<p>Hey, so I recently decided to major in psychology instead of engineering, which I had been planning on majoring for the last several years. Help me fix up the list I quickly made. Prestige, quality of education, and experience (social) are all about equally important. </p>
<p>(numbered by my preferences)
Upper schools:
1. Stanford
2. Columbia
3. Princeton
4. UChicago
5. Northwestern
6. UPenn
7. Brown
8. Cornell</p>
<p>Lower/safeties:
1. UCLA
2. USC
3. UC San Diego
4. UIUC</p>
<p>I'm looking for suggestions about which schools are also top quality psychology schools, which schools have a good combo of prestige and fun, which schools on my list should be crossed out, etc. I want to have more upper schools (upper meaning prestige-wise) applied to than middle schools and safe schools. I think applying to 10-12 would be a good amount.</p>
<p>I'm looking for more of an urban environment. I'd prefer a middle sized amount of students: not so many that it'd be hard to see the same person twice in the same semester, not so few that there's not a very good selection of friends/girls, you know.</p>
<p>My GPA is about 4.5 (rank 3 out of 750), SATI is about 2300, SAT II's are 780/800/800, my EC's are okay for CC standards.</p>
<p>If you're thinking about a big party/frat scene when you talk about fun, you'll find Chicago's offerings lacking. As a student, I think the school is actually a lot of fun, but it's not the same kind of fun as most colleges are stereotyped to be.</p>
<p>Michigan is a very good match (ranked #2 in the NRC). I would also add Yale and Harvard for upper schools and also look into Wisconsin, Virginia, and UNC. CMU is nice, but like Chicago, I wouldn't characterize it as a fun school. But you have a nice collection, all very strong schools for psychology.</p>
<p>Not necessarily a big frat with lot's of parties. Chicago seems to offer a lot of stuff to do, probably a lot of places to hang out with friends. </p>
<p>My friend did a UPenn summer program and he said that the town was really boring, so that's kind of making me a bit biased against them.</p>
<p>And also, I'd prefer living in either California or New York... Having been raised in California, I think I'll find life in Wisconsin, Virginia, and North Carolina too strange because of their small populations. Seems like there'd be nothing to do. I'd go to a rural environment if the campus was amazing though (like Cornell). Are you sure Virginia has a good psychology program?</p>
<p>2nd the suggestion of Michigan. Here is a listing of the National Research council report published in 1995- top PHD programs in Psychology:
Psychology
1. Stanford
2. Michigan
3. Yale
4. UCLA
5. Illinois
6. Harvard
7. Minnesota
8. Penn
9. Berkeley
10. UC San Diego</p>
<p>From the same report:
Ranking of Program Faculty</p>
<p>Social and
Behavioral Sciences
1. Harvard
2. Chicago
3. Berkeley
3. Michigan
5. Stanford</p>
<p>That opens up your possibilites a lot, because you don't need to be a science major to go to med school. what matters most for med school applications are GPA, your MCAT results and recommendation letters.</p>
<p>I'm not a science major, I'm going to do psychology undergrad....</p>
<p>And I can see where you're coming from menloparkmom. I guess you're right about Michigan too.</p>
<p>So I guess I don't exactly need to go to a school with a good psychology program, just a good enough school to make getting into Med School easier?</p>
<p>Psychology is a very popular major on college campuses. According to collegeboard.com for the USNWR Top 50 colleges, 39 of the schools had 5% or more of their students majoring in this field. Here is a full listing of those schools:</p>
<p>13% UCLA
12% UC Irvine
11% Wash U StL
10% Dartmouth
10% Emory
10% U Rochester
9% Duke
9% Northwestern
9% U Virginia
9% Tufts
9% U North Carolina
9% Brandeis
9% W & M
9% UC Davis
9% UC S Barbara
8% U Michigan
8% UC SD
8% Case Western
7% Harvard
7% Vanderbilt
7% Wake Forest
7% U Illinois UC
6% Yale
6% Rice
6% Notre Dame
6% Lehigh
6% U Washington
6% Tulane
5% Stanford
5% U Chicago
5% Columbia
5% Brown
5% UC Berkeley
5% Georgetown
5% USC
5% Boston College
5% NYU
5% U Florida
5% Penn State</p>
<p>as someone in the field (professionally and academically), i can assure you that the psychology is such a popular major that any good school will have at good department. also, grad departments are not comparable to undergrad.</p>
<p>when you're looking at the departments, take a look at the variety of classes offered, giant lecture classes vs smaller seminars, and research opportunities for undergrads.</p>
<p>will you be in the top 4% of your graduating class for UC purposes? [ I can't remember what the abbreviation is] . If not, I think you should find an few more safeties, as Berk, Johns Hopkins, UCLA should not be considered matches or safeties for anyone these days, unfortunately. Apply to Michigan early as their acceptances are rolling. Same for USC [ before Dec 1 and you will likely be considered for scholarship $$] and Chicago EA. It is a lovely pre Xmas present to have some schools "in the bag" early. As for LAC's, you need to do research into the depth of the psychology offerings at each school to see if it has enough to hold your interest for 4 years. My son originally was going to apply to LAC's only, but he realized that he would run out of courses that would interest him in 2 years.</p>
<p>You can't do much in Psych without a PhD so look for good research experience opportunities. Take lots of bio and math/statistics. Which field of psych interests you? Psych is very diverse, from clinical, biological, sensation, perception, social, learning, memory, child. Cornell is very good for psych. </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>Major rank isn't important. Choose the best overall school. You have an excellent list, although personally I would keep Brown on it since its such a great mix of academics and a strong social life.</p>
<p>You should get Pomona on there, especially if you're considering other California schools. They just built a whole new center for psych/neuro/cogsci.</p>