Hello,
My son is thinking of doing kinesiology as a major. What colleges offer this in undergrad and how selective is it to get into it? Any insight will be helpful. So far we have only found Columbia and UMich.
First, what does your son want to do with his kinesiology degree? Is it a prePT or OT degree for him? I’ll explain a whole lot more once you answer (trying to save myself some typing).
There are LOTS of schools with fantastic undergrad degrees in Kinesiology and Clinical Exercise Physiology. What is your budget and what state? Are you fine with paying $60K/year at Columbia or would you qualify for need based aid there?
Is your son interested in big state schools, or small liberal arts schools? What aspect of kinesiology is he interested in?
A few programs to look into include those at Iowa State and the University of Minnesota. Iowa State offers 4 specializations: Community and Public Health, Exercise Science, Physical Education Licensure, and Pre-Health Professions.
If he is interested in liberal arts schools, Skidmore College and the University of Puget Sound offer Exercise Science as a major, and Occidental College offers Kinesiology.
University of Wisconsin; one does have to be admitted to the major.
Dear carachel2, you are right, he is thinking he will do PT or sports medicine. WE will need to qualify for need based aid. The biggest drawback for us with Columbia and UMich is that they are both expensive for us.
@firstcoll …ok I was just checking to see where to start.
Sports medicine = pre-med really. He can do that anywhere and he absolutely go with a solid school that is affordable and where he can graduate with a solid GPA and minimal to no debt. Your in-state options are probably best for this. I would imagine most state flagship schools have excellent Clinical Exercise Physiology programs.
PT school entry is competitive and he will need a great GPA as well as lots of shadowing time with a PT I believe.
Have you looked at the net price calculators and figured out your EFC?
Rice
Stay in-state if possible.
U Waterloo in Canada has an excellent program; the cost would likely be less than many out-of-state programs.
What state are you in?
We are in virginia
UVA offers Kinesiology. What are his stats?
Try the supermatch function to the left under find a college.
My oldest D was previously interested in PT (and was a major in integrative physiology). She says in retrospect she would have done a BS/DPT program (if she still wanted to be a PT). You may want to look those up.
In California, kinesiology appears to be more common at moderately selective CSUs, rather than UCs, though some UCs have exercise physiology as a subarea of biology.
If that is similar in other states. So you may want to look at less selective colleges than those typically mentioned here.
If he is leaning more toward DPT you might want to check out schools that have direct entry, Depending on the program he could have his DPT in 5 1/2 years, although 6 or 7 is probably more common.
What are his stats? What can you pay per year?
I am like 95% sure that Columbia University doesn’t have a kinesiology major. There’s no kinesiology major listed on the website, and when I was there I never met a student with a kinesiology major. Teachers College has a couple of exercise science-related graduate programs, but they are all graduate programs. There’s also a DPT program but that’s also graduate-level of course.
in addition to UVa, William & Mary, James Madison, and VCU also have kinesiology majors. Virginia Tech has the major in health, nutrition, food, and exercise (HFNE), and George Mason has a major in rehabilitation science. You have a lot of really great options right in Virginia for this particular area. It’s a much better deal than going to Michigan.
George Mason has the BS Kinesiology, too.
He can always major/minor in biology/physics (or vice versa) if his aptitude is there to maintain a high enough gpa.