<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>My sister was admitted to CUNY's PHD program in neuroscience last week and I was wondering how solid was the program. It seems like she's set on going there but she's still waiting to hear back from other programs. </p>
<p>All she's told me when I asked her the same question was that this specific phd program was a small program so I guess there's not much to say when it comes to the reputation but I don't really know With this I was wondering if you could shed any light on how good CUNY graduate center PHD programs are in science (if possible specifically cognitive neuroscience) because I myself and my parents would love to know since we want the best fore her!</p>
<p>I’m assuming you’re talking about the behavioral and cognitive neuroscience program within the psychology department at CUNY.</p>
<p>This is really a decision that your sister has to make. If she’s old enough to be applying to graduate school programs, then she’s old enough to make decisions about where to continue her career - and there are a lot of factors in choosing a graduate program other than rankings and reputation. Some gentle parental/sibling advice could be a good thing if it’s well-informed, but it’s often difficult for non-academics to give meaningful advice to PhD hopefuls because the field is so idiosyncratic (and even academics can have a hard time giving good cross-field advice).</p>
<p>With that said, the National Research Council (a group of academics) got together to try to rank PhD programs in a variety of fields. The results are about 10 years old, but still useful. In psychology it’s a little less useful because they lump several subfields together, so the comparison is between different subfields of psychology - which actual search committees for professors would not do. Nevertheless, the CUNY-Grad Center’s cognitive neuroscience program is mid-ranked (<a href=“NRC Rankings Overview: Psychology”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124708/</a>). The overall department is not well-ranked. Psychology is actually my field and I know the general perception of CUNY-Grad Center in my subfield (social psychology) is generally neutral/average - not a top program, not a bad program, just…a program.</p>
<p>I have no idea about their placement rates; that’s something your sister should definitely ask the program before she attends. She should just flat out ask: What is your placement like from this program? What kinds of jobs do graduates get when they leave here? Some programs don’t track this data which could be neutral (lazy professors who perceive other things as more important) or could be bad (they know they’re doing bad and they don’t want to find out how bad they’re doing). FWIW one of my favorite professors in public health here at Columbia got her PhD in psychology at CUNY Grad Center, although it was in health psychology.</p>