In order to be considered for the Master of Social Work Program, applicants must:

• Meet general requirements for admission to Graduate Study at Cal Poly Humboldt.
• Meet admission requirements of Humboldt Department of Social Work.
• Students in the online program must live in the state of California while they are in the social work program.

The minimum requirements for admission to the Master of Social Work Program are as follows:

• Baccalaureate degree from an accredited higher education institution.
• GPA of around 3.0 or better on a scale of 4.0 for the last 60 units of course work. GPA's lower than 2.5 cannot be accepted.
• Completion with a grade of “C” or better in a course related to Native American Studies 
  

** Please refer to the "Prerequisite" tab for further clarification on Native American Studies requirements**

Only those who have an accredited bachelor's degree in Social Work with a GPA of 3.5 or better can apply to the Advanced Standing Program options. Other bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and work experience are not accepted for Advanced Standing - no exceptions.

This program does not allow course/credit to waive classes from non-social work degrees when applying

Students will be notified of offers of conditional admission from the Department and University. Only full admittance will be given once those two areas are met.

To start the application process go to: https://www.calstate.edu/apply 

IMPORTANT: Those wishing to apply for the Advanced Standing options can make that selection in the supplemental questionnaire located in the last area of the application.

You will need to upload 3 PDF documents:

1. Unofficial Transcripts

2. Resume (please include total estimated hours for each job placement listed)

3. Personal Statement (Guidelines for the Personal Statement)

You will also need:

3 x emails for your references - we recommend 1x academic and 2 x professional but any combination is fine.

Recommended: Employment supervisors, academic program advisors and faculty familiar with your writing and work.

Not recommended: Family, friends, coworkers, or your personal medical associations such as doctors or therapists.

Be sure to remind references that Cal State Apply emails may go into Junk/Spam folders. References are due by the application deadline.

Reference links can be re-sent by visiting the same section in Cal State Apply. If the re-send link button does not work you will need to change the "due date"

Official transcripts -  Must be sent as soon as possible as they may take several weeks to process. If you graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt you will not need to send official transcripts unless you took classes post-graduation at another institution. The Social Work Department does not process official transcripts. All questions regarding official transcripts must be directed to apply@humboldt.edu

The current application fee in Cal State Apply is $70 and non refundable, so make sure you are applying for the correct program choice as applications do not transfer to a different cycle!

Please email or call us for more information: socialwork@humboldt.edu or (707) 826-4443.

UPDATE: FALL 2025 Application Coupon Code Request:

We are excited to announce that we have funds to assign a select amount of MSW Fall 2025 application coupon codes in Cal State Apply to pay for your application. To receive one please follow the instructions below:

 Coupon codes will only be assigned to COMPLETE applications. Compete applications:

- Have all 4 quadrants completed (a green tick will represent completion of a section)

- All recommendations (3) are received

- All documents are uploaded: Personal Statement, Unofficial transcripts, Resume.

Your application will be reviewed to make sure you have met these requirements. Requests will be denied and removed if these conditions are not met.

Once you are ready, please request your code here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_lAgbE9aEDS_VKcuknPjaDKN0U6qMAzjp8N-jzG...