criminal responsibility, trauma, disability, parenting, neuropsychological functioning, or immigration matters.
This degree is not designed for the physical evidence side of an investigation. Crime-scene investigators document scenes and recognize, collect, and preserve evidence. Criminalists and laboratory analysts commonly need substantial coursework in chemistry, biology, molecular biology, quantitative analysis, and instrumental methods. Fielding’s program instead centers on clinical psychology, assessment, research, and legal applications of psychological expertise.
Are there other Fielding forensic programs?
Fielding’s current program inventory does not identify another named forensic psychology or CSI credential. Two nearby options require careful classification.
The PhD in Psychology with an Emphasis in Applied Psychological Science is a current, fully online, nonclinical research doctorate. It permits individualized areas of expertise, but Fielding does not advertise a named forensic concentration, forensic practicum, professional forensic credential, or psychologist-licensure pathway within that degree. It is therefore not equivalent to the Clinical Psychology PhD with the verified forensic concentration.
Fielding also offers a current Postdoctoral Certificate in Respecialization in Clinical Psychology for people who already hold a PhD in a nonclinical psychology discipline. The 2024-2025 catalog stated that respecialization students could add the Forensic Psychology concentration. The current certificate page does not identify that option, and the current catalog was unavailable during this review. Its status as a 2026-2027 forensic pathway remains unresolved, so it should not be counted as a second current forensic psychology program.
Who should choose this route?
Fielding’s program fits a specific objective: becoming a doctoral-level clinical psychologist with specialized preparation for work involving legal questions, forensic assessment, consultation, or psychology-law research. Its distributed structure provides more geographic flexibility than a continuously campus-based doctorate, but the practicum, internship, residency, and in-person attendance requirements remain substantial.
Applicants focused on court-related psychological evaluation should prioritize the program’s assessment sequence, supervised forensic placements, ethics training, internship outcomes, and opportunities for relevant dissertation research. Those elements will matter more professionally than the concentration title by itself.
Readers seeking crime-scene processing, fingerprints, forensic photography, digital evidence, toxicology, DNA analysis, or laboratory criminalistics need a different educational route. Fielding’s verified forensic offering belongs to clinical psychology and requires the long sequence associated with doctoral training and psychologist licensure. For the right career target, that depth is the program’s central value.