Research directed toward examining clinical depression among college students requires valid criterion measures for identifying depressed individuals. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the most widely-used self-report screening instrument for identifying depressed college students, has been criticized for its heavy emphasis on cognitive items resulting in a high false positive rate for classifying depressives. The Depressive Symptoms Questionnaire (DSQ), a self-report instrument loaded with somatic and behavioral components, was constructed. Undergraduates (N=673) completed both the BDI and the DSQ. To evaluate the classification validity of the cutting scores of the BDI, the DSQ, and the two instruments combined, 48 diagnostic interviews were conducted by clinical psychology graduate students. Results showed that the hit rate for true positives of the BDI/DSQ-screened group was significantly greater than the hit rate for the BDI-screened group. The combination of the BDI and DSQ improved the identification of diagnosable depressed college students and identified significantly more individuals with major depressive episodes. (Author/NRB)