<p>quick question guys....</p>
<p>i want to major in psychology. One school i am looking at is umass who is better known for their psychology program than American. However, American has a better reputation than umass.</p>
<p>my question is... which matters more when thinking about a school? the schools reputation or its program?</p>
<p>It depends on whether your going to grad school or straight into a job, grad school-program, job-rep., this is just my opinion and what my dad says, could be totally wrong.</p>
<p>I would argue otherwise. I think UMass has a better reputation than American.</p>
<p>Since the typical college student changes majors at least twice, I’d recommend leaning toward the institution that you feel is stronger.</p>
<p>We’re struggling w/ this too for our D. As of now, she wants to major in Public Relations. Yet many of the schools that she can get into don’t even offer Communications (“the easy major”). So we’ve pretty much crossed a lot of good schools like them off her list.</p>
<p>I also agree that UMass has a better rep than American.</p>
<p>The strength of a department’s major, like psychology, only matters if you plan on doing something with it straight out of undergrad, and considering you can’t really become a psychologist or work in the field with just a bachelor’s degree, it is somewhat redundant to worry about it as much as you are. Generally speaking, Psychology, will tend to be strong at most schools as its often a popular major at most college campuses.</p>
<p>Also you’re comparing Mass with American. The perceived difference between the two in terms of overall reputation etc isn’t significant enough to worry about, especially if you can get in state tuition for one and save thousands.</p>
<p>You want to look for a school that offers both combination. However, I would definitely lean more program than reputation if you’re seeking a specific major. For example, my undergraduate major is not offered at many universities at the undergraduate level. I still graduated from a top-15 university. If I had to make the same decision again, I would still choose my alma mater over HYPSM because of the program’s interdisciplinary strengths. That’s something to consider.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses everyone… makes some more sense to me now.</p>