Top Psychology Schools in the US

For a large share of jobs today, a graduate degree is no longer optional. If you're aiming at a psychology career, the undergraduate program you pick shapes how ready you'll be for that next step. What follows is my own ranking of the strongest psychology programs in America, judged mainly on the quality of their coursework and how well they set students up for graduate study.

Stanford lands at the top. Its psychology department carries an award-winning faculty, and the coursework stays centered on how and why people behave the way they do. Undergraduates join a wide range of research projects, and they can also pitch and build their own. The department lets you shape a course of study around whatever specialty pulls at you, and there's a coterminal option that lets qualified students walk away with an advanced psychology degree. That combination is why I put it first.

Harvard comes next, and much of the reason is who has taught there. Names like B.F. Skinner, George Miller, and Jerome Bruner passed through this department, and the research models they built are now standard reading in classrooms everywhere. Students choose among several tracks: general studies, a mind, brain, and behavior path, a social and cognitive neuroscience route, and others. Those who continue on can move into the graduate program and work on research that pushes the field forward.

The University of Michigan offers three distinct majors: brain, behavior and cognitive science; psychology; and neuroscience. Having that split lets students match their studies to where they want to end up. The general psychology track leans on classroom-based research to teach the broad principles of behavior and covers most of the major subfields. Standout students can apply to an honors program.

At Yale the department counts a long list of accomplished PhDs among its faculty. Majors complete twelve psychology courses plus a senior project, and that project is where everything comes together: students take all they've learned and apply it to some corner of psychology they care about. Course offerings run across the whole field, from behavior to the scientific side to research methods, and students have access to supporting texts and research work.

The University of Chicago builds its program on a base of scientific, systematic knowledge, the idea being that a solid foundation carries graduates further. Requirements include a stack of specialized psychology courses, two statistics courses, and taking part in a research project, along with coursework across the core areas. There's an honors program and a local chapter of Psi Chi that opens up extra opportunities. The department's professors hold doctorates, some of them two, and many have published widely.

The University of California, Berkeley spreads its attention across the entire field. You can dig into genetics and environment, child development, behavior, mental disorders, or social psychology. Faculty here include published authors and award-winning researchers. The curriculum is built to give majors a broad grounding, with research openings, specialized projects, and events tied to the discipline.

Much of Princeton's faculty earned their doctorates at top Ivy League institutions, and each professor stays actively involved in research tied to their own interests. Undergraduates have to clear their freshman and sophomore years first; once certain prerequisites are done, sophomores can apply to take psychology-concentration classes before full admission to the department. Majors write two papers during their junior year, take part in a research project or substantial analytical writing, and finish nine advanced psychology courses following the department's distribution guidelines, so that everyone comes out with broad coverage.

UCLA keeps its focus on the scientific study of psychology's many angles, aiming to give students a full view of the field. There are three separate undergraduate tracks: psychology, cognitive science, and psychobiology, which lets students bend the degree toward their own interests. Related minors are available as well. Students can join existing research or start and run projects of their own, and some get their work published in a book.

Cornell asks students to first clear three prerequisite psychology courses with at least a C+ before they're admitted to the program. Requirements include forty psychology credits, statistics coursework with demonstrated competence, and the option of fieldwork. Everyone takes one course each in cognition; behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience; and social psychology. From there, students can follow a social psychology track or a biopsychology one.

MIT rounds out the list, and its focus on advanced technology to answer long-standing questions about the mind makes the program both unusual and interesting. It isn't the first school most people picture when they think of psychology, given its reputation in engineering and the hard sciences, but the program ranks among the best anywhere. Students who want a strong scientific grounding and a look at the newest methods will get a lot out of it. The program examines a wide spread of mental phenomena, and graduates come out capable across every part of the field.

One last thing: this ranking is just my opinion. Do your own digging before you decide which psychology school fits you.