CSDCAS is the centralized application service for communication sciences and disorders programs: you enter your coursework once, send your original transcripts once to CSDCAS, and pay per program — $150 for the first and $60 for each additional in the 2026-27 cycle.
This guide covers the portal, the deadlines each program sets, what you submit, fee waivers, and how to size your list.
What is CSDCAS?
CSDCAS is the centralized application service for communication sciences and disorders programs.
You enter your coursework once, have your original transcripts sent once to CSDCAS, and pay per program — $150 for the first program you apply to and $60 for each additional program in the 2026-27 cycle.
Application volume through CSDCAS is dominated by speech-language pathology: in ASHA's 2025 CSD Education Survey, SLP master's programs received 52,830 applications versus 4,671 for AuD programs in 2024-25.
Practically, that means the detail that decides your application sits in each program's own admissions pages: programs set their own deadlines and required materials, and some add their own supplemental fees.
Read each AuD program's admissions page alongside its portal listing.
The universe you are applying into comes with two current counts.
As of July 2026, the CAA counts 77 AuD programs: 76 accredited, including 5 consortia, plus 1 candidate program.
ASHA's education survey, which counts institutions offering the entry-level degree rather than CAA accreditation status, counts 81.
If you are still deciding whether the degree itself makes sense, the audiologist career guide covers the job, the settings, licensure and pay before you invest an application season.
When does the CSDCAS cycle open and what are the deadlines?
CSDCAS's help center labels the current fee schedule the 2026-2027 cycle, and the dates that actually govern you are the ones each program publishes.
Our research could not confirm the exact date the current cycle opens, so treat the portal's own help center as the authority on cycle dates.
Two program pages our researchers captured show how deadlines sit inside a fall 2027 cycle.
The University of North Texas reviews applications for its Fall 2027 AuD cohort beginning September 1, 2026, with all required materials due by December 15, 2026, for a final cohort of 12 students.
Cal State Northridge's Fall 2027 application cycle closes on January 15, 2027.
Interview timing is program-specific, and the one program our research captured interviewing is James Madison University: it invites a short list of approximately 30 AuD applicants to online interviews typically held on Fridays in February and early March.
One date is backed by a formal agreement: April 15.
Programs that are members of CAPCSD, the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders, have agreed not to require applicants to accept fall admission offers before April 15.
Deadlines change every cycle
What do you submit (transcripts, GRE, letters)?
Transcripts are the backbone of the application, and CSDCAS handles them centrally.
Original transcripts must be sent to CSDCAS from every US and English-speaking Canadian institution you attended — including schools whose coursework has nothing to do with communication sciences and disorders.
You then enter all US and English-Canadian coursework yourself, which CSDCAS estimates takes about an hour, or pay for the optional Professional Transcript Entry (PTE) service and let a specialist do it.
The trade-off is time: hiring a PTE specialist adds up to 10 days to your application process.
The GRE is far from a default requirement across AuD programs.
In the 2024-25 ASHA survey, only 8 of 74 responding AuD programs — 10.8% — required GRE scores for admission.
Practice varies program by program: UT Dallas's AuD fact sheet lists GRE scores as required, Syracuse lists scores as optional, and Montclair State recommends but does not require them.
Letters of recommendation did not come with a CSDCAS-level rule in the sources our research read, so the requirement to check is the one in each program's own admissions materials.
Read it before you ask, and give your recommenders a deadline with margin before your earliest program due date.
One habit protects the whole section: build a per-program checklist from each program's own admissions page before you touch the portal, so nothing program-specific — a supplemental fee, a prerequisite course, a recommendation prompt — surprises you at the deadline.
How much does it cost?
CSDCAS charges $150 for the first program you apply to and $60 for each additional program in the 2026-27 cycle.
The per-program fee structure means your list, not the portal, drives the total: each program you add raises the fee by $60.
Two costs can sit on top of the base.
Some programs add their own supplemental fee.
And the optional Professional Transcript Entry service carries its own charge if you would rather not enter your coursework by hand.
Fee help exists, with limits.
CSDCAS offers a limited number of first-come, first-served fee waivers, income-based or service-based, and each waiver covers only the first program's fee — additional designations stay your responsibility.
Request the waiver before you submit, and if you are approved, submit within 14 days.
Where the amounts live matters too: Liaison's CSDCAS help center lists the current cycle's fees, and a program page that restates the fee can lag a cycle behind.
Treat the help center's figure as the current one.
How many AuD programs should you apply to?
No published rule sets the right number of AuD applications — our research found no figure for a typical applicant's list size — so build the number from the data that does exist.
Start with how the offer math works.
In 2024-25, AuD programs received 4,671 applications and offered admission 2,388 times, a 51.1% offer rate across programs.
That is offers per application, not an applicant acceptance rate: applicants apply to several programs, and the survey counts each application separately.
Then look at how many seats exist.
The CAA counted 77 AuD programs as of July 2026, and in ASHA's 2024-25 survey mean student capacity was 13.1 per program, with a median of 12 new admits.
Programs also differ in whom they admit: the mean GPA of students offered admission ranged from 3.16 to 3.99 across programs in the 2024-25 survey.
A list of near-identical programs spends designations on the same profile; a list spread across programs whose admitted-student profiles differ gives the same number of applications more distinct chances.
Then price the list.
Each program beyond the first adds $60 in CSDCAS fees, before any supplemental fee a program charges.
Balance that against the lead time every designation needs — transcripts requested early, recommenders briefed with your earliest deadline in mind — and apply to the number you can submit well, not to a number you read somewhere.
Which programs don't use CSDCAS?
This is the question our research could not fully answer: we did not verify a complete list of AuD programs that accept applications outside CSDCAS, and we will not guess one.
What the program counts give you is the universe, not the route.
The CAA's 77 programs as of July 2026 are an accreditation count, and the ASHA survey's 81 institutions are a count of who offers the degree — neither count states how a program takes applications.
So work from the program's side: how a program accepts applications, which materials it requires and when they are due are all things to read on that program's own admissions page.
The University of North Texas page in the deadline section above is the pattern — a program-published window with its own due date.
If a program directs you to its own application system instead of CSDCAS, that page governs its deadlines and fees.
The practical rule: for every program on your list, find its how-to-apply page before you commit, and note where it wants the application to go.
Ten minutes per program beats discovering a separate portal the week your first designation is due.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical, clinical, billing or coding advice; confirm application requirements, fees and deadlines with each program and with CSDCAS before you act on them.