Sociology is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #19 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 15 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Sociology Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 808 bachelor's degrees in sociology to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Sociology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of sociology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to sociology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of sociology students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt sociology 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 sociology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for sociology 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 Sociology 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.
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University of Virginia - Main Campus is a good decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the midsize suburb of Charlottesville, University of Virginia is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those sociology students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Virginia - Main Campus receive $8,988 more than the standard sociology graduate.
It's difficult to beat Virginia Tech if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the small city of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech is a public school with a very large student population.
Soon after graduating, sociology bachelor's recipients generally earn an average of $38,768 in their early careers.
Virginia Commonwealth University is a great decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the medium-sized city of Richmond, VCU is a public university with a very large student population.
Soon after graduation, sociology bachelor's recipients typically make around $32,781 in the first five years of their career.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in sociology has to take a look at George Mason University. GMU is a very large public university located in the large suburb of Fairfax.
Those sociology students who get their bachelor's degree from George Mason University receive $2,118 more than the typical sociology grad.
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).