Cheap Grad Schools?

[TheHangover]

I am in the NY Area,NYC Spefically but i am llooking away to get away from the city life and go to a graduate school within social pyschologiy field.But i don't want to break bank,I would prefer to go out of state. Also is there much of a social lifein graduate school im afraid if i go away from NYC i wont have a chance to go out and enjoy life in graduate school.-Thanks

[juilletmercredi]

First of all, PhD programs in social psychology are typically fully funded for five years.  If you get in, you don't have to pay your tuition; the program pays your tuition plus gives you a modest stipend (typically between $20,000 and $35,000 a year, depending on the school and program).  There aren't any master's in social psychology that I know of, and even if I did I would advise against an MA in social psychology as there does not seem to be much use for it.

 

Secondly, one doesn't choose PhD programs geographically unless one has ties to a specific area for pressing reasons (e.g., taking care of sick or elderly relatives).  You pick a PhD program based upon fit - by that I mean, professors who are doing research that is the same or similar to the kind of research you want to do, and who can mentor you in that research area - and you need to be geographically flexible.  That said, "outside of New York" is pretty flexible - but there ARE some good social psychology programs inside of New York (Columbia, NYU, Stony Brook, University of Rochester).

 

Is there a social life?  Well, yes, but it's very different from undergraduate social life and more like a "normal adult" social life.  First of all, there are literally billions of people who live in cities other than NYC and enjoy their lives just fine.  There ARE things to do outside of NYC, even if you go to a small college town like Ann Arbor (where Michigan's top ranked program is) or Urbana-Champaign (where UIUC's great program is).  But many of the top programs in social psychology are in great cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, Palo Alto, the Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Madison, Providence, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville.  Check out the NRC's rankings (http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124708/, includes non-social programs).  Often, however, small college towns have their own character and can have tons of things to do because everything centers around the college/university itself.

 

But like I said, it's very different from the social life in undergrad.  I think I get together with my close friends maybe twice a month to do something fun, and then in between sometimes I grab coffee or lunch with various friends, but I do spend most of my time writing and working.  My first two years I did have a lot of fun, but I also didn't get a lot of sleep.