Silicon Valley Overlords
The birthplace of the discipline. These schools essentially built the bridge between the human cortex and artificial intelligence. They treat the mind like a complex algorithmic system. Graduating from here means possessing a golden passport directly into tech product management, AI safety labs, and human-computer interaction startups.
| # ▲ | University | Location | Degrees | Accept | SAT | Male/Female | Intl | Earnings | ROI | Employ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Brown
Providence,
RI
|
Providence, RI | 113 | 6% | 40% / 60% | 9% | $75,208 | 61 | 85% | — |
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| 2 |
Carnegie Mellon
Pittsburgh,
PA
|
Pittsburgh, PA | 9 | 11% | 44% / 56% | 22% | $160,258 | 100 | 100% | — |
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| 3 |
Johns Hopkins
Baltimore,
MD
|
Baltimore, MD | 21 | 6% | 14% / 86% | 5% | $59,258 | 21 | 100% | — |
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| 4 |
MIT
Cambridge,
MA
|
Cambridge, MA | 55 | 5% | 33% / 67% | 5% | $115,069 | 98 | — | — |
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| 5 |
Rice
Houston,
TX
|
Houston, TX | 36 | 8% | 22% / 78% | 8% | $73,278 | 59 | 95% | — |
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| 6 |
U. of California, San Diego
La Jolla,
CA
|
La Jolla, CA | 833 | 29% | 37% / 63% | 11% | $75,735 | 75 | 90% | — |
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High-End Hallucinators
Elite universities with massive endowments where cognitive modeling is treated as a fine art. Expect heavy emphasis on probabilistic neural networks and mathematical logic. You will spend your weekends training algorithms to mimic human bias and trying to figure out why your code hates its parents.
| # ▲ | University | Location | Degrees | Accept | SAT | Male/Female | Intl | Earnings | ROI | Employ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Northwestern
Evanston,
IL
|
Evanston, IL | 30 | 7% | 20% / 80% | 3% | $83,326 | 76 | 94% | — |
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| 2 |
UCLA
Los Angeles,
CA
|
Los Angeles, CA | 307 | 9% | 30% / 70% | 13% | $69,090 | 67 | 95% | — |
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| 3 |
Vanderbilt
Nashville,
TN
|
Nashville, TN | 59 | 5% | 24% / 76% | 25% | $59,354 | 17 | 95% | — |
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| 4 |
Yale
New Haven,
CT
|
New Haven, CT | 66 | 3% | 26% / 74% | 12% | $107,334 | 95 | — | — |
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The Qualia Quibblers
The philosophical capitals of the cognitive science world, now consolidated with elite legacy programs. You will find yourself trapped at a house party listening to someone passionately debate whether a machine can experience the true redness of a tomato. Fortunately, their hard research labs are just as intense as their philosophical crises.
| # ▲ | University | Location | Degrees | Accept | SAT | Male/Female | Intl | Earnings | ROI | Employ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Columbia
New York,
NY
|
New York, NY | 33 | 4% | 30% / 70% | 21% | $101,012 | 92 | — | — |
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| 2 |
Cornell
Ithaca,
NY
|
Ithaca, NY | 8 | 8% | 13% / 88% | 25% | $86,822 | 80 | — | — |
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| 3 |
New York University
New York,
NY
|
New York, NY | 10 | 9% | 50% / 50% | 20% | $82,333 | 79 | — | — |
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| 4 |
U. of California, Berkeley
Berkeley,
CA
|
Berkeley, CA | 280 | 11% | 23% / 77% | 12% | $88,054 | 91 | 97% | — |
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| 5 |
U. of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor,
MI
|
Ann Arbor, MI | 113 | 16% | 31% / 69% | 12% | $76,985 | 67 | 100% | — |
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| 6 |
U. of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia,
PA
|
Philadelphia, PA | 104 | 5% | 32% / 68% | 23% | $108,539 | 96 | 90% | — |
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| 7 |
Tufts
Medford,
MA
|
Medford, MA | 47 | 11% | 32% / 68% | 6% | $120,704 | 98 | 100% | — |
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The Applied Cyborgs
Programs obsessed with the concept of the embodied mind—proving that human thinking isn't just trapped in the skull but integrated with technology. This tier trains you to be the translation layer between software developers and real, flawed human beings. Highly lucrative pipeline into high-end UI/UX architecture.
| # ▲ | University | Location | Degrees | Accept | SAT | Male/Female | Intl | Earnings | ROI | Employ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Dartmouth
Hanover,
NH
|
Hanover, NH | 28 | 6% | 54% / 46% | 7% | $88,181 | 83 | — | — |
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| 2 |
Emory
Atlanta,
GA
|
Atlanta, GA | 8 | 10% | 38% / 63% | 13% | $86,614 | 81 | — | — |
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| 3 |
U. of California, Davis
Davis,
CA
|
Davis, CA | 194 | 46% | 29% / 71% | 8% | $61,086 | 49 | 100% | — |
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| 4 |
U. of California, Irvine
Irvine,
CA
|
Irvine, CA | 36 | 29% | 17% / 83% | 3% | $73,942 | 76 | — | — |
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| 5 |
U. of Southern California
Los Angeles,
CA
|
Los Angeles, CA | 89 | 11% | 36% / 64% | 8% | $80,834 | 74 | 100% | — |
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| 6 |
Washington University in St Louis
Saint Louis,
MO
|
Saint Louis, MO | 104 | 12% | 36% / 64% | 8% | $73,794 | 57 | 100% | — |
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The Academic Anarchists
A consolidated powerhouse tier of interdisciplinary misfits. These programs smashed together ecological psychology, computational physics, and linguistic philosophy because they completely reject traditional department boundaries. Come here if you want to piece together a customized mind-science degree out of spare engineering parts.
| # ▲ | University | Location | Degrees | Accept | SAT | Male/Female | Intl | Earnings | ROI | Employ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
U. of Connecticut
Storrs,
CT
|
Storrs, CT | 26 | 54% | 23% / 77% | 4% | $76,759 | 81 | 100% | — |
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| 2 |
U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Champaign,
IL
|
Champaign, IL | 72 | 37% | 33% / 67% | 4% | $82,890 | 86 | — | — |
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| 3 |
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg,
VA
|
Blacksburg, VA | 176 | 55% | 26% / 74% | 1% | $59,269 | 57 | 100% | — |
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| 4 |
Duke
Durham,
NC
|
Durham, NC | 1 | 5% | 0% / 100% | 0% | $91,567 | 83 | — | — |
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| 5 |
Indiana
Bloomington,
IN
|
Bloomington, IN | 16 | 76% | 44% / 56% | 0% | $69,409 | 69 | — | — |
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| 6 |
U. of Chicago
Chicago,
IL
|
Chicago, IL | 22 | 5% | 41% / 59% | 18% | $89,555 | 83 | — | — |
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