Want to earn a graduate degree in psychology from a top-ranked school or university? Psychology is a very popular area of study in the U.S. and nearly every university will offer a degree in psychology or at least offer some psychology courses.
Many graduate schools in the United States offer programs in psychology, which may feature one of several specialty areas, such as cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, experimental psychology or social psychology.
Start the search for your future education right away! Scroll down for a full guide to know about the best Psychology Graduate Schools in the U.S. Good luck!!
Table of Contents
Stanford University
The Department of Psychology at Stanford University is devoted to training scientists who will work to advance theory and to create knowledge that helps us address real-world problems. The department is ranked as one of the top psychology programs in the nation and has been a leading psychology department among American universities for decades. The Department seeks applicants from all races and ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, and religions. Within the Psychology Department, their efforts to promote diversity are led by their Diversity Committee, a group of graduate students and faculty who coordinate and oversee continuing efforts to build their community.
Rank: 1st
Score: 4.8
Tuition & Fees: $16,329
Adm. Office Contact: 1 (650)-497-0774, psych-admissions@stanford.edu
Website: https://psychology.stanford.edu
University of California—Berkeley
The Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley reflects the diversity of our discipline’s mission covering six key areas of research: Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience, Cognition, Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Science, Developmental, and Social-Personality Psychology. The goal of the graduate program in Psychology at Berkeley is to produce scholar-researchers with sufficient breadth to retain perspective in the field of psychology and sufficient depth to permit successful independent and significant research. Students are also encouraged to take courses outside of the Psychology Department, using the unique faculty strengths found on the Berkeley campus to enrich their graduate training.
Rank: 1st tie
Score: 4.8
Tuition & Fees: In-Campus: $14,194 and Off-Campus: $14,194
Adm. Office Contact: 510-642-5292, psychgradadmissions@berkeley.edu
Website: https://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/graduate-program
Harvard University
Graduate study in the Department of Psychology is organized into four areas: clinical science, developmental, social psychology, and cognition, brain, and behavior. These areas consist of faculty members whose combined interests span a coherent program of advanced study and research in some subfield of psychology. Faculties in the Department of Psychology have a wide range of interests, and the themes of their research often span the boundaries of traditional areas in the field. Individual faculty and graduate students are encouraged to participate in more than one group.
Rank: 3rd
Score: 4.7
Tuition & Fees: Academic Year: $51,232 and Per Term: $25,616
Adm. Office Contact: 617-495-3810, psyinfo@wjh.harvard.edu.
Website: https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-of-study/all/psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
UCLA’s Graduate Program in Psychology offers the following degree(s): Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and Masters available on the Doctoral track. The UCLA Psychology Department offers graduate Ph.D. training (there is no separate M.A. program or Psy.D. program offered) with area emphases in Behavioral Neuroscience, Clinical, Cognitive, Developmental, Health Psychology, Learning and Behavior, Quantitative, and Social Psychology. The program is designed to prepare psychologists to function effectively as researchers, college and university instructors, and professional research psychologists.
Rank: 4th
Score: 4.7
Tuition & Fees:
Adm. Office Contact: (310) 825-2617, gradadm@psych.ucla.edu
Website: https://www.psych.ucla.edu
University of Michigan- Ann Arbor
The Department of Psychology is consistently ranked as a top department in the nation because of the excellence of their faculty, students, and programs. Their undergraduate and graduate programs are recognized for pioneering contributions in classroom and research education, as well as innovative experiential learning. The department has been recognized for decades as one of the most distinguished and productive departments of psychology in the world. The Department offers a Ph.D. program in six areas of psychology. Students may prepare for careers in both academic and applied settings—for positions in colleges and universities, in governmental agencies, in industrial plants and unions, in research organizations, in clinics, and in schools. Psychology department faculty members are very accessible to students and research opportunities are available in a wide variety of labs and projects. The department offers a financial package that funds the five years that a student is in the graduate program.
Rank: 5th
Score: 4.7
Tuition & Fees: Varies
Adm. Office Contact: psych.saa@umich.edu.
Website: https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/graduates.html
Yale University
At the Psychology Department of Yale University, a primary objective of their graduate program is to encourage research that follows from an understanding of the substantive and methodological bases of scientific psychology as well as from other social and biological sciences. They encourage students to appreciate the multiple historical and theoretical contexts from which the field has emerged and to create an environment that facilitates student and faculty interest and participation in research activities. The Psychology Department organizes itself into five programs (Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Neuroscience, and Social/Personality Psychology) representing the major substantive domains of psychology at Yale. Graduate students in good standing in the Ph.D. program receive tuition and stipend (including summer funding) for up to five years.
Rank: 6th
Score: 4.7
Tuition & Fees: $49,550
Adm. Office Contact: Phone: 203-432-4500, FAX: 203-432-7172
Website: https://psychology.yale.edu/graduate
University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign
The Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a long-standing reputation for excellence. The Department is composed of nine substantive program areas, with each faculty person participating in one or more areas. The Department provides financial support for at least six years to all continuing students in the doctoral program who are “in good standing,” even though students often complete the doctoral degree in 4-5 years. This support is typically in the form of an academic year (9-month) 50%-time research or teaching assistantship, traineeship, or fellowship. Students receive a stipend for the nine-month appointment, and tuition and service fee waiver.
Rank: 7th
Score: 4.5
Tuition & Fees: In-state: $15,868 Out-of-state: $31,988
Adm. Office Contact: psych-gradstdy@illinois.edu
Website: http://www.psychology.illinois.edu/graduate/
Princeton University
Graduate work in the Department of Psychology is designed to prepare students for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and a career of productive scholarship in psychological science. The program offers specialization in diverse areas, including behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, language, learning and memory, perception and cognition, the psychology of inequality, social neuroscience, social psychology, and systems neuroscience. The program is designed to prepare students for attaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and a career of productive scholarship in psychology.
Rank: 8th
Score: 4.4
Tuition & Fees: $49,892
Adm. Office Contact: psych@princeton.edu
Website: https://gradschool.princeton.edu/academics/fields-study/psychology
University of Minnesota
The Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota is one of the most respected and innovative psychology departments in the United States. Their graduate programs in clinical and industrial/organizational psychology are exemplary, with rankings consistently in the top 10 in the US. They are the largest department in the College of Liberal Arts by majors–nearly 1,500 undergraduates–and one of the top two by faculty, at 45 full-time members. Their Ph.D. program is consistently ranked among the top ten Ph.D. training programs in the nation and throughout the world.
Rank: 9th
Score: 4.4
Tuition & Fees: Varies
Adm. Office Contact: psych@umn.edu, 612-625-2818
Website: https://cla.umn.edu/psychology/graduate
University of Pennsylvania
Graduate study in Psychology at Penn emphasizes scholarship and research accomplishment. The first-year program is divided between courses that introduce various areas of psychology and a focused research experience. The Graduate Group in Psychology is highly distinguished and represents a broad range of work in psychology and includes an APA-approved clinical program. The Psychology Graduate Group offers a full-time Ph.D. program with curricular and research opportunities in a broad range of areas, including sensation and perception, cognition, language, learning, motivation, motor control, psychopathology, judgments and decisions, and social processes. Psychology graduate students also participate in several NIH and NSF sponsored training programs, including those in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, computational neuroscience, language and communication science, complex scene perception, and visual science.
Rank: 10
Score: 4.4
Tuition & Fees: $37,134
Adm. Office Contact: (215) 898-7300, web@psych.upenn.edu
Website: https://psychology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate
