<p>Same as topic.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Do you have any preferences (LAC or research university, size, location, weather etc...)? </p>
<p>What are your credentials (GPA, SAT, class rank, ECs, APs etc...)?</p>
<p>Any particular type of psychology or just general psychology?</p>
<p>Right of off the top of my head, the top 5 programs in psychology are:</p>
<p>Stanford University
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Yale University
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
Harvard University</p>
<p>Other great programs include:
Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Princeton University
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of Pennsylvania
University of Wisconsin</p>
<p>Some good LACs for Psychology:
Bucknell University
Carleton College
Franklin and Marshall College
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pomona College
Reed College
Swarthmore College
Vassar College
Wesleyan College
Williams College</p>
<p>bump bump bump bump</p>
<p>Alexandre, it seems like Michigan is top 5 in many things. How come it is not rated higher in US News, etc?</p>
<p>It is strange isn't it? I mean, Michigan has top 5 programs in over 10 major fields, such as Business, (and most Business sub-fields), Engineering (and most Engineering sub-fields), Anthropology, Geology, History, Philosophy, Political Scinece, Psychology, Sociology, Music, Nursing, and several Languages. And if it is not among the top 5, it is usually ranked in or around the top 10 in most remaining fields, such as Economics, Biology, English, Physics, Arcvhitecture, Computer Scinece etc... </p>
<p>But if you look closely at the USNWR, you will see that it has ranked Michigan between #7 and #11 in terms of academic excellence and reputation since 1988, usually tied with the likes of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins and Penn. The overall USNWR ranking is lower (usually between #20 and #25) because the USNWR takes other facotrs into consideration, such as graduation rate, alumni giving rate and financial aid contributins.State universities suffer as a result.</p>
<p>"USNWR takes other facotrs into consideration, such as graduation rate, alumni giving rate and financial aid contributins.State universities suffer as a result." --- alexandre, you forgot to mention class size.. this is a legitimate reason why state schools are lower. More than half of classes at Mich are larger than 20 students, and the student to faculty ratio is 15:1. Compare with chicago 4:1, columbia 7:1, Cornell 9:1, Duke 8:1, JHU: 9:1 and Penn 6:1.
This truly makes a huge difference in an undergrad's experience, and for it, large publics are rightfully downgraded in the rankings.</p>
<p>Where is the proof that smaller classes actually provide better outcomes?? I know that assumption has proven to be generally false for HS classes except for the remedial types.</p>
<p>Yes, but there's a big difference between a 500 person class at a big state school compared to a 15 person class at a small LAC. A small hs class is really not much smaller than a reg. class compared to college</p>
<p>from what i've been told rutgers is #1 in psych and harvard is #2</p>
<p>For classes that are 500 at big state schools--and often it's more like 250--the LAC will have 75 of so. That's intro to ____ and such. After that it is rare to have over 75 in any class at a big school and there are 100's of classes with under 30 students every term. You trade selection for size to some degree.</p>
<p>TheCity and Celebrian, you are both somewhat disillusioned. I hope you do not grow disgruttled when you realize that private research universities do not offer great interaction with faculty or much smaller classes than their more fun and pleasant public counterparts. The student to faculty ratios are actually not revealing. % of classes over 50 and % of classes under 20 is somewhat revealing. However, I think what is most revealing is size range of most classes. At most of the schools thecity lists (Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins etc...) the majority of the classes have between 10-20 students. At Michigan and Cal, most have between 20-30 students. There is obviously a difference, but not a huge one. </p>
<p>Even if you look at % of classes over 50 and % of classes under 20 (which is not revealing in many casses because I do not see a difference between a class with 22 students and 19 students or between 48 students and 55 students), Johns Hopkins, Chicago and Cornell are no better than Michigan or Cal. They have roughly as many classes with more than 50 students and roughly as many classes with fewer than 20 students.</p>
<p>And I will say this for the hundredth time, all research universities are equally bad at connecting faculty and undergraduate students. The faculties at Columbia, Harvard and Penn are more interested in their research and in helping their more than 10,000 graduate students than in holding the hands of their 6,000-9,000 undergrads.</p>
<p>So in short, theCity, class size and faculty to student ratios should be part of the equation, but it should be a small part since there are only small differences in class sizes at top reasearch universities.</p>
<p>"from what i've been told rutgers is #1 in psych and harvard is #2"</p>
<p>Harvard may not have the best graduate program in psychology for certain disciplines. Just browsing Harvard's website, I found:</p>
<p>"We anticipate that the clinical program will receive accreditation by the American Psychological Association; however, this can occur no earlier than 2005. Clinical psychology students who graduate after that APA approval is granted can state that their degree was from an APA-accredited program."</p>
<p>APA approval (which Harvard does NOT have) is critical. Most of my profs have basically said that if a program is not APA, then move on.</p>
<p>try Clark U...not elite per se, but excellent psych dept from what i've heard...</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>sd has a pretty decent psyc program, not as rigorous as an ivy or difficult to get into. that's all i know bout that, but im juss reppin it cuz im from ucsd too!</p>
<p>due to the fact that psych is one of the most popular majors everywhere, most schools have at least decent psych departments. if you tell me what part of the country where you want to go and the size of the school you are looking for, i can recommend you some excellent schools (psych is definitely my area of expertise)</p>
<p>huskem, I am not the original poster, and certainly don't mean to <em>steal</em> this thread, but I'm interested in psych too, especially neuropsychology. I'm interested in going into research and possibly even med school to become a psychiatrist. What were some schools you'd reccomend in the Midwest-Northeast region? Thanks!</p>
<p>Stanford has the best program in the country for psych. It also has top programs in engineering, biology (as of two years ago anyway), and economics, in case you decide to change your mind.</p>
<p>The midwest has many strong programs-Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minn. are all excellent.</p>
<p>here is a list of great undergrad psych program (general psych), with a wide range of selectivity, location, and size (based on my academic and professional background/network), in no particular order:</p>
<p>brown
connecticut college
vassar
clark (ma)
duke
michigan
suny-albany
rutgers
stanford
ucla
uc-b
emory
yale
stanford
unc
uva
u-washington
rochester
bryn mawr
richmond
u-hartford
bowling green
middlebury
george mason
temple
u illinois
wesleyan</p>