<p>The number of PhD's produced per student may have NOTHING at all to do with the quality of the undergraduate program. This is another recurring cc myth, usually posted by the same poster on every thread related to undergraduate program quality questions.</p>
<p>The OP has no plans on getting a PhD. He/She plans on going to medical school. It is possible that many of the best and brightest students at the undergraduate level also opt to do something other than get a PhD.</p>
<p>Amen to 1sokkermom's post. The OP is looking at med school which brings us back to the question of whether that is the best major for a prospective med school applicant. It is heard to see the advantage of a psych major for med school unless the department has a strong neuroscience/cognitive science track and there is some interest in this area at the med school level. Obviously there is a need to take the usual math/science courses required for med school admissions which would be courses taken outside the major. At some schools this will not be a problem but at schools with heavy core/distribution requirements this might be a daunting task. Just as an aside: Stanford has a great graduate program in pscyhology, but to label it the best undergrad experience "period" is a bit over the top.</p>
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<p>The number of PhD's produced per student may have NOTHING at all to do with the quality of the undergraduate program.</p>
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<p>There's a lot of truth to this. Note, for example, that St. John's ranks very well despite not having an undergraduate program in psychology at all.</p>
<p>Another confounding factor is that not all PhD programs are created equal. This country is filled with crappy psych PhD programs that are easy to get into and whose graduates are very unlikely to find work in academia. A college that places 5 graduates per decade into the PhD program at Berkeley is likely doing a much better job training its undergrads than one that places 100 graduates into fourth-tier programs. Now, I'm certainly not claiming that schools like Pomona and Swat are generally sending their alumni to those bargain-basement programs by any means ... just that going by numbers alone can be extremely misleading.</p>
<p>Also, even in the schools within the top 5 for producing PhDs in a field, the percentage of your classmates who will get those PhDs will be very small. For example, in this particular ranking, Pomona comes out number one, because given its current enrollment of ~1500, apparently it produces about 7 graduates a year who go on to get psych PhDs. That's out of over 90 psychology majors it graduates each year (and however many students with other majors who pursue grad work in psych). So you're not going to be surrounded by future PhDs in the psych departments at even the highest ranked schools on the list.</p>
<p>In my experience, a huge issue in undergraduate psychology, which prospective physics majors don't have to worry about, is whether the department is considered a "default" or "gut" major at that school. At a lot of schools, students who can't decide what to major in, or who are looking for something they think will be easy, or who cannot hack the math of a science major or the intensive writing of a humanities major, end up in psychology. If you're passionate about the field -- whether you hope to get a PhD someday or not -- it can be very frustrating if 50% of the students in your major classes are there for crummy reasons. A school where 15% or more of the students major in psych should prompt concerned inquiry, not confidence that psych must be awesome there. You don't need to worry about this at a school that has an intensive honors program (like Swarthmore), or where essentially every student at the school is interested in working hard (like UChicago or MIT), or that has a large psych department that, in effect, enables students with different attitudes and aptitudes to elect completely different course schedules as upperclassmen (like Michigan). Otherwise, it's something prospective psych majors should inquire about.</p>
<p>I don't know much about pre-med preparation. Those of you who do--do you think a B.S. in Pyschology would be a better way to go than a B.A. in Psychology? Or would that make little difference?</p>
<p>mol10e- Yes, it is a bit over the top, but Stanford probably does have the best psychology program. There are many opportunities for undergrads to get involved in research (read: be test subjects). That was one of the things I asked about when I visited. </p>
<p>I forgot to mention that UNC Chapel Hill also has a good program.</p>
<p>Hoedown, what I'm saying is based on the experience of my mother, who sat as a faculty member on the admissions committee of a top-20 medical school for several years. She said that while excellence in science courses and high MCAT scores are a pre-requisite for serious consideration, the school got very sick of seeing applicants with NOTHING but pre-med prep -- biology or related major, all electives and activities related to biology or medicine, etc. These applicants were sometimes viewed as "robots" who just lived in the lab and might not be good at relating to patients, written expression, and other non-quantitative skills essential to medicine. The strongest candidates, in her observation, were excellent scientists who had majored in the humanities or social sciences and thus had proven their skills across the board. Her star protege during her professorship was a Linguistics B.A.</p>
<p>So without discounting the importance of a high overall GPA and stellar science GPA, I'd say choose the major and the degree based on your interests.</p>
<p>Pomona has roughly 375 graduating seniors each year. Of these, an average of 6.2% have been Psych majors, or roughly 23 per year over the past six years (admittedly a number that has probably declined from the days when Psych was a "trendy" major in the 70's and 80's)</p>
<p>So an average of 7 out of 23 going on to get a PhD in Psych would indeed a significant number. In fact, it is an astonishing number. It tells you a lot about the Psych department at Pomona.</p>
<p>I'm the OP, and I want to be a psychiatrist. I suppose it would make sense to compare interesteddads numbers to the number of students who go on to med school. I AM passionate about psychology and I want the best damn education I can get. Thanks for all the input.</p>
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I suppose it would make sense to compare interesteddads numbers to the number of students who go on to med school.
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<p>Good luck! Tracking down med school placements has to be done on a school by school basis. In many cases, you could probably have to contact the med school advisor. </p>
<p>Even then, there is no consistency to the numbers from school to school.</p>
<p>Most schools just throw a percentage of students who get accepted to a med school of those who apply. This is sometimes as high as 90% for the top schools, but it's kind of a sketchy number because it doesn't reflect all of the pre-meds who never got as far as applying. For the most part, you don't apply to med school if you can't get in.</p>
<p>It's a hard number to track because grads increasingly don't go to med school immediately following graduation. The trend now is to spend a year or two working in a health related field first.</p>
<p>Just want to toss in two other reference points that might be useful. First, there is a US government site that allows you to see how many students graduated last year in a particular major --- this can be useful to give you a sense of the size of a particular program. However, don't just rely on the raw number, figure out the percentage of grads in the major out of all graduates (also available on the site). The site:
<a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/index.asp%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/index.asp</a></p>
<p>Also, anyone looking for ideas on how to actually LOOK at and compare specific departments may find some information on this site helpful:
<a href="http://www.admissionsadvice.com%5B/url%5D">www.admissionsadvice.com</a>. On June 11 and June 12 I posted two long messages about how to compare specific programs, "How can I determine if a school is strong in a particular department?." I have listed I've found useful for sorting through various options on the site as well. Hope it is helpful!</p>
<p>Psychology is not the same thing everywhere. One must closely examine the departments, the courses, and most importantly the faculty and their interests. Ph.D's in clinical are quite different than the various experimental fields. UChicago for example has no clinical program. Also, many interested in clinical work are earning the psychology professional degree, the Psy.D, which is probably not listed in the Ph.D in psychology stats.</p>
<p>I agree that you have to be careful when considering the rankings.</p>
<p>For anyone looking at psychology and who would consider attending school in the midwest, I am a biology & psychology major at Case Western. I love the psych program here, but since I'm not familiar with psych programs at other schools, I can't really compare them :-)</p>
<p>But anyone with questions can feel free to PM me. 75% of undergraduate students at Case do research (that's the entire undergrad community, I don't have the stats for psych majors, but I do know that there's PLENTY of opportunities). Some awesome research is conducted here, too. We have Joseph Fagan on staff as well as other excellent Ph.D's and I recently met a neurosurgeon at the University Hospitals (on-campus) who was an undergrad at Harvard and did research for BF Skinner (so this is also a plug for Harvard's psych program, which already has a great rep)</p>
<p>I hear Case Western works you like a do though, and that it's not that...well, fun. Is that true?</p>
<p>Harvard does not have a clinical psychology program either. In response to Carolyn's post and link, I think that for psychology the last three items(suggestions) are sufficient for comparing departments, but as I have commented on other posts regarding psychology, the major factors governing admission to graduate school in psychology are research experience (including conference paper presentations and publications), GPA (overall, psych, math/science) and GRE's. It is in the first area that LAC's may have a distinct advantage over research universities in that students tend to be more actively involved in psychology research projects with faculty. While places like Stanford may have very famous folks, the typical undergrad psych major there is not going to get a great deal of their time and attention. To our OP I'm glad you are passionate about psychology but does that mean passionate about the field as a whole or mostly the applied side like clinical psychology. If the latter, than you might look for psych departments which offer clinical experiences in applied settings such as psychiatric hospitals, clinics, etc. Undergrad research experience in psychology, while integral to the field, may not carry much weight in a med school application.</p>
<p>It frankly just isn't that hard to get into medical school these days. Chances are that if you can get into any of the top 100-200 undergraduate schools, you'll get in to med. school. The trick is: 1) not to be weeded out in the process; and 2) to be able to pay for it. Some of the schools with strong reputations for sending large percentages on to med. school (such as JHU for example) may not always be very good choices, as very large number don't even get so far as to apply. They would have been perfectly fine doctors had they gone to do their undergraduate work at a middling state university, finishing near the top of their classes, etc. Those at the top of the class in said Podunk will also likely have more research opportunities (they won't be competing with top graduate students, and are likely to stand out academically), and may enjoy better mentoring.</p>
<p>Last I looked, med school was 11-12 required courses. No majors required. I suggest music or studio art, so that you have something to enjoy and soothe your heart after a long day massaging other people's. Anyhow, as to majors, follow your heart, and don't get too far into debt.</p>
<p>What does "works you like a do" mean? Sorry, I've just never heard it :-)</p>
<p>But yeah, I'm not gonna lie--we do have a heavy workload, and the classes are extremely difficult. But I LOVE all my psychology classes, and the ones I've taken so far are not nearly as difficult as my science classes--I am bio/psych premed so I have a lot of science classes to take.</p>
<p>i meant dog LOL. Hey, your major sounds like the one I want! Well, I'm not sure if I want clinical or psychology in general...I think just the theory and such, I can learn application at med school. Right?</p>
<p>Whoo boy this is complicated.</p>
<p>Hi SpinDoctor!
I love my combination of majors! I came in as a bio major, but after taking some psych courses and loving them I picked up a second major. Plus, it's giving me a taste of neuroscience (which is sounding super-interesting to me right now--soon, I'm going to observe neurosurgery at University Hospitals, I'm so excited!)</p>
<p>Let me know if you have any q's!</p>
<p>SpinDoctor -- I'll weigh in a little bit here. I'm a research psychologist with a PhD on faculty at a university. Many of the posters have given you good information. I would offer the following additional points. A good undergraduate psychology program will provide the basics in human and comparative behavior. What it will provide that is a bit different from a standard science (e.g., biology, chemistry) major is a broader emphasis on research design. A good undergraduate psychology major will require a research methods course (typically 4 hours/credits) and a statistics course. You will likely have only 1-2 "clinical" courses at the undergraduate level -- typically abnormal or psych of adjustment. These are introductory in nature. You would also likely have a neuroscience or biological bases of behavior course. Drugs and behavior would be another course that might be offered.</p>
<p>All of this provides a good complement to your interest in psychiatric medicine. It is my understanding that psych majors are not at all uncommon in medical school cohorts.</p>
<p>If you are at all interested in research, I would recommend looking for good schools that have active researchers in their psychology departments. Many departmental websites will include this information. At the undergraduate level, you will not be able to do testing or have direct contact with clinical patients but you would be able to participate in research and learn a great deal about a host of clinical issues. There are terrific undergraduate programs at LACs and there are also solid programs at universities. Mid-size universities will offer more opportunities for research than large universities but an ambitious, energetic undergraduate can also find good opportunities with the "big dogs" too.</p>
<p>I would suggest looking at the overall school fit (academic strength, size, location, cost, social scene, etc), making a list of 10-12 and then look at the psych departments at those schools. Look more closely at those that appear to have the strongest programs. It is possible that you might decide to change majors and if so, you will want lots of options for other majors that are equally strong.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks so much for that, it's really nice to have an opinion from an adult (a highly educated adult) in the field. </p>
<p>So would I be right to say that undergrad research is important even though I don't want to do research as an MD?</p>