CSD AdmissionS FAQ
You can contact the Office of Student Affairs in the College of Health Sciences (859-218-0493), or you can email the CSD Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Richard Andreatta.
The application packet and instructions are made available by early December each year. The application is completed online. Visit the CSD Website for detailed information on requirements, prerequisites and procedures for application to the CSD undergraduate program.
Minimum requirements for application include:
- 42 earned credit hours by the time of application.
- Completion of Intro to Psychology or an equivalent general psychology course or AP credit by the time of application
- * Completion of CSD 277 - Intro to CSD by the time of application
- ** 3.0 cumulative GPA.
* Transfer students from outside of UK will have the CSD 277 course admissions requirement automatically waived, if they are coming from a university that doesn't have an equivalent class. In addition, the program will consider, on a case by case basis, requests to waive the CSD 277 admissions requirement for current UK students who are applying to the CSD major during their Junior or Senior year. Under either of these two conditions, accepted students will simply take CSD 277 during their 1st Fall semester of the program.
** For the 2021 through 2024 cycle of applications, standardized test scores will NOT be used in the assessment of applications.
Students apply to the program during their sophomore year. Preparation of all application materials should occur during the late Fall semester of your sophomore year with submission of your materials during the month of January to meet the Feb 1st deadline. (Please note: If Feb 1st falls on a weekend day, applications will be due the following Monday.)
The application consists of basically 4 parts: your cumulative GPA, 3 letters of recommendation, descriptions of personal and community-based experiences, and lastly a personal essay or response to a prompt question. (Please note: For the 2021 through 2024 cycle of applications, standardized test scores will NOT be used in the assessment of applications.)
The CSD undergrad program is considered a selective major because we require a formal application to be accepted as a major. We are selective because of the pre-professional nature of our program and the reality of limited resources to accommodated large numbers of students. Our major only accepts approximately 55 students per academic year. The total number of applications each year varies considerably, so the percentage of students who are not accepted also fluctuates. In other words, regardless of the size of the application pool, the number of students we can take remains at approximately 55.
Generally speaking, the faculty evaluate all components of a given application (See FAQ #5) and work to select a cohort of students for admission who have the best overall set of component scores and evaluation ratings. The faculty’s first procedure is to use the quantitative components of the application (GPA) to produce a "first ordering" of all the applicants. Students who do not meet the stated minimum requirements (See FAQ #3) for application are eliminated from the pool of applicants. This initial procedure helps us organize the entire pool of applicants so we can proceed with a more detailed discussion on the qualitative aspects of each application (personal essay/response, letters of rec, & personal and community experiences). To make the evaluation of the personal essay/response and letters of rec more quantitative, 2 or more faculty judge and rate the quality of each essay and letter of rec and assign them a numerical ranking (1 to 5). Finally, the personal and community service factors are judged by two or more faculty in terms of experience type, quality and frequency of service. When all applications have been completely evaluated, students who possess the best overall set of rankings and scores are selected for admission. The evaluation process is not an exact science, but the faculty do try to balance all aspects of the application materials to arrive at a selection for admission.
For the past several years, the average GPA of students accepted in to the CSD program has been approximately a 3.5 to 3.75.
We DO NOT ONLY use the cumulative GPA to decide on admission. During deliberations, the faculty weigh the applicant’s GPA along with all the other parts of the application (See FAQ #3 & #5 above). The only time GPA scores are used alone is to eliminate applicants from consideration whose scores fall below the stated program application standards (See FAQ #3).
Absolutely you have a chance because our choices for admission are based on ALL application components balanced together, not just on GPA scores (except for the meeting of minimum program requirements).
Personal experiences are those related to observation of CSD professionals out in the field, volunteering for health care related organizations, or working in CSD related areas. It is strongly recommended that students have a minimum of 3 different and unique personal experiences for their application.
There really is no set number of hours that are needed for application. Instead, what we consider to be more important is the quality of your experiences and an indication that you have committed a good amount of time to each. For example, spending two or three weeks observing one site is probably a better experience than spending 1 hour at 3 different locations.
For community service, these are typically experiences that are unrelated to healthcare or CSD, such as participation in UK Fusion, or DanceBlue, or volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, mission trips, working as a resident assistant, or any other experience that demonstrates your leadership and personal relationship skills. It is strongly recommended that students have a minimum of 3 different and unique community service experiences for their application.
The personal essay/response is VERY important. The personal essay/response should be a well crafted and well written example of your writing skills. The personal essay/response functions as an important indicator of the quality of your writing and thus should be proofed very carefully. Writing is a VERY important part of the major and CSD profession. Excellent writing skills are highly valued by the faculty. All applicants will be asked to write an essay to a prompt question that will be posted along with the application materials. Please take this part of the application seriously because it often is the deciding factor when faculty are judging between two applications.
Ideally, letters of rec should come from professors who can discuss the quality of your academic performance in courses or who have advised you personally. Letters may also come from employers or professionals that you have shadowed. There individual should know about your work-ethic and skills with a good deal of depth. Please DO NOT submit letters of rec from family members or relatives, personal friends, former caretakers, or the parents from a babysitting job. These types of letters of rec are not useful and are viewed poorly by the faculty.
Generally speaking, your letter writer should be made aware of the competitive nature of the program and thus be instructed to provide honest opinions and concrete examples of your work ethic, integrity, academic performance, promise as a health care professional, and/or any other personal quality they see as beneficial toward a successful career in CSD. The more specific your letter writer can be, the better. Generic and vague letters of rec are not useful for our deliberations.
Yes. You can apply to our program without having to be a current UK student. Applying to our program is completely separate from the transfer process to UK. If accepted into the CSD program, you would transfer into UK in the same way that any other transfer student would. It is best to transfer to UK after you have heard of our admissions decision. (Please Note: If you are a transfer student, the requirement of having CSD 277 - Intro to CSD to apply will be waived. If you are accepted into the major, you will simply take CSD 277 during the first semester of your program (the fall of Junior year)
Yes, you may re-apply to the CSD program.
Each year the pool of applicants is treated independent of any past applications. Nonetheless, the faculty do take into consideration 2nd time applicants. Students who plan to re-apply, should proactively make every effort to distinguish themselves and make marked improvements to their application packet. To this end, it will be important that 2nd time applicants meet personally with the Director of Undergraduate Studies to discuss where improvements can be made and if re-application is a realistic goal.
No. The CSD major is structured sequentially with completion of specific classes necessary in order to be prepared to take later occurring courses. The CSD undergraduate program is 4 semesters long. No exceptions will be made for any student requesting a change in course sequence and/or requesting that the CSD program be shortened or compressed.
No, unfortunately this is not allowed because of the class size limitations that our program has. Only accepted majors are allowed into CSD courses.
In short, the GPA is not the sole factor in admissions. It is quite possible that a high GPA is offset by lower rankings on other components of the application packet. We have had several cases in the past of students who were not accepted in to our program even though they had excellent GPA’s. The reason that they were not accepted, even though they had strong GPA’s, included the following: lackluster letters of rec, or a weakly written personal essay/response. We cannot emphasize enough that our decision process for admissions takes ALL parts of a student’s application into account.
We do inspect transcripts for the rigor of the courses and/or previous majors that you have taken and been involved in. The history, quality, and rigor of your classwork prior to your application matters very much in the faculty's evaluation of applications.
