No fee, a 20-page limit, APA 7 formatting, and one unusual rule: manuscripts must follow the AP Psychology or IB Psychology curriculum. It also accepts 20-minute podcasts. What it does not publish anywhere is who reviews submissions, how many reviewers, or how long it takes — which is the question to ask before you commit.
This is a small, free, curriculum-bound journal with one unusual feature and one significant gap. Both are worth knowing before you spend a term preparing a submission.
What it actually wants
Work that sits inside a syllabus, which is not how most research journals operate.
The submission page states: "Since the Whitman Journal of Psychology is a high-school journal, manuscripts must follow the AP Psychology or International Baccalaureate (IB) Psychology curriculum."
That is a genuine constraint and it cuts both ways. A project on a topic outside those syllabuses may be out of scope however good it is. A project built on IB or AP Psychology material is in scope by construction, which is a lower barrier than most venues set.
The written requirements:
| Requirement | Specification |
|---|---|
| Style | APA 7th edition |
| Length | "Manuscripts should be no longer than 20 pages" |
| Structure | Abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion suggested, not required |
| Citations | Reference list plus parenthetical citations; academic or professional sources |
| Cover letter | Name, email, home address, school, grade, school address, advisor's name and email |
The journal "reserves the right to modify accepted pieces to match the APA style," and asks that submissions be "fully completed and edited but subject to change."
The podcast route
Genuinely unusual, and almost nobody mentions it.
Alongside manuscripts, the journal accepts podcast submissions: "Podcast submissions can be solely audio or include video," running around 20 minutes and featuring an interviewee who can demonstrate credibility on the topic. You submit the interviewer's and interviewee's names, proof of the interviewee's credibility, school affiliation, grade and email.
No other student research venue we have checked offers this. If your psychology interest is better expressed as a structured interview with a practising researcher than as a paper, this is a real and rare route.
It also makes a different kind of project viable. Finding a psychologist willing to be interviewed for twenty minutes is a smaller ask than finding one willing to supervise research — the same logic that makes a bounded email request get answered when an open one does not.
What it does not say
Who reviews, how many, or how long.
The submission page carries no description of the review process at all. No reviewer count, no reviewer qualifications, no timeline, no decision categories.
Think.Check.Submit. tells authors to establish "independent/external reviewers, how many reviewers per paper" before submitting. The DOAJ sets at least two independent reviewers as its floor for inclusion.
Against the rest of the category:
| Journal | Reviewers stated |
|---|---|
| Journal of Emerging Investigators | 8+ touch each paper |
| IJHSR | "two or more outside reviewers" |
| NHSJS | "one or two" plus a board member |
| Whitman Journal of Psychology | Not stated |
| Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship | Not stated |
| Young Scientist Journal | Not stated |
Whitman is not an outlier here — several established venues say nothing either. But the gap matters more when a journal is also small and lightly staffed, and it is a fair thing to email and ask.
No editors or staff are named on the submission page. The contact is a Gmail address, and the footer gives a Bethesda, Maryland location. The page carried a 2023 copyright notice when we checked.
One practical note: two domains carrying this journal's name are findable online. Use the one the journal's own submission process points at, and if a guide sends you somewhere else, treat the rest of that guide as unchecked.
What it costs
No fee is mentioned, at submission or on acceptance.
That matters more than it sounds. Across this category the fee structure is the single most informative thing about a venue, because the joint COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME principles state at Principle 13 that "author fees or waiver status should not influence editorial decision making."
| Journal | At submission | On acceptance |
|---|---|---|
| Whitman | None mentioned | None mentioned |
| Young Scientist Journal | Not mentioned | Not mentioned |
| NHSJS | Free | — (sells a $280 fast track) |
| Journal of Emerging Investigators | $49 | — |
| IJHSR | Free | $350 |
| STEM Fellowship Journal | Free | $400 CAD |
| Journal of Student Research | $50 | $299 |
No fee at all means no incentive problem, and no paid fast track to decline.
Is it open right now?
When we checked, no — with a reopening date that has now arrived.
The page read: "Submissions are closed for this year. They will reopen in the Fall of 2026," adding "Due to a surplus of submissions, we aren't currently taking any more."
Two things follow. First, check the live page before preparing anything, because that window is now. Second, "a surplus of submissions" is itself a data point: a journal turning off its intake because of volume is a journal receiving more than it can process, which is worth weighing against the undisclosed reviewer count.
Should you submit?
Yes, if your work sits inside the AP or IB Psychology curriculum, you want a free route, and especially if the podcast format suits what you have. For an IB Psychology student in particular, the curriculum alignment makes this one of the better-fitting venues available.
Think harder if you want a venue whose review process you can describe to an interviewer. "Peer reviewed" means more when you can say by whom and how many.
Look elsewhere if your psychology work sits outside those syllabuses — IJHSR takes students "from any country" with rolling deadlines and two or more outside reviewers, and the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship takes all disciplines including literature reviews.
Our comparison of every student research venue sets the whole category side by side.
If you are converting an IA
The curriculum fit is an advantage; the sample size usually is not.
An IB Psychology Internal Assessment is written against the same syllabus this journal wants, which removes the scope problem that blocks most conversions. What remains is scale: twenty classmates will not support a claim a reviewer accepts, and that is decided at the design stage rather than in the writing.
Our guide to publishing an Internal Assessment covers what would have to change.
Where we fit
The Oxford Centre for Advanced Research runs 1:1 mentorships with PhD candidates and early-career researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, other leading UK universities and Ivy League institutions. The Oxford Publication Fellowship is £3,400, roughly $4,400, and is built around getting a project to submission standard.
We submit to the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship, the Journal of Research High School and Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal, through standard review. All three reject student work, ours included. We do not use paid expediting anywhere.
A student with a finished psychology paper and no budget should submit to a free venue before paying us or anyone — and Whitman is free.
The email to send first
Ask how many people review a submission, and how long it takes.
Both are one sentence to answer, neither is on the website, and the reply tells you most of what the website does not.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Whitman Journal of Psychology publish?
Written manuscripts in APA 7th edition style, up to 20 pages, and podcasts of around 20 minutes that feature a credible interviewee. The podcast route is genuinely unusual for a student research journal and makes it worth considering if your work suits an interview format.
Is there a submission fee?
None is mentioned anywhere on the submission page. That places it with the free tier alongside NHSJS, the Columbia Junior Science Journal and Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal, and ahead of venues charging on acceptance.
What is the curriculum requirement?
The journal states that 'manuscripts must follow the AP Psychology or International Baccalaureate (IB) Psychology curriculum'. That is a real constraint — a psychology project drawing on material outside those syllabuses may be out of scope regardless of quality.
Who reviews the submissions?
Not stated. The submission page says nothing about who reviews, how many reviewers see a paper, or how long review takes. That is the single biggest gap, and it is the question Think.Check.Submit. tells authors to establish before submitting anywhere.
Is it currently open?
When we checked, the page said 'Submissions are closed for this year. They will reopen in the Fall of 2026,' adding that this was 'Due to a surplus of submissions'. Check the live page before preparing anything, because that reopening window is now.
Is it a good venue for an IB Psychology IA?
Better than most, because of the curriculum alignment — the journal is explicitly looking for work that sits inside the IB or AP syllabus. The usual obstacle still applies: an IA's sample size is often too small to support a published claim without scaling.