<p>here is my list of colleges that i'm planning to apply.
could someone rank their psychology undergrad programs for me?
or tell me any colleges below are strong in psychology:)
thanks a lot!</p>
<p>Indiana U Bloomington
Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Penn State-U Park
U of Wash
Suny Binghamton
Purdue
North Carolina Chapel Hill
U of Michigan
Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>Canada:
Mcgill
Toronto
Western Ontario</p>
<p>Can't say for most of universities on your list, but I'm pretty sure McGill is strong in psychology. My niece graduated from McGill few years ago with undergrad. in psych. and got accepted to Harvard and Yale for graduate school. She went to Yale straight after McGill. While at McGill, she was very happy with her program (and university in general).</p>
<p>Psychology will be strong at any of the schools you listed. Go for fit and what makes best financial sense.</p>
<p>What are you planning on using psychology for; meaning research, teaching, counsoling, business, etc?</p>
<p>And, is there a certain area of the county you are looking for?</p>
<p>Are you planning on going on to grad school after undergrad?</p>
<p>My daughter has been looking for a school good in psychology to go on to grad school most likely in counsoling. Since most grad schools like a good LAC ciriculum, we are somewhat looking for a school strong in her other passions; writing and art. </p>
<p>From what I can tell so far, Madison (the only one on your list I am familiar with) has a very good psychology program, but somewhat geared towards research more than the "human" side of things (generalization).</p>
<p>DJD</p>
<p>oh thanks a lot!
i'm interested in psychology...more for counsoling part i guess.
and i'm also interested in business and art history..
so idk which major i shud declare when i apply
or maybe i shud just not declare...</p>
<p>Lots of big publics on this list. Psych is a very popular major at many of these schools, so you'll get a lot of big classes and a lot of teaching by grad students, certainly at the intro level. For such a popular major I might look for a smaller school.</p>
<p>Even at smaller schools, Psych classes are going to be large. One would have to go to a tiny school not to run into large Psych classes, but the problem with such schools is that they will not offer much breadth and depth in any given discipline.</p>
<p>Yes, McGill has a very reputable program in Psychology and the + is, for US students it's not that hard to get into.</p>
<p>^^ But "large" at a LAC might be 50 to 75 students, versus 200, 500, or even 1,000 at some large universities. Biggest undergrad class I've ever heard of (so far) is Cornell's Intro to Psych which closes when they have enough students enrolled to fill up the largest auditorium on campus, about 1300 students. Heck, a lot of LACs don't even HAVE 1300 students. </p>
<p>Here are some LACs for Psychology from Rugg's Recommendations:
Allegheny
Amherst
Barnard
Bates
Bryn Mawr
Bucknell
Claremont McKenna
Colby
Connecticut College
Drew
Furman
Gettysburg
Grinnell
Gustavus Adolphus
Haverford
Kenyon
Lafayette
Macalester
Mount Holyoke
College of New Jersey
Occidental
Pitzer
Reed
Rhodes
Simmons
Smith
St Mary's College of Maryland
St Olaf
Swarthmore
Union
Vassar
Wabash
Wesleyan
Whitman
Willamette</p>
<p>Because psych is such a popular major, most of these small schools will have fairly large psych departments. For example, Amherst has 9 full-time psych faculty, plus a couple of visitors. Swarthmore also has 9 full-time, a couple of part-time, and one emeritus (apparently still actively teaching). A faculty that size won't cover every aspect of the field but it's large enough to provide a pretty broad introduction, and still small enough to allow for close relationships between faculty and students at a level you won't see in mega schools with mega psych departments. I'm a big fan of the undergrad opportunities the top research universities provide in smaller majors (philosophy, classics); mush less so in big, hugely popular majors like psych and poli sci.</p>
<p>^ But if you do want to go "big," here are some big schools recommended for Psychology by the Gourman Report:</p>
<p>Stanford
Yale
Penn
Michigan
Minnesota
UC Berkeley
Harvard
UIUC
Chicago
Columbia
UC San Diego
UCLA
Indiana
Colorado
Carnegie Mellon
Wisconsin Madison
MIT
Princeton
U of Washington
Oregon
Cornell
Texas Austin
UNC Chapel Hill
Brown
Northwestern
SUNY Stony Brook
Johns Hopkins
Duke
Penn State
NYU</p>
<p>The only U.S. schools on OP's list that don't make the Gourman list are SUNY Binghamton and Purdue, but I don't have independent knowledge of those schools' psych departments. If you're going to apply to a bunch of Midwest schools (IU, UIUC, Purdue, Wisconsin, Michigan) you should probably add Minnesota to the list. It's got one of the top psych departments in the country, better than all the other Midwest schools you list except Michigan; it's no harder to get into the others (certainly easier than Michigan and UIUC and probably easier than Wisconsin if you're OOS); and its OOS tuition, pegged at $4,000/year above the in-state level, makes it a bargain for OOS students.</p>
<p>^^ true about class size, but I'm not convinced LACs will have quantity/quality of psych. research necessary for grad. school. Also, in some psych. departments you will see one or two profs on sabbatical for entire year, and some courses not offered fall or spring semester. It seems to me that mid size research universities would be best (4,000 - 5,000 undergrads). There might be large intro classes, but after that classes would be about 20 students, and it should be possible to get to know profs and get individual attention. I'm looking into it for my D (still have 2 years to look) and some LACs have rather basic selection of courses and no word on research, others are better. Research universities almost always have psych. departments covering all areas of psych, cognitive science, sometimes neuroscience as well - more options, more opportunities. In some LACs it's possible to find all that as well, but it's often spread across several departments. I'm still undecided at this point, what is best. For now, I keep researching both settings.</p>
<p>"I'm not convinced LACs will have quantity/quality of psych. research necessary for grad. school."</p>
<p>The tradeoff: The big U has larger research capabilities; at the LAC the undergrads do all the research, not competing with grad students for the spots.</p>
<p>Our D is an LAC psych major. While it's true that not every course is offered every semester, it's not a practical problem. Typically the next four semesters are planned, and all desired courses are taken. Also, at the LAC it's not just possible to get to know profs, it can't be avoided!</p>
<p>I think it's more important where the individual student feels more comfortable; some just don't like the tighter embrace of the LAC.</p>
<p>I can't speak for any of the schools aside from UW Madison. The psychology program at Madison has an especially large department. Being a great research center, Madison offers some unparalleled opportunities like unfettered access to the primate colonies, huge sample sizes (undergrads serve in experiments for extra credit or money), astonishing course offerings etc. These benefits come with lots of grad students that would compete for professors' attention and time (more successfully than you will be able to). The major at Madison only requires half a dozen classes and is best utilized as one part of a double major (no minors at Madison).</p>
<p>I agree that there is probably competition for research positions in large universities, but I'm wondering about small-mid. size. My relative, who is a prof. at MIT is telling me that every undergraduate who wants to do research can do so at MIT, it is never a problem. Moreover, in his opinion and in his field (physics), graduates of LACs do NOT compare favorably with graduates of research universities when applying to MIT for grad. study (due to relatively poor research quality, due in turn, to lack of resources, labs, opportunities, etc.). Maybe it is true for hard sciences. I would like to find out about undergrad. research situation in psychology in small universities (the likes of Tufts, Brandeis, U.Rochester, UChicago).</p>
<p>This might help a tiny bit. Here are the top undergrad schools whose grads went on to earn a PhD in psychology (the number of future psych PhDs per 1000 overall graduates; psych graduates were not available; this rewards schools with large psych departments). This doesn't help with schools that send a lot of students on to social work fields, but would capture the research psych career paths. (first posted by interesteddad)</p>
<p>Academic field: Psychology </p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database
Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with fewer than 1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>
21 Pomona College
19 Swarthmore College
19 Barnard College
19 Vassar College
17 Bryn Mawr College
16 Wesleyan University
16 Pitzer College
16 Brandeis University
15 Wellesley College
15 Grinnell College
14 Spelman College
14 Williams College
14 Clark University
14 Haverford College
14 Brown University
14 Smith College
13 Kalamazoo College
13 Oberlin College
13 Scripps College
13 Yale University
13 Duke University
13 Carleton College
13 Drew University
12 Rhodes College
12 Hendrix College
12 Tufts University
12 Antioch University, All Campuses
12 Davidson College
12 Sarah Lawrence College
12 University of Chicago
12 Hamilton College
11 University of Rochester
11 Amherst College
11 Trinity University
11 Southwestern University
11 Austin College
11 Bennington College
11 Reed College
11 Emory University
11 Union College (Schenectady, NY)
10 Denison University
10 St John's College (both campus)
10 Kenyon College
10 Mount Holyoke College
10 Bates College
10 Occidental College
10 Franklin and Marshall College
10 Stanford University
10 Cornell University, All Campuses
10 Knox College
10 Allegheny College
9 Wake Forest University
9 Hope College
9 Earlham College
9 Beloit College
9 Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL)
9 Birmingham Southern College
9 Trinity College (Hartford, CT)
9 University of California-San Francisco
9 University of Pennsylvania
9 Benedictine College
9 Washington University
9 University of PR Rio Piedras Campus
9 Muhlenberg College
9 Agnes Scott College
9 Connecticut College
8 Harvard University
8 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
8 Mills College
8 Colgate University
8 Rice University
8 College of the Holy Cross
8 Bard College
8 University of California-Irvine
8 SUNY at Binghamton
8 Carroll College (Waukesha, WI)
8 Macalester College
8 Hanover College
8 Randolph-Macon Woman's College
8 Dartmouth College
8 University of California-Los Angeles
8 Transylvania University
8 Furman University
7 Bowdoin College
7 University of California-San Diego
7 Columbia University in the City of New York
7 Whitman College
7 University of California-Santa Cruz
7 Northwestern Univ
7 Bucknell University
7 University of Dallas
7 Princeton University
7 Hampshire College
7 Pacific Union College
7 Fisk University
7 University of Denver
7 Chatham College
7 Southern Methodist University
7 Gettysburg College
7 Johns Hopkins University
7 Skidmore College
7 University of Notre Dame
7 Tougaloo College
7 Nebraska Wesleyan University
7 Goshen College
7 Bethany College (Bethany, WV)
7 College of William and Mary
</p>
<p>Whoa!!!! Isn't your methodology heavily biased toward LACs? A typical LAC has, what, maybe 30 undergraduate majors to choose from, all in the Arts and Sciences? A major research University has far more. The University of Michigan, for example, which by all accounts has an outstanding psychology department, offers at least 140 undergraduate majors, spread across 12 schools and colleges. Looking at the number of psychology Ph.D.s per hundred psychology graduates might make some sense. Looking at the number of psychology Ph.D.s per hundred (or per thousand) graduates in all fields is going to give you a result heavily skewed toward small LACs that offer only a limited number of majors, because psychology grads are almost certainly going to represent a much larger percentage of the total pool of graduates at those schools.</p>
<p>It also depends on what kind of psychology. For example, Carnegie Mellon in that Gourman report is also one of the best for Cognitive Psych with the integration of computer and IT systems.</p>
<p>It is definitely biased toward schools with the higher percentages of psych majors, but that might be exactly what a student wants, a school with a significant percentage of psych majors, and that may well be the case at some LACs. But, again, I think a student should choose the kind of school first, Big U or LAC, or geographic location, whatever is most important, and then within the resulting group, perhaps such data might be useful. It must indeed be carefully interpreted.</p>
<p>The data was originally meant to show that LACs compete well with the Big Universities overall, and captured all PhD fields, such that it was more of an apples-to-apples comparison. But the individual subjects were captured, and are available.</p>
<p>E.g., here are the data for all fields, no "major" bias:</p>
<p>Percentage of graduates getting a PhD
PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period. Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law. </p>
<p>
1 35.8% California Institute of Technology<br>
2 24.7% Harvey Mudd College
3 21.1% Swarthmore College<br>
4 19.9% Reed College<br>
5 18.3% Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
6 16.8% Carleton College<br>
7 15.8% Bryn Mawr College<br>
8 15.7% Oberlin College
9 15.3% University of Chicago<br>
10 14.5% Yale University
11 14.3% Princeton University<br>
12 14.3% Harvard University<br>
13 14.1% Grinnell College<br>
14 13.8% Haverford College<br>
15 13.8% Pomona College<br>
16 13.1% Rice University
17 12.7% Williams College<br>
18 12.4% Amherst College
19 11.4% Stanford University
20 11.3% Kalamazoo College<br>
21 11.0% Wesleyan University
22 10.6% St John's College (both campus)
23 10.6% Brown University<br>
24 10.4% Wellesley College<br>
25 10.0% Earlham College
26 9.6% Beloit College<br>
27 9.5% Lawrence University
28 9.3% Macalester College<br>
29 9.0% Cornell University, All Campuses<br>
30 9.0% Bowdoin College
31 8.9% Mount Holyoke College<br>
32 8.9% Smith College<br>
33 8.8% Vassar College<br>
34 8.7% Case Western Reserve University
35 8.7% Johns Hopkins University<br>
36 8.7% St Olaf College
37 8.7% Hendrix College
38 8.6% Hampshire College<br>
39 8.5% Trinity University<br>
40 8.5% Knox College<br>
41 8.5% Duke University
42 8.4% Occidental College<br>
43 8.3% University of Rochester
44 8.3% College of Wooster<br>
45 8.3% Barnard College
46 8.2% Bennington College<br>
47 8.1% Columbia University in the City of New York
48 8.0% Whitman College
49 7.9% University of California-Berkeley<br>
50 7.9% College of William and Mary
51 7.8% Carnegie Mellon University<br>
52 7.8% New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology<br>
53 7.7% Brandeis University
54 7.6% Dartmouth College<br>
55 7.5% Wabash College<br>
56 7.5% Bates College<br>
57 7.5% Davidson College<br>
58 7.2% Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute<br>
59 7.2% Franklin and Marshall College<br>
60 7.1% Fisk University
61 7.1% Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL)<br>
62 6.8% University of California-San Francisco<br>
63 6.8% Allegheny College<br>
64 6.6% Furman University<br>
65 6.5% University of Pennsylvania<br>
66 6.5% Washington University<br>
67 6.5% Bard College<br>
68 6.4% Northwestern Univ<br>
69 6.4% Rhodes College<br>
70 6.3% Agnes Scott College
71 6.3% Spelman College
72 6.2% Antioch University, All Campuses<br>
73 6.2% Kenyon College<br>
74 6.2% University of Dallas<br>
75 6.1% Ripon College<br>
76 6.1% Colorado College<br>
77 6.1% Bethel College (North Newton, KS)<br>
78 6.0% Hamilton College<br>
79 6.0% Goshen College<br>
80 6.0% Middlebury College<br>
81 6.0% Erskine College
82 5.9% University of the South
83 5.8% University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
84 5.8% Drew University
85 5.8% Wake Forest University<br>
86 5.8% Tougaloo College<br>
87 5.8% Goucher College
88 5.7% Chatham College
89 5.7% Cooper Union<br>
90 5.7% Alfred University, Main Campus<br>
91 5.7% Tufts University<br>
92 5.6% University of California-Santa Cruz
93 5.6% Colgate University<br>
94 5.5% Colby College<br>
95 5.4% Bucknell University
96 5.4% Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
97 5.4% Concordia Teachers College<br>
98 5.4% University of Virginia, Main Campus
99 5.3% Sarah Lawrence College<br>
100 5.3% Southwestern University
</p>
<p>i want to study psychology and i was wondering the same thing myself!!
awesome replies! so helpful!</p>
<p>^^ I'd want to know not only how many grads got Ph.D.s, but where they got their Ph.D.s. There are an awful lot of underemployed humanities and social science Ph.D.s out there, most of the, I'd wager, coming out of second- and third- and fourth-tier graduate programs. I'd look for a school that was sending its grads to top Ph.D. programs. I have no doubt that Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, Carleton, and Bryn Mawr grads are by and large getting into the top programs. I'd be a little more careful about LACs further down the list, however.</p>
<p>And by the way, Vossron, I don't think your second list completely eliminates the "major" bias. Universities with large numbers of undergrads in business, nursing, education, and other undergrad pre-professional programs are almost always going to have fewer Ph.Ds per thousand grads, simply because the vast majority of undergrads in those programs are in college for professional training that will lead to professional employment upon completion of their undergrad studies and have no interest in ever pursuing Ph.D.s. And even in the arts and sciences, many may be in conventional arts and sciences majors but essentially planning a pre=professional path. (For example, back in my day I knew quite a few undergrad psych majors who planned for day one to end up in medical school). That has absolutely no bearing on how successful undergrad psych majors at those institutions are in pursuing Ph.Ds if that's what they choose to do.</p>
<p>That said, I would note that my initial contribution to this thread was to suggest that especially in a popular field like psych, a strong LAC with a strong psych department might be in important ways preferable to a mega psych department for undergraduate work. I stand by that statement. But there's no need to hijack that into a general "LACs are always better" claim. That's something I don't subscribe to, in large part because the limited curricular offerings at LACs mean that some fields simply will not be available to LAC students at all, and others will be available only in an extremely limited form. There are real trade-offs here, and I just wish people on both sides of the LAC-versus-research university debate would get real and admit it.</p>