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	41	6%	24% / 76%	17%	$59,965	19	93%	—
2	Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh, PA	3	11%	0% / 100%	0%	$75,137	64	—	—
3	Georgia Tech Atlanta, GA	Atlanta, GA	56	13%	11% / 89%	2%	$81,980	88	96%	—
4	Johns Hopkins Baltimore, MD	Baltimore, MD	47	6%	11% / 89%	4%	$68,207	47	85%	—
5	Princeton Princeton, NJ	Princeton, NJ	50	4%	30% / 70%	12%	$58,396	25	100%	—
6	Stanford Palo Alto, CA	Palo Alto, CA	142	4%	20% / 80%	7%	$71,830	61	—	—
7	U. of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA	La Jolla, CA	98	29%	16% / 84%	10%	$62,452	46	94%	—
8	U. of Rochester Rochester, NY	Rochester, NY	190	42%	20% / 80%	17%	$66,327	43	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	394	9%	23% / 77%	4%	$69,193	67	91%	—
2	U. of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh, PA	545	59%	18% / 82%	5%	$56,909	42	—	—
3	U. of Washington Seattle, WA	Seattle, WA	446	42%	24% / 76%	12%	$51,391	30	100%	—
4	Vanderbilt Nashville, TN	Nashville, TN	25	5%	12% / 88%	8%	$70,659	50	—	—
5	Yale New Haven, CT	New Haven, CT	67	3%	25% / 75%	13%	$62,070	25	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%	34% / 66%	21%	$73,499	60	84%	—
2	Cornell Ithaca, NY	Ithaca, NY	84	8%	18% / 82%	14%	$73,954	59	98%	—
3	Harvard Cambridge, MA	Cambridge, MA	101	4%	33% / 67%	9%	$95,666	90	89%	—
4	Ohio State Columbus, OH	Columbus, OH	605	49%	23% / 77%	5%	$57,734	40	—	—
5	U. of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA	Berkeley, CA	341	11%	21% / 79%	11%	$55,645	42	100%	—
6	U. of Michigan - Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI	Ann Arbor, MI	734	16%	18% / 82%	6%	$63,373	31	95%	—
7	U. of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA	Philadelphia, PA	62	5%	19% / 81%	2%	$64,024	38	94%	—
8	U. of Texas at Austin Austin, TX	Austin, TX	161	22%	14% / 86%	2%	$61,589	51	—	—
9	U. of Virginia Charlottesville, VA	Charlottesville, VA	26	13%	19% / 81%	0%	$66,882	49	—	—

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	56	6%	20% / 80%	14%	$92,721	87	100%	—
2	Northeastern Boston, MA	Boston, MA	166	22%	13% / 87%	9%	$60,092	27	93%	—
3	U. of California, Davis Davis, CA	Davis, CA	903	46%	24% / 76%	10%	$56,813	36	93%	—
4	U. of California, Irvine Irvine, CA	Irvine, CA	713	29%	19% / 81%	7%	$55,294	32	91%	—
5	U. of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA	Santa Barbara, CA	716	38%	22% / 78%	4%	$59,803	45	94%	—
6	Washington University in St Louis Saint Louis, MO	Saint Louis, MO	131	12%	23% / 77%	5%	$78,344	67	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	547	37%	25% / 75%	8%	$60,628	52	100%	—
2	U. of Maryland, College Park College Park, MD	College Park, MD	44	45%	7% / 93%	2%	$61,635	57	—	—
3	Duke Durham, NC	Durham, NC	133	5%	20% / 80%	7%	$58,740	12	91%	—
4	Indiana Bloomington, IN	Bloomington, IN	316	76%	18% / 82%	4%	$47,444	13	91%	—
5	Purdue West Lafayette, IN	West Lafayette, IN	363	43%	20% / 80%	4%	$51,710	34	99%	—
6	U. of Chicago Chicago, IL	Chicago, IL	59	5%	29% / 71%	10%	$84,268	77	95%	—
7	U. of Oregon Eugene, OR	Eugene, OR	411	87%	26% / 74%	0%	$58,630	47	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.