MSW Frequently Asked Questions

We plan to start notifying applicants with a decision in late March or April 2022.  The notification process will take several weeks and some applicants may not hear back until later in the spring.

The title "Social Worker" is protected under Oregon Rules and Statutes. In order to represent yourself as a "Social Worker," you must be licensed, certified or registered with the Oregon Board of Licensed Social Workers. Visit the Board's Website for detailed information. If you are planning on gaining licensure in another state, please review that state's rules and statutes.  All graduates of the MSW program are eligible to apply, regardless of their advanced concentration.

We recognize that many students need to work part time while attending the program. If you will be working while attending the program it is important to have flexible work hours to accommodate the class schedule and the field placement.

Maybe.  While we do not have an international field education program, we will explore options with any admitted student.  However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to identify a field placement outside of the United States that meets CSWE standards and can provide a student with the required practice and supervision opportunities.  Additionally, due to regional approaches to school/community partnerships, it may not be possible to secure a healthcare placement outside of Oregon. Therefore, any student who lists healthcare placements on their Placement Identification Form should also identify non-healthcare placements. In any situation where a student lives outside of Oregon, we ask the student to provide information regarding potential social work internship opportunities in their home community which we will then research and vet to determine whether it meets the standards of the field education program.  

No. Applicants can apply to only one option. Applicants are admitted to the option they apply to.

No, the MSW Program does not accept applications which were submitted after the deadline. Application packets must be completed before an applicant will be considered for admission. Applications without all the letters of recommendation will be considered incomplete.

You must have a baccalaureate degree with a liberal arts perspective from an accredited college or university, or its international equivalent to be considered for admission to the MSW program. Applicants must demonstrate attainment of a liberal arts perspective by having successfully completed course work from each of the following three curricular areas:

1) Social and Behavioral Sciences,
2) Natural Sciences, and
3) Humanities and Fine Performing Arts. 

GRE scores are not required for admission to the MSW Program. However, applicants applying to the combined MSW/MPH options will need to check with the School of Public Health to see if GRE scores are required for the MPH application.  

The program does not have a minimum GPA requirement. We use an applicant's upper division GPA to predict the likelihood of success in the MSW program. Students are provisionally admitted to the School of Social Work pending the University's decision to admit an applicant. Applicants with an undergraduate GPA of 2.75 can be admitted to PSU as a regular degree student. Students are admitted conditionally if the undergraduate GPA is between 2.50 – 2.74. When admitted conditionally, a student has nine graded hours to achieve a GPA of 3.0.

On occasion, the School of Social Work can petition the University to admit an individual whose cumulative GPA falls below 2.50.  

Applicants who attended institutions using non-graded transcripts do not complete the GPA sheet. The full narrative transcript should be submitted with your application. We will evaluate your academic performance based on instructor reviews.

Please see the Criminal Records and Disclosure to Potential Field Placements information sheet.

If you do not have an academic reference, ask one of your references to include information on those skills you often use in work settings such as organization, report writing, speaking, training, research, etc.

First-year Portland Option students attend classes on campus Mondays, Tuesday evenings and Wednesdays. Classes generally meet once weekly and most are scheduled in three-hour time periods. Multiple sections of most required courses are distributed in these time periods, and it is possible for the student to build a course schedule to accommodate part-time work and other responsibilities. We encourage students to plan to be on campus more than one day a week. We cannot guarantee that a student can schedule all classes in one day.

Online Option students will be expected to periodically participate in online face-to-face meetings with other students and faculty via video conferencing.  Students will be expected to participate in 2-day synchronous intensives, held virtually, at the beginning of each year (late September).  These intensives will allow for community building between students and faculty and allow for some instructional time and assessment of student learning.  

Please visit the Central Oregon and Eugene Option web pages to determine class times and dates for each of these sites.

In the past, we have had more qualified applicants than we were able to accept. Generally, we admit one out of every three (1:3) students who apply to the Portland Option and a similar ratio in the Online, Central Oregon, and Eugene Options.

Qualifying graduate applicants may submit a request for a fee waiver.  To see if you qualify and for instructions on how to submit a request, please see the Application Fee Waiver page. 

Once an application is received it becomes property of the University and may not be returned to the applicant. Additionally, we do not provide copies of the application materials to the applicant. Applicants are encouraged to make copies of their application (with the exception of the confidential letters of reference) for record keeping prior to submission.

No, we do not give credit for prior life or work experience.