Prerequisite Coursework

Prerequisites, GPA Requirements, Course Acceptance Policies, Early Admission

To be considered for admission, applicants must complete all prerequisite courses with a grade of C or higher. Prerequisite coursework must be completed within seven years of the application date. Exceptions may be considered for applicants who work in a field directly related to the subject area and can demonstrate continued competency in that content area.

Required Prerequisite Courses

  1. Abnormal Psychology — 3 credit hours
    No substitutions for this course.
  2. Human Anatomy with lab — If anatomy and physiology are offered together as one course, then two semesters must be taken (example: Anatomy and Physiology I & II). There must be a lab component reflected, all prerequisite courses with lab must be in person.
  3. Human Physiology with lab — If anatomy and physiology are offered together as one course, then two semesters must be taken (example: Anatomy and Physiology I & II). There must be a lab component reflected, all prerequisite courses with lab must be in person.
  4. Developmental Psychology — 3 credit hours — Lifespan
  5. Statistics — 3 credit hours
    Examples: psychological statistics, educational statistics, statistics in nursing, statistics in healthcare, business statistics and scientific statistics. Note that no Intro to Statistics courses meet the prerequisite requirement. 
  6. Technical or Research Writing — 3 credit hours
    The overall goal of Technical Writing is to hone students’ writing skills taught in earlier English courses and apply them to relevant writing tasks for graduate, scholarly writing. This course should focus on synthesizing multiple sources of data into a well-organized, concise and powerful scholarly paper with proper citations. Other courses may or may not satisfy the Tech Writing requirement (must be 3000 level or above). While research knowledge can be useful, the course's focus must be to improve writing skills on a graduate level.
  7. Terminology for Health Professions — Minimum 1 credit hour. This course must be 1 credit hour to meet the prerequisite requirement.

Does the program accept StraighterLine coursework or any self-pace online courses?

No. Effective January 2026, coursework completed through StraighterLine or any online self-paced courses does not meet the program's prerequisite requirements.

Only applicants with three or more prerequisite courses completed will be considered for early admission — more than a year prior to start date. Applicants with fewer than three completed prerequisite courses will be considered starting in January, that is prior to the desired start date. Applicants are only considered eligible for consideration if grade-point averages for their prerequisites and last 60 cumulative credit-hours are 3.0 or higher.

If you have additional questions, contact us at OTD@uark.edu.