<p>What are some universities that have good psychology departments and programs?</p>
<p>Have you tried doing a search? There's many threads on this subject. </p>
<p>Thanks. Sorry, I'm new here and still don't know all that much about getting around this site.</p>
<p>Gourman Report Psychology ranking undergrad:
Stanford
Yale
U penn
U Michigan AA
U Minnesota
UC Berkeley
Harvard
U Illinois UC
U Chicago
Columbia
UC San Diego
UCLA
Indiana U Bloomington
U Colorado Boulder
Carnegie Mellon
U Wisconsin Madison
MIT
Princeton
U Washington
U Oregon
Cornell
U Texas Austin
UNC Chapel Hill
Brown
Northwestern
SUNY Stony Brook
Johns Hopkins
Duke
Penn State UP
NYU</p>
<p>Always ignore Gourman Report for everything, just some advice. It hasn't been updated. And its methodology is very suspect. I'd rather look down the US News top undergrad list and pick with that, than look for a specific major with Gourman report.</p>
<p>Psych programs?
Don't look past the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, and Chicago, where its worth looking into. However, these are all among hard schools to get into. What state are you? Michigan and PSU have good psych programs. Lafayette, Holy Cross, and Colby all have good psych programs with many majors.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess-
What an ignorant remark about the Gourman report. The Gourman report is pretty much on the money with regard to undergraduate rankings by major. The rankinga are corroborated by up-to-date information, including the opinions of knowledgeable CC posters and US News. The methodology is fairly well documented, but the method is somewhat different for each major. I have posted documentation on this before. Think before you speak. The one weakness about the Gourman Report is that it uses criteria that favor universities and that underestimate LACs.</p>
<p>The scores in the Gourman Report range from 5 (strong) to 2 (marginal). In the case of near-ties, I included both schools.</p>
<p>The Gourman Report states that its ratings are based on "extensive reseach" into the following criteria:</p>
<ol>
<li>auspices, control, and organization of the institution</li>
<li>numbers of educational programs offered and degrees conferred (with additional attention to "sub-fields" available to students within a particular discipline</li>
<li>age (experience level) of the institution and the individual discipline or program and division</li>
<li>faculty, including qualifications, experience, intellectual interests, attainments, and professional productivity (including research)</li>
<li>students, including quality of scholastic work and records of graduates both in graduate study and in practice</li>
<li>basis of and requirements for admission of students (overall and by individual discipline)</li>
<li>number of students enrolled (overall and for each discipline)</li>
<li>curriculum and curricular content of the program or discipline and division</li>
<li>standards and quality of instruction (including teaching loads)</li>
<li>quality of administration, including attitudes and policy towards teaching, research and scholarly production in each discipline, and administration research</li>
<li>quality and availability of non-departmental areas such as counseling and career placement services</li>
<li>quality of physical plant devoted to undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels</li>
<li>finances, including budgets, investments, expenditures and sources of income for both public and private institutions</li>
<li>library, including number of volumes, appropriateness of materials to individual disciplines and accessibility of materials</li>
<li>computer facility sufficient to support current research activities for both faculty and students</li>
<li>sufficient funding for research equipment and infrastructure</li>
<li>number of teaching and research assistantships</li>
<li>academic-athletic balance</li>
</ol>
<p>The weight given to each criterion above varies by discipline.</p>
<p>Sorry, collegehelp, I think that Gourman Report is garbage. It doesn't provide any of the data it uses, just the final rank. Basically, that means Gourman can put any schools in any order, claim that he used real numbers, but is excused from providing any evidence. A school that claims its underranked really has no way to be able to do that, as there are no numbers provided that can be challenged. I love real numbers that prove how strong a major is at a respective college. Such numbers could be how many papers co-authored by undergrads, GMAT scores, how many students get PhDs in psych from the school and which grad programs they feed into. Just for a few.</p>
<p>Real rankings would actualy provide the data and numbers, Gourman report doesn't, so, like I said, its pretty useless. </p>
<p>For undergrad majors, look at schools strongest overall student body and look to see how developed and diverse the major program is. Compare and contrast among any top schools. Then pick for yourself. Any top 20 or so school will provide you an excellent education in psych (or any other common major).</p>
<p>I love real numbers too. I don't think I necessarily have to know all the numbers to judge the validity of their method. How well do you understand the numbers behind cars, computers, or weather forecasting? But you know when they work well. If you gathered data on the programs listed, I am confident that the data would substantiate the rankings. There is nothing stopping you from verifying the Gourman findings.</p>
<p>The ultimate test is the end product. The rankings seem accurate. Stanford and Yale are at the top, the best schools for social psych and clinical psych, respectively. Minnesota is in the top 5. Minnesota is the best for developmental psych. MIT is probably on the list for the psych of language development and maybe biopsych. Carnegie Mellon maybe for artificial intelligence and cognitive psych. </p>
<p>I think psychologists would generally agree that Gourman provides a reasonable ranking (of universities).</p>
<p>What would your top 30 psych programs be? How different would your list be?</p>
<p>I don't think it is helpful to simply say that any of the top 20 schools would provide an excellent education in psych. The top universities are not uniformly excellent in any subject. Top 20 schools have strengths and weaknesses. Caltech would not be strong in psych, for example. By the way, many of the schools in the Gourman list happen to be top 40 in US News.</p>
<p>Those who know the field would even tell you that individual psych departments within a university are not uniformly strong across all psychology specialties.</p>
<p>I do wonder why Clark is not on the list. Probably too small.</p>
<p>Here is the US News ranking of GRADUATE programs in psychology. Quite a bit of overlap with the Gourman undergraduate ranking. I think this corroborates the Gourman ranking to some extent.
Psychology (Research) (Ph.D.)
Ranked in 2005* </p>
<p>Rank/School Average assessment
score (5.0 = highest)
1. Stanford University (CA) 4.8
2. University of California–Berkeley 4.6
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.6
4. Yale University (CT) 4.5
5. Harvard University (MA) 4.4
Princeton University (NJ) 4.4
University of California–Los Angeles 4.4
University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign 4.4
9. Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.2
Harvard University (Programs in Human Development and Psych.) (MA) 4.2
University of Wisconsin–Madison 4.2
12. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.1
Stanford University (Psych. Studies in Education) (CA) 4.1
University of Texas–Austin 4.1
Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities (Inst. of Child Development) 4.1
16. Columbia University (NY) 4.0
Cornell University (NY) 4.0
University of California–San Diego 4.0
University of Minnesota–Twin Cities 4.0
University of Pennsylvania 4.0
Univ. of California–Irvine (Dept. of Neurobiology & Behavior) 4.0
22. Indiana University–Bloomington 3.9
Johns Hopkins University (MD) 3.9
Northwestern University (IL) 3.9
University of California–Irvine (Cognitive Sci. Dept.) 3.9
University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill 3.9
University of Washington 3.9
28. Cornell University (Dept. of Human Development) (NY) 3.8
Duke University (NC) 3.8
Indiana University–Bloomington (Cognitive Science Program) 3.8
University of California–Berkeley (School of Education) 3.8
University of Chicago 3.8
University of Colorado–Boulder 3.8
University of Virginia 3.8
Univ. of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Combined Program in Ed. and Psych.) 3.8</p>
<p>The fact that it correlates highly to grad rankings proves my point...I think Gourman claims its for undergrad but really bases his ranks off of the prestige of grad programs.</p>
<p>Gourman provides NO NUMBERS to back up his ranking. They aren't even available. Do you really think grad schools will look more highly at a psych student from Indiana more highly than one from Princeton, Duke, or Brown? The latter three schools have exceptional student bodies, numerous resources for their undergrads, and excellent reputations. They also each have strong psych departments with many students. I would never recomend a student interested in psych to choose a school much worse overall because the Gourman reports dataless ranking claims a certain specific department is better.</p>
<p>Fact is, every top 20 school has numerous resources and very strong student bodies - and I clarified that OP should check each psych department out to see what its offerings are. The goal of undergrad is to prepare a student for the working world, or to send a student to a top grad program. A student who competes against top notch students is better prepared for both the working world and a top grad program - which is why I consistently say to aim for the school with the best overall student body that also has a developed psych department. This is much better than following a ranking backed up by no data or numbers.</p>
<p>Also, you compared ranking undergrad psych programs to metereology and car engines...I don't think thats a good comparison.</p>
<p>Some LACs for Psychology from Rugg's Recommendations:
Allegheny
AmherstBarnard
Bates
Bryn Mawr
Bucknell
Claremont McKenna
Colby
Connecticut C
Drew
Furman
Gettysburg
Grinnell
Gustavus Adolphus
Haverford
Kenyon
Lafayette
Macalester
Mount Holyoke
Coll of NJ
Occidental
Pitzer
Reed
Rhodes
Simmona
Smith
St Mary's C of MD
St Olaf
Swarthmore
Union
Vassar
Wabash
Wesleyan
Whitman
Willamette</p>
<p>collegehelp- the problem with rankings for graduate psychology departments is that the subfields in psych are extremely different from one another. for example, cognitive psych vs clinical psych. the number one school on that list is stanford, which doesnt even offer a clinical program, which is by far the most popular and competitive field.</p>
<p>to the OP- just about every school has a decent department because psych is one of the most popular majors nationwide. when looking at individual schools, look at undergraduate research opportunities, grad school placement of alumni, and faculty accessibility.</p>