<p>I have been accepted into both Penn State University and Boulder. I need help deciding which one is better for my major (psychology). I know that PSU is a better ranked university, but which one is better in psych?</p>
<p>Net price at each? Can you afford them?</p>
<p>Check the faculty rosters and course offerings to see if either school has stronger offerings in the subareas of psychology and related fields that you are most interested in. Also check the psychology major and breadth requirements at each school to see which matches your interests better.</p>
<p>Luckily for me, the price is not an issue. I just want to get the best education in psychology:)</p>
<p>I’d go with Penn State on that one. There are lots of labs for upper-level undergrads to get experience (and as a freshman you can volunteer for tons of projects) and the overall level outside of Psychology is good too.</p>
<p>My alma mater is ranked higher than PSU in this list:</p>
<p><a href=“Ranking of U.S. Undergraduate Psychology Programs”>http://www.socialpsychology.org/gunder.htm</a></p>
<p>but the differences are not such as to much concern you. Visit the schools and check out the campuses. I know them both well and they are quite different. I grew up in PA and loving PSU, but my heart is in Boulder.</p>
<p>Which one would cost the least? If it’s Boulder, pick Boulder. 
(I’d go with PSU but only if the cost is okay and similar to Boulder’s).
jkeil, I totally understand liking Boulder and CO better than PA.
OP: do you like snow and mountains? Do you want to live in the West?
Or would you rather live about 5 hours away from some big East Coast cities
(meaning you’d go perhaps once or twice a semester )? Do you want to live
in a city (Boulder) or a college town (State College)?</p>
<p>Graduate rankings for any discipline aren’t really the best way to decide which undergraduate department to attend. Aside from the fact that undergraduates only take about 1/3 of their overall classes in their major, the fact that they frequently change their major even before they step foot on campus, and the fact that the primary engagement for undergraduates isn’t necessarily with their department but with the university as a whole…the things that are important to graduate students (faculty output, research money, quality of graduate classes) aren’t always important for undergraduate education. (It’s especially difficult in psychology, in which there are different subfields. The rankings posted above are for social psychology, but a department that is strong in social isn’t necessarily strong in cognitive or developmental, for example.)</p>
<p>In general, undergraduate programs in liberal arts majors aren’t really “ranked” or compared directly to each other (with the exception of a few fields). That’s because any reasonably good university is likely going to also offer a reasonably good major in that particular field. I would say any differences in the psychology departments at CU and Penn State are likely to be negligible.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly - and aligned with their departmental strengths - CU seems to have more classes in biological/physiological psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. Penn State seems to have more classes in developmental and social. They both have somewhat unique course offerings - CU has a class in behavioral genetics and one in the psychology and neuroscience of exercise, for example, while PSU has a class on the psychology of human factors engineering, a class on music therapy, and a class in mathematical psychology.</p>
<p>The point of an undergraduate major in psychology, though, is to expose students to many subfields and give you a breadth of knowledge within the field. Either department will do that - CU has social psych classes, too, and PSU has classes in cognitive, neuro, and biopsych. Personally the PSU department looks more appealing - but I’m a social psychologist who studies adolescents, so that’s not surprising!</p>