Arizona State and Other qs

[yikes]

Hi,
I know that choosing a school for a psych program is different than choosing a school for undergrad. You can't just go off big names. That being said, ideally I want to go to a school that has what I want to study and is respected in the field. How can I tell the quality of a school or does it really not matter and I should just go based on professors? For example, how does ASU rate?
Thanks.

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[JockNerd]

(Lacking info, I'm assuming you want a clinical or counseling PhD as I write this)

Match rates are an ok criteria for school quality, find them here: http://www.appic.org/match/5_2_2_match_about_statistics.html

Research productivity rankings are also important, especially if you plan on going into academia. Here's a bunch http://www.socialpsychology.org/clinrank.htm and it's easy to find more like this. I'm not aware of any kind of "grad student productivity index," which would be REALLY useful, however (anyone else know if that exists?)

I'd suggest you not try to apply based on names of schools. Go for profs who are doing research you'd like to be involved in for the next several years. If there are people at Harvard or Stanford doing things you like, then go ahead and apply. If not, I really don't see the reason behind any emphasis on which school you attend. Also, sometimes awesome, productive profs are at lower-ranked and less-productive-on-average schools (and vice versa!!!) so be sure you check out each individual prof.

ASU has a decent match rate for clinical (about 82%), but counseling is getting low (75%). They're not too too far down the list in research productivity (tied at 37 with U Denver).

 

[irish80122]

Using PsychInfo, search for the paper "Research Productivity and Academic Lineage in Clinical Psychology: Who Is Training the Faculty to Do Research." The autors are Kimberlee M. Roy, Michael C. Roberts, and Peter K. Stewart. If you are hoping to go into academics, I believe this is the best rankings out there because it looks at the research productivity of students who have come from those programs and ranks them accordingly. It also is objective, which I like since I believe many rankings are (in my opinion) negatively affected by subjective rankings that are biased by the reputation of the undergraduate program.

What people don't realize is sometimes it is better t0 go to a school that doesn't have as strong of a undergraduate reputation because they may also give graduate students more opportunities. For instance, I am going to a program where I have the opportunity to start teaching in my first semester. However, at my current school, graduate students are not allowed to teach any classes. While the school I am going to hasa lower reputation for undergrad, the opportunities for teaching are far better there than they are at my undergraduate institution. That is just one example, but when you are looking for schools be sure to look at what opportunities graduate students have. If you hope to be a professor in the future, it simply makes sense that you should teach in graduate school!

Good luck and I hope that helps some.

 

[amy203]

This is also a good list, especially if you are interested in research. When choosing schools to apply to, I went through every program on it and checked to see if there was someone doing the research I was interested in.

http://psych.arizona.edu/apcs/members.php

In the end, the reputation and productivity of your potential advisor is far more important than the reputation of school, but these lists can be a good starting point.

 

[Ollie123]

Agreed, grad school is very different from undergrad. Who you work with matters a helluva lot more than anything else.

Rankings aren't bad though since generally speaking, good schools tend to have very productive faculty. The point is that sometimes you will find VERY good faculty at mediocre ranked schools. In most cases I would say that's a better choice than working with mediocre faculty at a great school.