wanted to know the best college for psychology and law. I have everything handled for the admission process but wanted to know the best colleges to apply for. I aim to be a Criminal/ family lawyer but I am really into psychology as well.
Stanford has been a dream for a long while but wanted to know if it was the best school to go to for that. Yale, Berkeley are also contenders.
I suggest doing a Chance Me /Match Me. Use the “New Thread” option which will prefill the template needed to give you the best feedback.
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All wonderful universities.
How to determine the best??
–The one that accepts you.
–The one that is affordable.
–The one you prefer.
The three universities you noted along with hundreds of other universities can provide a wonderful four year experience and get you where you want to go in life.
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They are all superb in general, and for psychology.
If you attend Stanford for psychology and decide that you want to transfer to a higher ranked school then you will have a problem: There aren’t any.
However, Yale, Stanford, and UC Berkeley are not a good fit for nearly as many students as there are who think that they want to attend these highly ranked universities. Also, psychology is a popular major, and there are very large numbers of universities that are excellent for psychology.
Another problem is that these schools are generally high reaches for very strong students, and out of reach for everyone else. You really cannot assume that you are likely to get accepted to any of them. This assumes that you have not personally won a Nobel Prize and that neither parent is the head of state of a medium sized country.
Psychology is a major where some form of graduate school is likely (whether law school or something else). This has two issues. One is that you need to budget accordingly. For example, a master’s degree is usually not funded. A law degree is similarly usually not funded. Also, if you look at graduate students at highly ranked universities such as Stanford, in most cases you will find that they got their bachelor’s degree at a very wide range of universities.
I did get my master’s degree at Stanford, but in a very different major (a sub-field of applied mathematics). It was a lot of work. I loved it. The other students in the same program had come from a huge range of universities. There was only one case that I knew of where more than one student in the same program had gotten their bachelor’s at the same university, it was probably a coincidence, and it was NOT a “top 50” university. I expect that if you got a master’s at Stanford in psychology, or get a law degree there, you would probably find a similar wide range of universities that students have come from.
My three recommendations are that you look for schools that are a good fit for you, keep your budget in mind, and make sure that you apply to safeties.
If Stanford is your dream, and if you can afford it and then also afford graduate school, then apply. Do not expect to be accepted. Also apply to at least one and preferably at least two safeties.
How familiar are you with the process to be a lawyer in the US? It does not start with the name on top of your undergrad diploma or even your major. It starts with choosing a university that best suits your academic interests, your personal/social interests (urban, suburban, rural, small, medium, large, warm, cold) and your budget because ultimately it will depend on how well you do and how well you test and if you can afford both undergrad and law school.
Stanford and Yale are 2 of the best universities in the world, but they will not have courses in criminal or family law other than as tangents to other courses in political science, history, sociology, maybe others. There are no preset pre-law programs. It is up to you to take courses that will prepare you to read and write well, and to apply critical thinking to various problems and issues.
Then you will need to go to law school. You can go to any college for undergrad, then apply to law schools. There is no undergrad law degree, though. Psychology is a common undergrad major, but will also require grad school if you want to work in the field. So you you need to think a bit more long-term than your choice of undergrad college which, again, can be literally anywhere. However, law school and grad school are expensive so, it it were me, I’d be looking to the least expensive undergrad option in order to save money for law school/grad school. That may not be something you need to consider, depending on your family wealth. If that is the case, great. Then just go somewhere you’ll be happy and work really hard to get into a great law school/grad school. Once you have a law/grad degree, where you went to undergrad will be of very little importance.
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Typically, these are PhD programs. Consider the University of California at Irvine (PhD in Law, Psychology, and Social Behavior).
Otherwise, study psychology at any undergraduate college or university in the US followed by earning a law degree at a law school with well established criminal law and family law clinics.
If you truly want to practice both criminal law and family law, be prepared for very low earnings.
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thank you for the replies.
for the undergrad, I’ve certainly looked at my options and will probably head to the U of A. One of my parents works there so it’s free tuition, I’m able to pay the rest…saving and earning everything for law school as you mentioned.
I grasped the process of becoming a lawyer, and I’m still exploring the idea of which one (what field, clients, interests). Criminal law, family law, and clinical psychology are the areas I want to pursue.
Going to Stanford or any of the top colleges is expensive. For the getting in part though I’m already working on who I am, and what makes me. I do not want to go to any of these colleges for the prestige one gets, but the opportunities it offers me. I am curious about the strongest ones to go to for what I want to do.
About the low wages/earnings part, I’m fine with that mostly. If I can’t pay off my debt then yes it’s a problem but these type of people who help these kinds of problems had a big impact on me during my youth so it’s really a personal choice. Especially psychology.
again thanks for all the feedback.
Alabama? Arizona? Arkansas? Alaska?
I’m assuming that’s your in-state flagship?
Let us know your state, so people can help answer:
So first, definitely watch this:
Whoever wrote that REALLY understood the law profession. Nonetheless, there are definitely some of us lawyers who actually enjoy the profession. But it helps to understand all the pitfalls.
And for sure, Criminal and Family Law are in the “No money, plus it’s a bummer” category. On the plus side, you don’t at all need “top” credentials to go into those fields, just the willingness to work very hard for (very likely) less money than many other sorts of lawyers.
And given that, saving on college, and law school if at all possible, becomes really, really useful (absent your family having enough money it doesn’t matter).
But holding all that aside–if I had an interest in this sort of Psychology, I would not necessarily being choosing a big research university anyway. If it was me, I would be looking at smaller colleges where you can get some really good practical experience, which can also be great for law school purposes.
Like, Vassar has a great Psych department, and hosts the Wimpfheimer Nursery School, which as they note was one of the first lab schools in the US:
https://www.vassar.edu/psychological-science/facilities
Vassar is cool too because they are one of the pioneers in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, so you can take an interest in Psychology in different directions if your interests evolve.
And in fact, not surprisingly Vassar is one of the top few per capita feeders to Psych PhD programs (see right side column):
In fact, Stanford (63) and Yale (61) barely had more PhDs in their data than Vassar (49), which is pretty amazing when you consider that they have like three times as many undergrads (give or take).
That’s just one example, but to me Vassar would be more of a “dream” school for someone with your interests than even those sorts of highly regarded research universities.
But Vassar is also pricey with no merit. But there are so many colleges on, say, that per capita PhD list that do have merit. So if I was looking for an alternative to just a quality, inexpensive public option–which to be sure would be a fine plan too–that is what I would be hunting for.
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Psychology is offered nearly everywhere and tends to be a fairly well funded/popular major. Pre-Law typically is not a major. Many kids who intend to become lawyers major in things like Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology… but you could major in really anything, as long as your studies prepare you for the LSAT.
So you should be able to fashion a robust list of safeties, matches, and reaches that fit what you are looking for in your college experience – vibe, location, setting, curriculum, weather, or whatever else is important to you.
Just make sure that every school to which you apply is affordable (according to you and your family) – because what could be worse than getting into one of these schools, only to find out that you can’t swing it? – and that you apply to at least one or two safeties. And, obviously, be sure that they offer Psychology; but, as noted above, you shouldn’t have much trouble with that.
I have no knowledge of anyone practicing in both of these fields of law (criminal law & family law). However, many criminal defense attorneys do engage in both criminal defense law and immigration law out of necessity.
Sorry, University of Arizona. It’s in state, much cheaper than out.
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The beauty of the American Legal system is that every first year law student slogs through Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Torts, Criminal Law and Procedure, etc. So approach ANY idea of specialization in law school as “I don’t know what I don’t know”. There is zero need to think of yourself as “prelaw”, nor to think that any major is better preparation for a focus on criminal/family law than any other.
Study psychology because you find it fascinating… not because it will give you advanced prep in X w/r/t a legal career.
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Whenever a high school or college student asks me about what it’s like to be a lawyer I send to them that video.
I have no idea what the OPs financial situation is, but Stanford and Yale are expensive as undergrad and law schools. The vast majority of kids I know graduating from LS owe money - in many cases $300k+ just in law school debt. It’s hard to survive and pay off your loans practicing family or criminal law early in your career. So there are plenty of kids who go in well intentioned to practice family/environmental/public interest law and then go work for a big firm antithetical to much of the person’s personal beliefs (eg, defending the polluting company) because of financial realities.
So unless your parents are willing to pay for college and LS, if you really want to practice criminal or family law then be very mindful of costs.
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Yeah, I think to a lot of kids that level of debt is such an abstraction it is hard to process what it really means.
But in practice, for many it ends up meaning you can have only two of: (a) money for rent; (b) a job you don’t hate; and (c) fancy degrees from the most selective schools that will admit you. And they end up de facto choosing (a) and (c) before they really understand that tradeoff, and that is one of the many reasons people exit the profession.
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I used to know someone who got his bachelor’s degree at MIT (I think in math), a law degree from Harvard, and who they got a high paying job at a prestigious high-end law firm in New York City. He hated it. He realized after one week on the job that he hated it.
There was one piece of really good news: He had no debt. His father was a senior partner at a high end NYC law firm and had paid the entire cost in cash. This meant that my friend was able to pivot to a related but somewhat different career which he actually liked.
If he had paid for his law degree with loans, then he would have been stuck in a job that he hated for at least long enough to pay off the debt, which could have been many years.
My first post above was probably not sufficiently focused in the importance of avoiding debt and watching your budget, particularly for someone who is seriously contemplating a graduate degree that is not likely to be funded by anything other than “the bank of mom and dad” or “debt and more debt”.
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Exactly this. Given that OP has not shared any stats or even what year of school they are in, discussing Stanford vs. Yale seems very much to be a cart before the horse situation.
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My only comment is–what took him so long?
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