<p>What are the best schools to do graduate work in comparative psychology? How difficult is it to get into these programs?</p>
<p>There has to be someone out there…</p>
<p>Since you are asking about a PhD, I assume you are in college. I would do the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Ask the faculty member you are conducting research under for their input. They know which schools have strong programs, as opposed to just being “big names.” They might also have contacts within the department or at other schools interested in the same topics you are, and might be able to help you out. </p></li>
<li><p>Take a look at the faculty for your own school and see where they went. Obviously not every school that has prestige will have a good psychology program, so doing it this way might not always give you the results you want. However, it is a good starting off point. It will help you see which school has active faculty in terms of publishing and you might start seeing certain programs coming up more frequently.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>MaceVindaloo thanks</p>
<p>Harvard has Marc Hauser, Yale has Laurie Santos. That exhausts my knowledge of comparative psychologists, unfortunately, but at least gives you two places to aim for! I don’t know anything about programs that are specifically comparative psychology. I suspect you’ll have to apply to some cognitive tracks and some developmental tracks.</p>
<p>anything else?</p>
<p>If you’re talking about what I think you are (studying animal behavior, and sometimes comparing it across species) then I think there are a few people at most psychology programs that do that, to a certain extent, and you have to sniff them out. I don’t think you’ll find any specifically comparative programs but rather people in different subfields that are doing comparative work, especially in cognition.</p>
<p>Here in my department (Columbia) we have a few people doing that. Sarah Woolley does research with songbirds and how they learn to communicate. Herb Terrace does animal cognition, specifically primates (if you’ve ever heard of Nim Chimpsky, he’s the one who did that). I know there are more who do research with animals, they’re just not ringing a bell right now. There are a couple of graduate students who study animal behavior here, too.</p>