<p>This depends a lot, actually. I see that my school, Columbia, is on that list. I’m a grad student here but I interact a lot with the undergrads, and make no mistake – Columbia has an excellent psychology program, but it depends on what you’re interested in. Columbia’s psychology program is excellent for students interested in cognitive psychology and behavioral neuroscience, but not so great for those psychology students interested in social psychology. We only have 5 social psychologists in the department. Two will be on sabbatical next year, one is brand-new and won’t be taking any new students (although she does teach an EXCELLENT upper-level mixed grad-undergrad class I took last semester, and will be teaching the lower-level version of it in the fall), and the other one is a famous professor who rarely teaches undergraduate classes (although it does appear that he is teaching a personality class next semester, which is awesome because that is his specialty).</p>
<p>I know a lot of the students (undergrads and grads) have complained because they want a better variety of courses, especially in the social area, but the heavy emphasis on cognition and neuroscience makes a lot of classes lean that way. Like I said, our department is still excellent and I would encourage any undergrad interested in psychology to come here, as well as any graduate student, but would just advise them of the preponderance of cognition and neuroscience research. I also advise all students to take a look at the courses offered in the departments of the schools they’re looking at, if they are really interested in a certain degree – they should be listed on the website. Sometimes a department will have a really cool-looking bunch of classes but half of them are only taught every three years or something, or aren’t even taught at all (my college advertised that they had gymnastics as a PE class in their catalog, which sounded awesome because I am a former gymnast, but that class is never offered any more. A quick look on their BannerWeb would’ve shown me it hadn’t been offered in the last 5 years.)</p>
<p>Also, don’t pick a college primarily or solely based on major. The majority of college students change their major. Pick a school based on its overall reputation. If you’ll notice, the schools with the best undergraduate psychology programs are generally reputable schools anyway (and have great graduate psychology programs, too, by the way).</p>