Feelings, But With Error Bars

P-Hacking Paranoiacs

Departments so research-obsessed they classify psychology as a hard STEM discipline with the federal government. There are no safe spaces here, only confidence intervals. Expect massive computing clusters, fMRI lab rotations, and a senior thesis that proves your roommate's dating choices are statistically anomalous.

# ▲	University	Location	Degrees	Accept	Male/Female	Intl	Earnings	ROI	Employ
1	Brown Providence, RI	Providence, RI	35	5%	23% / 77%	9%	$62,147	27	93%	—
2	Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh, PA	6	11%	17% / 83%	0%	$89,955	85	—	—
3	Georgia Tech Atlanta, GA	Atlanta, GA	39	13%	15% / 85%	3%	$81,352	88	96%	—
4	Johns Hopkins Baltimore, MD	Baltimore, MD	39	6%	28% / 72%	10%	$71,101	57	85%	—
5	Princeton Princeton, NJ	Princeton, NJ	38	4%	21% / 79%	13%	$61,952	38	100%	—
6	Stanford Palo Alto, CA	Palo Alto, CA	148	4%	18% / 82%	4%	$75,470	70	—	—
7	U. of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA	La Jolla, CA	110	29%	15% / 85%	13%	$70,223	67	94%	—
8	U. of Rochester Rochester, NY	Rochester, NY	154	41%	24% / 76%	24%	$67,923	50	100%	—

Open Science Zealots

Powerhouse programs that survived the replication crisis by treating data pre-registration like holy scripture. They live to debunk bad science, enforce massive sample sizes, and train you to write scripts in R that would make computer science majors sweat. Your thesis will be mathematically bulletproof or it will not exist.

# ▲	University	Location	Degrees	Accept	Male/Female	Intl	Earnings	ROI	Employ
1	UCLA Los Angeles, CA	Los Angeles, CA	420	9%	24% / 76%	1%	$78,384	82	91%	—
2	U. of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh, PA	471	59%	20% / 80%	4%	$54,768	39	—	—
3	U. of Washington Seattle, WA	Seattle, WA	462	42%	24% / 76%	16%	$56,564	48	100%	—
4	Vanderbilt Nashville, TN	Nashville, TN	26	4%	12% / 88%	8%	$65,545	37	—	—
5	Yale New Haven, CT	New Haven, CT	62	4%	32% / 68%	10%	$64,437	34	100%	—

Textbook Authors' Legacy

The historical elite. These departments are the reason your intro textbook is so heavy. Their faculty literally invented the foundational paradigms of modern psychological science. You come here to inherit the prestige, absorb massive endowment funding, and work in labs run by academic royalty.

# ▲	University	Location	Degrees	Accept	Male/Female	Intl	Earnings	ROI	Employ
1	Columbia New York, NY	New York, NY	116	4%	33% / 67%	11%	$80,055	74	84%	—
2	Cornell Ithaca, NY	Ithaca, NY	63	8%	25% / 75%	8%	$77,682	68	98%	—
3	Harvard Cambridge, MA	Cambridge, MA	69	3%	28% / 72%	10%	$102,305	95	89%	—
4	Ohio State Columbus, OH	Columbus, OH	683	49%	22% / 78%	4%	$53,549	30	—	—
5	U. of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA	Berkeley, CA	307	11%	20% / 80%	8%	$63,606	64	100%	—
6	U. of Michigan - Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI	Ann Arbor, MI	646	16%	25% / 75%	5%	$63,419	34	95%	—
7	U. of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA	Philadelphia, PA	62	5%	16% / 84%	10%	$64,586	42	94%	—
8	U. of Texas at Austin Austin, TX	Austin, TX	10	22%	40% / 60%	0%	$57,889	43	—	—
9	U. of Virginia Charlottesville, VA	Charlottesville, VA	4	12%	0% / 100%	0%	$68,328	55	—	—

Rodent Wranglers

The behavioral neuroscience powerhouses where 'research participant' usually means something small, furry, and highly motivated by sugar pellets. Heavy on neurobiology, psychopharmacology, and brain chemistry. Ideal if you want a research career where your lab partners never complain or try to talk to you about their weekend.

# ▲	University	Location	Degrees	Accept	Male/Female	Intl	Earnings	ROI	Employ
1	Dartmouth Hanover, NH	Hanover, NH	60	6%	18% / 82%	8%	$97,357	91	100%	—
2	Northeastern Boston, MA	Boston, MA	161	24%	25% / 75%	13%	$64,262	42	93%	—
3	U. of California, Davis Davis, CA	Davis, CA	875	44%	22% / 78%	11%	$62,401	55	93%	—
4	U. of California, Irvine Irvine, CA	Irvine, CA	548	29%	20% / 80%	3%	$62,639	55	91%	—
5	U. of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA	Santa Barbara, CA	661	38%	23% / 77%	4%	$66,321	63	94%	—
6	Washington University in St Louis Saint Louis, MO	Saint Louis, MO	131	12%	21% / 79%	2%	$73,507	58	100%	—

The Power-Analysis Cartel

A consolidated force of massive flagship programs and elite methods hubs. They excel at leveraging colossal undergraduate subject pools (courtesy of forcing thousands of Intro to Psych students to take surveys) to generate massive, high-powered datasets. Nobody here skims the methods section, and they will know if you did.

# ▲	University	Location	Degrees	Accept	Male/Female	Intl	Earnings	ROI	Employ
1	U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL	Champaign, IL	601	37%	27% / 73%	9%	$58,965	50	100%	—
2	U. of Maryland, College Park College Park, MD	College Park, MD	33	45%	18% / 82%	0%	$62,977	62	—	—
3	Duke Durham, NC	Durham, NC	113	5%	18% / 82%	4%	$57,071	11	91%	—
4	Indiana Bloomington, IN	Bloomington, IN	344	76%	21% / 79%	6%	$45,718	12	91%	—
5	Purdue West Lafayette, IN	West Lafayette, IN	375	43%	23% / 77%	7%	$49,575	31	99%	—
6	U. of Chicago Chicago, IL	Chicago, IL	62	5%	27% / 73%	10%	$84,957	79	95%	—
7	U. of Oregon Eugene, OR	Eugene, OR	351	78%	24% / 76%	1%	$61,010	56	100%	—

Under-the-Radar Lab Rats

Programs specializing in the 'sleeper effect'—you won't realize how elite they are until you're looking at your grad school acceptance letters. They skip the massive bureaucratic admissions bloodbaths of Tier 1 but offer identical, high-intensity laboratory access and publication opportunities to undergrads.