Questions for a PhD in psychology ?

I’ve decided I will pursue a PhD degree in either social psychology or I/O psychology. So, now that I’ve decided on a career, i’m a bit confused as to what sort of path I would take in order to obtain a PhD in psychology. My main questions right now are as follows:
1.) I am planning on attending either OU or OSU ( Oklahoma) basically for free, or pretty close to it. There, I will get a bachelor of science in psychology. So is there any sort of special criteria I should look for to help me decide on which to attend? Right now I believe I will choose OSU over OU simply because it is slightly less expensive and I don’t believe there are any major differences in the two psychology departments.

2.) I want to make sure that, from what i’ve read, my idea of obtaining a PhD is correct. In order to obtain a PhD, one needs a masters degree, and in order to obtain a master’s degree, one needs a bachelor’s degree. Is this correct? If I am admitted to a master’s program, is admission into the school’s doctorate program guaranteed considering the student obtains the master’s degree?

3.) What sort of financial aid and scholarships are made available to students in graduate school? Will getting scholarships for graduate school come from the school itself or outside sources? Do either of these scholarships anything involve submitting essays, financial need, academic rigor, and academic performance? As for financial aid, are there various grants made available for graduate students and is there a difference between out-of state tuition and in-state tuition?

4.) I was also wondering what graduate schools had the best reputations for psychology programs? What is the selection criteria for these specific schools like?

5.) Would graduating summa cum laude or having a double major, say in sociology, give me any sort of advantage in regards to being admitted to these graduate programs?

6.) Is it safe to assume that a doctorate’s degree from a better psychology program will have more opportunities compared to a doctorate’s degree from OU or OSU but it will also result in a higher amount of debt?

I moved your question to the Graduate School forum because a PhD in psychology is more aligned with graduate school, not careers in medicine.

1.) No, not really - either OSU or OU will help you in your quest to get a PhD in psychology.

2.) No, that’s not quite correct. Number one, you don’t need a master’s degree to get a PhD - many people go straight from a BA to a PhD program. If you keep your grades high and get the kind of research experience you need, you don’t necessarily need a master’s. Number two, no, admission into the doctoral program of a department is not guaranteed if you earned your master’s in that department - although the likelihood does go up if you did a good job and impressed faculty.

3.) At the best PhD programs in both of your fields of interests, an offer of admission comes with full funding. Full funding means that your tuition, fees, and health insurance are 100% covered and you are offered a living stipend - usually in the $20K to $30K range, which will allow you to live modestly in most places. You never want to accept an offer of admission to a PhD program without full funding. They have nothing to do with financial need, but they do have to do with academic performance, your statement of purpose (in which you describe your research interests and why you want to attend a specific program), letters of recommendation and your GRE scores.

There is still a difference between in-state and OOS tuition, but as a graduate student you can usually gain residency after the first year of attendance. There aren’t any federal grants that graduate students are eligible for.

4.) It depends on what you mean by “best.” Some departments are known for being good overall, and some departments have strengths in specific subfields. Some examples of top departments of psychology (in no particular order) are UCLA, Michigan, Harvard, UC-Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Wisconsin, Brown, Minnesota, URochester, Columbia, CU-Boulder, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, MIT, Iowa, Penn, Duke, UCSB, NYU, Penn State, Indiana, UVa, UF, UIUC, Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan State, Arizona State, Stony Brook, UNC, UCSD, Washington, Boston U, and Emory. But different ones are known for different things - Rochester and MIT are well-known for their cognitive psychology subfield; Minnesota has strengths in child psychology; Michigan and Stanford are strong all-around but well-known in social psychology; Arizona State has a strength in quantitative psychology. You’d have to do some individual research to determine which ones are best in the subfields in which you’re interested AND where there are professors doing research that interests you.

5.) Summa cum laude would be an advantage, but not because of the Latin honors - simply because that means you have a higher GPA, which is necessary to be competitive. A double major would only give you an advantage if it were relevant to your area of interest. A double major in sociology wouldn’t really give you any kind of advantage in social psychology - or any subfield, really - because sociology and psychology are distinct fields. (They have overlapping areas that they are concerned with, but they are quite different). But if you were interested in I/O, a double major in business might give you an advantage all other things being equal; or if you were interested in quantitative psychology, a double major in math could help you.

6.) More opportunities, probably. More debt, no - see #3.

If you want to be a professor, do note that psychology is a highly competitive field and academia is a field in which prestige matters. Those who are most competitive for careers as professors get their PhDs from top programs. Take a look at psychology departments of a variety of universities and see where they got their PhDs. You will see that top programs are more heavily represented, especially a big research universities and elite private liberal arts colleges. Even if you look at OU’s faculty, you see a lot of people from top programs - Yale, UT-Austin, Northwestern, Indiana, UCLA, UNC, Micigan, UConn, UC-Davis - as well as a lot of faculty from good solid mid-ranked programs - Buffalo, Florida State, George Mason, Texas A&M, UGA, OU, Colorado State, Binghamton. Some of these places have strengths in a field - like the professor from Colorado State went there for I/O psych, where CSU as a strength.

It’s generally stated in academia that you can teach at a university/college that is at your ‘level’ or down. So someone who got their PhD at Stanford or Michigan would be able to teach pretty much anywhere they wanted; but if you got your PhD at OU, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to teach somewhere like Michigan or Stanford - or even Rochester or Emory - you’d probably be looking at peer schools of OU. Likewise, you’d be unlikely to be as competitive for a slot as a professor at Pomona or Swarthmore, or maybe even Rhodes or St. Olaf, but perhaps at another small college like Austin College or Wesleyan College (in GA). You can improve your chances by publishing like mad, but the odds are still against you.

Outside of academia, it kind of depends on where you want to go and what you want to do. It does matter, but not nearly as much as in academia - especially because unlike in academia you can make up for lack of pedigree with experience and expertise.

“f you want to be a professor, do note that psychology is a highly competitive field and academia is a field in which prestige matters. Those who are most competitive for careers as professors get their PhDs from top programs.”

Where are you getting this information from???

^^easiest way is too look at the top programs and see where their faculty earned their PhD’s.

For example, when I looked up the faculty at schools my D was considering, the results were (in order):

Harvard
Stanford
Michigan
Yale
UCLA
Cal
Penn
MIT
Princeton
Columbia

btw: the count of H PhD’s was 3x that of Columbia. (yes, some programs are larger than others, so small program like Dartmouth won’t show up on gross numbers.)

In other words, the top grad schools recruit from the top grad schools, in general.

…I have a PhD in psychology and was in academia for 7 years (and I still work in research psychology). But you can do this exercise that @bluebayou suggested with any top-ranked department in psychology and see the truth in it.

For example, the alma maters of the faculty at the department where I got my PhD, Columbia: McGill (a top Canadian department), Toronto (dito), Cambridge, UCL, Cornell (x2), Columbia (x4), Penn, Wyoming, Harvard (x3), Brown, Ohio State, Stanford, Wisconsin, Rutgers (x2), Minnesota, Washington.

Rutgers is a solid mid-ranked program in psychology. Wyoming is a low-ranked program, but that particular professor did two prestigious postdocs at top-ranked schools AND is a general superstar who has garnered media attention and lots of national awards from his work. The point is it’s possible to ascend from a low-ranked program to a top-ranked department, but it’s very unlikely, so a student who knows she wants a career in psychological research at a top university should try to get her PhD from a top department.