<p>I am really confused about whether to go to for the BA or the BS in Psychology. Does somebody know the difference?</p>
<p>I'm assuming your finishing up your senior year, in which case you don't need to decide that for a while. Get to college and look at your specific school's requirements for each. Take the beginning classes and see what you like and what you're good at. The decision will likely be obvious by then. Good luck.</p>
<p>BA stands for Bachelor of Arts and BS stands for Bachelor of Science.</p>
<p>BA basically exposes you to a more diverse education. You get to take a variety of classes to become well-rounded on top of your major.</p>
<p>On the other hand, BS is more specific to your major. In short, BS would focus on a lot of classes related to psychology.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. In some schools there is barely any difference. In others, there are significant differences.
Possibilities:
the B.A. would be more of a liberal arts degree, allowing for more electives in other areas
the B.S. could possibly require more lab-classes, or even more credits to graduate.
the B.S. could require a major research project for graduation
the B.A. would allow you more flexibility with classes outside the discipline
the B.S. may require more chemistry, biology, statistics
etc
etc
etc</p>
<p>Check the requirements for each at your school. I got a BA in Chemistry eons ago (then got an MD...)- liked the white tassel better than the yellow, had met the language and math reqs for both... made the decision senior year. Plan on meeting all the requirements for both, modify your plan if needed as you get close to graduation.</p>
<p>The BA sounds like it is for me. I want to eventually be a psychologist instead of doing research.
Is one better than the other?</p>
<p>I got the BS only because I'd taken 3 semesters of calculus before I decided on a major so I had enuf math to get the BS and I thought it sounded better. I don't really think it matters for grad school in psych which one you get; mostly that's based on your GRE score and the GRE subject test in Psychology.</p>
<p>However, that said, you need to look at the curriculum at the schools you're interested in and/or going to if you don't want to do research because many schools now are research oriented and will require you to take research classes in order to get your degree. I'm looking at schools now for my S who wants to major in psych and the curriculums are LOTS more research based than they were 30 years ago.</p>
<p>Plus, I went to law school and not psych grad school. You may need a graduate degree to be employed as a psychologist and the grad schools may expect you to have research experience in addition to scores and grades to be admitted.</p>
<p>Check it out. You have time to decide.</p>
<p>For some schools, the BA or BS will depend upon whether you concentrate more on developmental/clinical (BA) vs neurobiology (BS). To be able to do testing- one needs a PhD. PhD programs generally require a thesis- this means you must be skilled in doing research. A masters program doesn't require the same time commitment, and you can still be a counselor, but can't do formal neuropsych testing. I think it's stupid, but it's the way psychologists protect some of their income.</p>
<p>yep, the BS is more hands-on while the BA is more theoretical.</p>
<p>My daughter ended up getting a BS in psych because she wasn't sure at the time if she wanted to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, so the pre-med curriculum gave her sufficient science for the BS. Nevertheless, her research experiences arose from her psych classes and research opportunities outside her classes. She ended up going for a clinical doctorate ("PsyD", as opposed to the more research oriented PhD), but she will still have to do research and of course a thesis. I think that for all doctoral programs, they want to see research experience from the undergrad years.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that PhD/PsyD programs are INCREDIBLY hard to get into. I believe the program at my U, for example, accepted 6 students of 168 applicants last year.</p>
<p>Abosutely correct, Wolfpiper. Clinical doctoral programs in psych are more competitive than med school for sure. At one PhD. program that my d. got into, she was one of 8 out of many hundreds of aps. You are told in most of these programs that just getting an interview is a huge accomplishment.</p>