Application Overview for Psychologist Applications

Online Applications

All applications for a license to practice psychology are now available online. To get started, go to the Applicant Portal. The Board is no longer accepting PDF or paper applications. If you have a PDF you downloaded previously but have not submitted, please use it as a reference as you complete the online application.

Which Application to Submit: Please see the page, "Where Do I Start?" for an overview of the pathways to full, independent licensure as a psychologist. Board staff cannot advise which application to make or how to answer questions on the application or any of the associated forms. There is enough information about each type of application on the Instructions page for you to determine which application you are qualified to submit.

Yes Answers to Declaration Questions: If an applicant answers "yes" to one or more questions regarding professional conduct in the Declarations section, specific documents and a detailed written explanation regarding the event(s) must be uploaded with the application. If the documents are not yet available to the applicant and must be ordered, they may be emailed separately to [email protected]. The document, "Appropriate Documentation for Yes Answers", lists each professional conduct question in the application and what documents are needed for each question. This tool may be downloaded from the Application Forms page. To prevent delays in processing your application, strictly adhere to the list of documents for the question to which you answered "Yes".

For example, if you were charged or arrested for a criminal or misdemeanor offense, such as a DUI, any and all law enforcement (police) records AND any and all court records are REQUIRED, regardless of outcome, current status, or how long ago the event occurred. There may be one or two pages of a police record included in the court record, however, the Board still needs the ENTIRE police record. Please be aware that Board staff is familiar with these types of records and is aware of what documents should be in the record. If expected documents are not included in the record the applicant sends, such as an officer's report or narrative, sobriety tests, BAC results, etc., Board staff will then ask for certified copies of these records, which will further delay substantive review of your application. An application is not administratively complete until ALL the records and your detailed written explanation of the circumstances that led to the event(s) are received.

Submitting Your Application and Application Fee: The application fee must be paid via credit or debit card before you can submit your online application. Go to the Applicant Portal to get started. Your application is not submitted without payment of the application fee. The reapplication and the application for the supervised temporary license fees are $200. All other applications are $350.

Verifications

May be sent before the application: Applicants may request verifications or other documentation sent to the Board in advance of their application. Applicants are responsible to submit these requests to their verifiers. Supervised experience verifications, official transcripts, license verifications and any other documents received in the Board's office are retained for 12 months and are matched to the application once the application is received. All applications are now online. You will be given opportunity to upload supporting documents as you go through the online application. Please have them ready on your computer to upload. Documents that must be sent by verifiers should be emailed to [email protected]. Do not give your login information to anyone else! Only the applicant may submit an application.

Supervised Experiences:

For the Exam and/or Licensure application, supervised experience hours must be verified by the appropriate professional on Arizona's verification forms.

The applicant is responsible to download the forms they need from the Forms for Psychologist Applications page, fill out their portion of the form, and submit it to the appropriate verifier.
Per APA guidelines, training records must be maintained permanently, so even if you graduated a while ago, your school will still have access to your records.
The current clinical director for a doctoral program usually completes the preinternship verification.
For internships and postdoctoral programs, the primary supervisor usually serves as verifier. If your supervisor is no longer at the site, contact the current primary supervisor or director of the program. This psychologist will be able to complete the verification based on your training records.

Official Transcripts:

Official transcripts are required for all graduate coursework completed, even if a degree was not conferred. For example, an applicant who took courses at Argosy before it closed and transferred the credits to another doctoral program from which they graduated must have official transcripts submitted from Argosy and the graduate school that conferred their doctoral degree.

Official transcripts may be sent several different ways:

Electronically by the educational institution or its contracted third-party distributor to [email protected], or
By mail or delivery service directly from the education institution to the Board's office.
Applicants may also mail or drop off an official transcript if it is in its original, sealed envelope. Opened transcripts cannot be accepted as official.

Administrative Review

When an application has been submitted to the Board's office, Board staff must review all answers and all documents that have been received for that application, and determine if all materials needed have been received. This is the administrative review stage of the application process and may take a significant amount of time, depending on the complexity of the application. Multiply that by the number of applications received each week, and you'll understand why applicants cannot submit an application and expect Board staff to give them a comprehensive update in a matter of days.

Please be aware that staff has up to 100 applications open in various stages of completeness at any given time, and applications and documentation are processed in the order they are received. It may take up to 30 days to complete the initial assessment of the application due to a record number of applications being received and several other factors.

If any item has not been received, the applicant will receive a notice of incomplete application by email, listing all items that have not been received, any revisions to the application that are needed, and any clarifications needed. This is the case for almost all applications. It is rare than an application is administratively complete at the time staff completes the initial administrative review assessment or "intake" of an application.

File status updates are self-service. After receiving the incomplete notice by email, you can check on the status of your application via the Applicant Portal. After login, click on Documents, and review the status of each:

All received documents will have a status of Received.
Any items not received will be reflected as such.
Any document that can be submitted by the applicant will indicate "waiting for upload" with an active upload button presented.
Any document that has been received from a verifier and has deficiencies or errors will have a status of "deficient-errors". A note from staff will be included in the comments. Additionally, an email will be sent that describes the issue(s). The email may be sent to the applicant only, or to the supervisor with the applicant copied on the email.

Application file inquiries will be responded to with an advisory to check completion progress in the portal.

"Administratively Complete" means that all required application materials (i.e., transcripts, verifications, reference forms, etc.) have been received and processed by Board staff.

Once Board staff has assessed an application is administratively complete, it will be placed on the next available Application Review Committee (Committee) agenda.
An "Application Administratively Complete" notice (AC Notice) will be sent by email to the applicant that includes the date and time of the Committee meeting at which their application will be substantively reviewed.
Committee meetings are held virtually via Zoom; access information is included in the AC Notice.

Next Scheduled Meeting vs Next Available Meeting: A.A.C. R4-26-201, "Application Deadline", states:

A. The Board shall consider a license application at the Board’s next scheduled meeting if an administratively complete application packet . . . is received by the Board office at least 18 days before the date of the meeting.

B. The Board shall consider a license application that is received fewer than 18 days before a scheduled meeting at a subsequent meeting.

Depending on when an application is administratively complete, the next scheduled or calendared meeting is not necessarily the next available meeting. Because of this 18-day rule, an application that is administratively complete, for example, ten (10) days before the next scheduled meeting will be considered at a subsequent meeting, or the next available meeting, which could be a month or more after the next scheduled meeting. In other words, applicants should not expect to be on the next meeting listed on the calendar when they've submitted an application the week before.

Substantive Review

Once the Administrative Review is completed, the Substantive Review begins. "Substantive review" means the review of all application materials to determine if all requirements in statute and rule have been met to qualify for licensure. Board staff cannot and does not make this assessment. This stage of the application process is conducted by the Application Review Committee (Committee or ARC). The Committee consists of two (2) actively licensed Arizona psychologists who also serve on the Board. The Committee meets about twelve (12) times a year. These meetings are formal, following Robert's Rules of Order. Applications that are administratively complete and ready for substantive review are added to the Committee's next available agenda by first and last name of the applicant as they are completed. Agendas are posted to the Board's website on the Upcoming Meetings page at least 24 hours before the meeting is scheduled to begin.

Attending the Committee Meeting:

All Committee meetings are held virtually via Zoom, and the attendance information is included in the meeting entry on the Upcoming Meetings page.

In general, Applicants are not required to attend the Committee meeting at which their application is substantively reviewed, but the Committee encourages applicants to do so. If your application includes a Yes answer to a professional conduct question, or some other aspect of the application is irregular or unusual, the AC notice you will be requested to attend the meeting in case the Committee has questions, and a link to the Zoom meeting will be included. Attending the meeting has prevented delays in the substantive review of an application.

Committee Recommendations:

The Committee does not make final decisions regarding applications. Instead, it makes recommendations to the Board regarding an application. Recommendations that the Committee can make include but are not limited to approval, denial, or something in between, on a case by case basis.

Formal Additional Information Requests (FAIR):

If the Committee is unable to make a recommendation to the Board due to a lack of information, it can make a formal additional information request, and table the application until the requested information and/or documentation has been received.

A Formal Additional Information Request (FAIR) letter from the Committee chair will be emailed by Board staff to the applicant, usually within a few weeks of the meeting. This letter will list the Committee's concerns and the additional information and/or documentation requested during the Committee meeting.
Once all materials requested in the letter have been received, the application will be added to the next available Committee agenda for a second review.
If upon review of the FAIR letter and additional materials, the Committee still lacks the information needed to make a recommendation, it may request a second FAIR letter, go through the same process again and may even make a third request.
Typically, historically, after the third request is reviewed, the Committee has made a recommendation to the Board - approval, denial or substantive review by the full Board.

Committee Recommendation for Approval & Board's Consent Agenda:

Statistically, for the majority of applications, the Committee finds that all requirements in statute and rule have been met and forwards them to the Board with the recommendation of approval.

Applications recommended for approval are placed on the Board's "consent agenda". The consent agenda is a single item on the Board's agenda for the next scheduled meeting, which is held about a week or so after the Committee meeting. This agenda item is often very long with many sections. It lists the names of all applicants for which the Committee recommended approval of the application. The consent agenda lists both psychologist and behavior analyst applications each month along with other documents needing the Board's approval. The Board members have access to all the documents listed on the consent agenda and have reviewed them prior to the meeting.

Board Meeting & Consent Agenda:

Typically, the "consent agenda" item is addressed very early in the meeting. When this agenda item is announced by the Board Chair, the chair will ask the Board members if any member is recused from reviewing any item on the consent agenda. Once this has been answered, it will be noted on the record.

The Chair's next question is if any Board member wishes to remove an item from the consent agenda for individual discussion. Once this has been answered, it is noted on the record.

The Chair then calls for a motion on the consent agenda. A member of the Board makes a motion to approve the consent agenda, another member seconds it. The Chair usually calls for a voice vote, the vote is recorded, and the Chair moves on to the next item to be addressed.

Names of Applicants are NOT read out loud during the meeting or in the motion to approve the consent agenda.

The names of the applicants are recorded on the agenda and in the minutes, which is the official record of the meeting. With the vote of approval by the majority of the Board, the applicants listed on the consent agenda are now eligible to have their license issued (see the section, "Board Approval-Issuance of the License", below for further details).

Applications Removed from the Consent Agenda for Individual Discussion:

When this occurs, typically, the Board chair will call the application for individual discussion right after the consent agenda is approved. The Board members will discuss, consider and possibly take action regarding the application. The Board may approve the application, issue a denial, or may make a combination of approval with an action. If the Board is undecided, it may instead ask for additional information (FAIR letter) and table the application until the requested information has been received. Once received, the application is placed on the next available Board meeting agenda for substantive review.

Board Approval - EPPP

It may take up to three (3) business days, not including the day of the Board meeting or subsequent holidays, for Board staff to complete all the associated data entry and issue approval letters to EPPP candidates.

The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) owns and administers the EPPP. Once approved, the AZ Board must provide authorization to ASPPB of the Board's approval so the applicant (now EPPP candidate) can register for the exam. There are several steps to this process:

AZ Board staff (staff) supplies the candidates's name, email address and mobile phone number to ASPPB via its online registration platform, Certemy (pronounced SIR-tah-mee).
Once staff completes and submits the candidate's names, Certemy sends an automated email to each candidate. The email includes staff's introductory message.
Staff next assigns the EPPP Part 1-Knowledge workflow to the candidate's account in Certemy. This is a two-step process, and an automated email is sent to the candidate at the end of each step.
The link to the Certemy login screen is included in the automated emails.
If a candidate has not received these three emails from the Certemy platform, they may contact staff at [email protected] for troubleshooting. It isn't often, but it is not uncommon, that the emails are blocked by the candidate's email server. Alternatively, candidates can also go to the AZ Board's EPPP Resources page to find the Certemy login link.
Once all the appropriate data is entered into Certemy and the Board's database, staff will email an approval letter to the candidate. This letter includes a lot of details about the parameters of the approval and next steps after taking the EPPP. It will answer most questions a candidate will have immediately, as well as after the exam has been taken. It is important that the candidate retains the letter for their records and to look up answers to their questions.
Candidates have one (1) year from the date of the AZ Board's approval to take the exam. Once the exam is taken, the application/approval cycle ends. Next steps depend on whether or not the candidate's score meets the pass point of 500 or more, and the type of application that was made. Additional details are included in the approval letter staff sends to the candidate within three (3) business days of the Board meeting.
Candidates should familiarize themselves with the AZ Board's EPPP-related pages including:

Issuance of the License

For applicants for licensure, It may take up to three (3) business days, not including the day of the Board meeting or subsequent holidays, for Board staff to complete all the associated data entry and issue licenses for approved applicants.

Issuance of the License:

For applicants who applied for a license, issuance is first processed in the database and entered into the Board's Great Register. An issuance letter will be sent by email to approved applicants. Instructions are given in the issuance letter for the self-serve wallet card and wall certificate downloads. These are not sent by email or by mail.

For telehealth registry applicants, issuance is first processed in the database. An issuance letter will be sent by email to the approved applicant. As this is a registration, not a license, no wallet card or certificate is issued.

Verification of License or Registration:

Once the license or registration has been issued, it can be verified by searching the last name in the directory, which is linked from the Board's website. The path from the menu is Directory > Licensee Search. The licensee search is powered by Thentia, the Board's system vendor. All data in the directory-licensee search is in real-time. Any changes saved in the database are immediately reflected in the directory.