Palo Alto University

Private · CA

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationCA · West

SettingRural

Undergrads14

Student:faculty15:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate—

6-yr grad rate—

Drop-out rate—

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition—

Out-of-state tuition—

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity64.3%

Gender diversity85.7%

International0%

Identity—

Overview

Palo Alto University is a small private university in the San Francisco Bay Area built almost entirely around psychology and counseling. It is best known at the graduate level for clinical psychology doctoral training — including the PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium, a program run jointly with Stanford's School of Medicine — and its undergraduate offerings are narrower and more specialized than a traditional four-year college, aimed at students who already know they want to study psychology or a closely related field.

Academics

Undergraduate degrees are concentrated in psychology and social action, structured as completion or accelerated pathways rather than a broad general-education experience — many undergraduates are transfer students or working adults finishing a bachelor's degree with a career direction already in mind. The university's identity is shaped by its graduate clinical programs: undergraduates share a campus, and in some cases faculty, with doctoral-level trainees, giving psychology majors unusually direct exposure to clinical training and applied research before graduate school.

Campus & student life

PAU's campus is compact and specialized rather than a traditional residential college — it does not offer the dorms, athletics, or broad club culture of a conventional university, and much of student life centers on coursework, practicum placements, and the surrounding Bay Area mental-health and research community.

Getting in

Admission to the undergraduate programs is less about a broad holistic profile than about clear intent — applicants, many of whom are transfers or returning adult students, are expected to already have a direction toward psychology, counseling, or human-services work. The graduate clinical programs, by contrast, are highly selective and weigh research experience and clinical exposure heavily.

After graduation

Undergraduates head toward psychology-adjacent jobs, human-services work, or continued graduate study, and the university's reputation is really carried by its doctoral programs' placement into clinical psychology internships, academic positions, and Bay Area mental-health settings — an alumni network that skews heavily toward practicing psychologists and researchers rather than a broad general professional base.

paloaltou.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate—

Enrolled mid-50%—

Test policynot reported

Rec letters—

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Applying