If you pursue a bachelor's degree in general psychology, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #3 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 26 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best General Psychology Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 4,535 bachelor's degrees in general psychology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "General Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "General Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "General Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "General Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "General Psychology (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "General Psychology (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Psychology Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology EdS Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Psychology EdS Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Psychology Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology PhD Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Psychology PhD Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology PsyD Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Psychology PsyD Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Science & Engineering Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BA in Psychology" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BA in Psychology" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Psychology" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MS in Psychology" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Clinical Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Clinical Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Developmental Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Developmental Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Developmental Psychology (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Developmental Psychology (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Applied Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Applied Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Health Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Health Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Health Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Health Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 14
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 12 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 12
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 9 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great General Psychology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of general psychology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality psychology program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to general psychology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general psychology students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt general psychology students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized general psychology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general psychology students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best General Psychology Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "psychology//general-psychology"
University of Virginia - Main Campus is a good choice for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in general psychology. University of Virginia is a very large public university located in the medium-sized suburb of Charlottesville.
Those general psychology students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Virginia - Main Campus make $4,368 more than the typical psychology graduate.
James Madison University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in general psychology. Located in the small city of Harrisonburg, JMU is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduating, psychology bachelor's recipients usually earn an average of $31,734 in their early careers.
It is difficult to beat George Mason University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in general psychology. Located in the suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the general psychology degree program at George Mason University get $4,573 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
William & Mary is a good choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in general psychology. William & Mary is a medium-sized public school located in the small suburb of Williamsburg.
Bachelor's recipients from the general psychology program at William & Mary make $5,065 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the medium-sized city of Newport News, CNU is a public university with a small student population.
Those general psychology students who get their bachelor's degree from Christopher Newport University make $3,275 more than the typical psychology student.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).