West Virginia licenses Licensed Professional Counselor Associates and Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC) through the Board of Examiners in Counseling. Everything below comes from the board's own pages and rules, checked October 18, 2026. Fees and rules change, so confirm on the linked pages before you pay.
Check with your board. Counselor Ticket is a study aid. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), the Center for Credentialing & Education (CCE), the American Counseling Association (ACA), CACREP or any state counseling board; NCE and NCMHCE are NBCC's marks, used here only to name the exams. Laws on confidentiality, duty to warn, reporting and licensing differ by state; follow your state's law, your agency and your supervisor.
West Virginia at a glance
License
Exam
What it takes
LPC-Associate
NCE, NCMHCE or CRC (a temporary permit lets you start before the exam)
A qualifying counseling degree; supervision with an Approved Licensed Professional Supervisor (ALPS).
Apply first: submit the LPC-Associate application (with official transcripts) before the board grants permission to take the exam. A temporary permit, requested with the application, lets you accrue supervised hours while you prepare.
The exam: the board accepts the NCE, the NCMHCE or the CRC exam; if you already passed one, ask NBCC to send the scores.
Supervised hours:3,000 counseling activity hours, at least 1,500 in direct client service, and 150 hours of individual supervision with your ALPS: one hour for every 20 hours of counseling activity, at least every two weeks, or the hours do not count. Keep quarterly logs.
LPC: your ALPS submits the Supervisor's Verification and Assessment form and logs; then apply for the full license. Ohio note from the board: an Ohio LPCC equals the West Virginia LPC, while an Ohio LPC equals the provisional stage.
The steps that hold nearly everywhere: a counseling master's degree (usually 60 semester hours, often CACREP-accredited), your board's approval, an NBCC exam, about two years of supervised experience, then the full license. The NCE has 200 questions (160 scored) in 3 hours 45 minutes; the NCMHCE is 11 clinical case studies in the same time; either can be retaken after 30 days (NBCC/CCE candidate handbooks). The full walk-through: How to get your counseling license.