I would like to know the best schools for psychology, ranked top from bottom, and another one for my chances of getting in from top to bottom.
GPAs
Freshman year : 2.5 and 2.8
Sophomore year : 3.0 and 2.9
Junior year : 3.3
overal GPA : 2.99
no rigor of classes, other than advance sciences freshman and sophomore year, but senior year im taking 2 APs and 2 honors along with pre-calc
my ACT scores are not mailed yet.
ECs : traveled to 3 countries with a school ‘club’ - when we went to one country we donated supplies to students in the highlands, and over the summer I plan to get a part time job and work at the animal shelter, and 10 years of piano lessons, 6 years of playing in my school band, and 4 years of singing with my schools choir (and a choir that meets on evenings monday - friday)
colleges :
UC San diego (out of state)
UC Davis (out of state)
UC Irvine (out of state)
UCLA (out of state)
UC Riverside (out of state)
UC Santa Cruz (out of state)
University of Michigan Ann Arbor (in state)
Michigan State (in state)
I think your GPA is too low to make some of those realistic. Looking at who has gotten in to these schools from my daughter’s high school (I’m looking on Naviance), it looks like UC Riverside and Santa Cruz you maybe could get in with a 3.1/3.2 (google how to calculate your UC GPA… it doesn’t include freshman year so you might be okay, although this is in-state). UCLA you need pretty close to a 4.0 unless you are a recruited athlete. UCSD, irvine, and davis will be in between the top and bottom. Not sure about Michigan schools as we are out of state so I think our cutoff will be higher than yours.
Don’t want to burst your bubble so you should do more research. Of the UCs, Riverside is easiest to get in so maybe research that a little more to see if that’s realistic, and if so, you could look at Santa Cruz as well.
MSU or UM are your best choices. I don’t know that anyone hear can rank your listed schools based on one majkor though you may find that on a USNWR google or a good college search book. With psych, you are looking at continuing your education with a Master’s degree at a minimum and possibly a PhD.
Both MSU and UM should be fine. I wouldn’t spend the extra money you will need for grad school when you are instate these schools.
You also need some safety schools-- Central MI?? Though I may be wrong, UM and MSU seem to be “reach” schools with a GPA less than 3.0. You may know better when you get your ACT scores.
Well, nobody ranks undergraduate education. That’s because your undergraduate education is going to be broad and not that deep; you won’t only take psychology classes and you won’t only spend time in psychology departments. Besides, a school that has a great psychology department and a great psychology PhD program doesn’t necessarily have a great undergrad program - there’s probably a correlation, but you can imagine a good graduate department may pay little attention to the undergrads or the professors may be distant and bad at teaching undergrads.
With that said, psychology is my field, so I’m going to rank the departments (I’m a social/health psychologist, so that will color my rankings)
Michigan
UCLA
UCSD
UC-Davis
Michigan State
UC-Riverside
UC-Irvine
UCSC
Michigan and UCLA are very close - both are top 10 programs, so there’s virtually no difference in the quality of their departments. UCSD, UC-Davis, and Michigan State are also very close - top 25 programs in the field, great quality students, good research coming out of the departments. UC-Riverside and UC-Irvine hang out together - I have a colleague at my current postdoc from each of them - and have well-reputed psychology programs that are doing great research. UCSC doesn’t have a top PhD in psychology program, but they do have a special focus on social justice and community engagement and that doesn’t mean that their undergraduate program isn’t awesome.
One omitted UC is Santa Barbara, which has a top 20 psychology department and some famous folks there.
But, I’m going to repeat my caveats: a great graduate program/department doesn’t really mean a great undergrad program, and a low-ranked PhD program doesn’t mean that the undergrad program is not great. The production of research isn’t necessarily relevant to undergrads; even if you want a PhD, you just want to get SOME research. Actually some of the colleges that send the most students to PhD programs are small liberal arts colleges and other undergrad-focused colleges.
It sounds like you might be a junior since you’re asking about chances. I don’t think you should apply to so many OOS public universities unless you are very wealthy and your parents are willing to foot almost the whole bill (if not all of it). Additionally, you are not competitive for most of them (any of them?). Even Michigan and Michigan State are reaches for you. You might consider other Michigan schools. One of my friends went to UM-Dearborn and now has a PhD in psychology and works with me in my center. Eastern, Western, and Central Michigan are also less selective and have the advantage of being a residential campus (Dearborn is commuter).
You need a 3.4 to apply to UCs from oos so cross them out. Even if you attend a low performing school that doesn’t allow for more than 2 ap senior year, and curriculum rigor would be seen in context, your gap is too low for U Michigan. Look at the state universities suggested above as well as Albion and Alma. If you want to try for out of State, look at Capital in OH, Gannon, Moravian, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Wagner, Muskingum, Hanover, Chatham, Elmhurst. Depending on your parents’ budget -ie., If they can pay 50,000 a year out of pocket- look into Whittier and U Redlands in California.
THIS. Graduate rankings do not necessarily correlate with the strength of the undergraduate education, particularly in an extremely broad field like psychology. Many schools which are unranked for various disciplines, often provide stellar undergraduate educations.
Keep in mind that psychology is one of the most popular majors at most schools. Therefore it’s in many school’s best interests to allocate quite a bit of funding to their psychology programs given that the demand is often very high.
You’re not getting into the UCs. To even be considered for admission you must have at least a [3.4 UC GPA](http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/out-of-state/). That means you only have two schools on your list, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. University of Michigan will almost certainly reject you, meaning that you have one likely school, MSU to choose from. If you like MSU, great. I would still apply to at least one more Michigan public university, such as Central, Western, or GVSU so as to make sure you have at least one option come next year.
If you can afford out of state tuition, many state flagships with good psych programs will admit you, as well as non flagship publics. Such schools include the University of Iowa, University of Oregon, and the Miami University of Ohio.
I would also strongly suggest considering privates including medium sized universities and liberal arts colleges.
One small university that has long had a good reputation for Psychology is Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
It’s one of the “Colleges That Change Lives”. http://www.ctcl.org/colleges/clarku http://www.clarku.edu/~psydept/
Its full sticker prices are lower than the University of California system’s out-of-state rates, and it does have fairly good need-based aid.
Clark is not super selective, but I imagine it would be a reach for the OP’s GPA.
Still, with the upward grade trend and music ECs, it might be worth a shot.
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UC San diego (out of state)
UC Davis (out of state)
UC Irvine (out of state)
UCLA (out of state)
UC Riverside (out of state)
UC Santa Cruz (out of state)
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Not only would it be silly to go to an OOS public and pay all those costs for a psych degree, as others mentioned, you won’t get accepted.
Virtually every good school has a good psych dept.
How much will your parents spend each year? THAT will likely determine where you can go to college.