College Suggestions - for research psychology - NOT Premed track

My D25 is looking for the right school that has great access to research specifically in Psychology and/or Statistics. Her career goal currently is to post secondary education and research. Her stats are good (aside from no SAT yet). QPA: 99.8%, 3 APs, will be dual enrolled as a senior in local university, has dance, marching band, winter guard, coaching, leadership roles in student clubs (FCCLA, etc), and tutors.

She is looking for a good environment, with a band/orchestra, good diversity, but also also one that will put her in the right spot to get her masters/phd at a T10 school. We are mostly looking on the east coast/New england, but are open to other suggestions. She really liked Tufts and Brown, but was hoping for somewhere that gives merit aide since she has so much schooling ahead of her.

Any suggestions or places that have a listing of research schools that are feeder schools to masters/phd?

Psychology PhD programs should not cost and should give a stipend.

You should look at University of Rochester for some merit with a strong program.

4 Likes

If your username is your real name you may want to change it to protect your privacy. Here’s how.

2 Likes

Are you willing to share your state of residence as in-state options are often the most affordable options.

Also, although you requested info. on merit aid, check the financial aid calculator to see if you qualify for need based financial aid at each school.

https://psychandneuro.duke.edu/undergraduate/psychology/current-students/undergrad-research

https://catalogs.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/arts-sciences/psychology/psychology-major/

https://psyc.umd.edu/landing/Undergraduate

https://reg.msu.edu/academicprograms/ProgramDetail.aspx?Program=PSYCH_BS1

I can list dozens of schools, but the key is to do research on a few programs in order to refine your search.

All Big Ten Conference schools should have substantial programs for undergraduate research in psychology as well as a broad and deep offering of statistics courses including those designed for research in the humanities.

1 Like

This site might be of interest to you: Baccalaureate origins of doctoral recipients

With it you can see which schools produced the most alums who went on to earn a doctorate in psychology. I usually narrow the years down to 2000-2018 (the last year in this data set).

Looking at the list of schools in the northeast or mid-Atlantic that produce goodly numbers students who go on to earn doctorates in psychology and that give merit aid, I’d take a look at:

  • Brandeis (MA)
  • Smith (MA) - women’s college, part of the consortium with UMass, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, & Hampshire
  • Connecticut College
  • Mount Holyoke (MA) - women’s college, part of the consortium with UMass, Amherst, Smith, and Hampshire
  • Clark (MA)
  • College of the Holy Cross (MA)
  • Fairfield (CT)
  • Trinity (CT)
  • Providence (RI)
  • Hampshire (MA) - part of the same 5-college consortium as Smith & Mount Holyoke
  • Binghamton (NY)
  • U. of Rochester (NY)
  • Syracuse (NY)
  • Howard (D.C.)
  • Bucknell (PA )
  • The College of New Jersey
  • Fordham (NY)
  • American (D.C.)
  • SUNY Geneseo (NY)
  • Loyola Maryland
  • Franklin & Marshall (PA )
  • Skidmore (NY)
  • Lehigh (PA )
  • Bryn Mawr (PA )
  • Ithaca (NY)
  • Lafayette (PA )
  • Gettysburg (PA )

I excluded big state schools, since Tufts & Brown don’t exude big state school vibes to me, but if you want them included, just let me know.

2 Likes

Undergraduate schools which produce the most PhDs in Psychology:

  1. U Michigan

  2. UCLA

  3. UCal-Berkeley

  4. U Texas-Austin

  5. Cornell

  6. CUNY-City College

  7. NYU

  8. U Wisconsin-Madison

  9. CUNY-Brooklyn College

  10. U Illinois

  11. Penn State

  12. U Florida

  13. BYU

  14. Harvard

  15. Rutgers-NB

  16. Michigan State University

  17. U Minnesota

  18. Ohio State

  19. U Penn

  20. U Maryland

  21. Stanford

  22. Brown

  23. UNC-Chapel Hill

  24. CUNY-Queen’s College

  25. Boston University

  26. Yale

  27. U Washington-Seattle

  28. Duke

11 of the 28 universities are Big Ten schools. All offer extensive programs in psychology, psychology research opportunities for undergraduates, and extensive courses in statistics/statistics for research in the humanities. etc.

The University of Washington in Seattle has an incredible program for research & statistics as does the University of Michigan and all other Big Ten universities.

https://washington.edu/students/gencat/program/S/Psychology-262.html

The University of Washington at Seattle, like all or most Big Ten Conference schools, provides undergraduates with:

Undergraduate Research opportunities
Applied Fieldwork
Supervised Teaching opportunities.

Big Ten schools give students the option to earn either a BA or BS in Psychology.

The Penn State BS in Psychology allows undergraduate students to select from among 4 options to better tailor the degree to the student’s career objectives (such as researcher, PhD , etc.). The four basic options under the BS Psychology major are:
Life Sciences; Neuroscience; Business; Quantitative Skills.

If you want to do research, the Big Ten and the Ivy League are the research powerhouses in the US. Lots of funding from both the US Government & from private industry. And lots of opportunity at Big Ten Conference schools for undergraduate research.

4 Likes

Here is a third party list of feeders, adjusted for enrollment size if you look on the right.

If you find a school you like, ask them - where are their students going for PhD.

You might be surprised - some may place at top schools.

Good luck.

Top Feeders to Ph.D. Programs (â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â– )

1 Like

Slight correction: those are the schools which have the highest proportion of their graduates who get PhDs, not those with the largest numbers. I think that @Publisher’s list has the ones with the largest numbers.

@JLKS21S23D25 - I think that @AustenNut’s list is the best if your kid wants to attend a smaller college, while @Publisher’s list has most of the best larger colleges. Between them, it looks like they covered a good list for you to explore.

Her is another list, but I think all the colleges on this list are on the other two lists. I’m only providing it because it is “endorsed” by a psychology organization. It may help you narrow your initial list.

While there are probably plenty of other good programs out there, the lists that you have here provide a good selection of colleges of any size, any region in the country, any settings (rural, urban, suburban and such), private and public, as well as a wide range of acceptance rates.

1 Like

As a clarification, the link that I included listed which schools produced the most alums to earn a doctorate. The schools I listed, however, were not those necessarily ranked highest bar none. I focused on the northeast (based on the inclusion of Brown & Tufts), and because those had been the example schools, I assumed that OP’s family was less interested in big state schools. And again, I was picking schools that offered merit aid. So the LINK has all the info, but I did some curating with respect to the list I shared.

2 Likes

Thank you for the useful clarification!

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.