I know there was a thread on this not to long ago but I cant seem to find it. I am interested in finding a good school to receive a masters degree in excercise phys. I was looking for help from anyone in the know. It does not matter what the location as I am just looking for ideas before I complete my undergraduate degree.
Springfield College in Springfield, MA. Great location, school and program!
Penn State University Park
App State is the way to go. Great school and great running. Often called the Boulder of the east
Uconn just got ranked 1st in kineseology
James Madison University
university of illinois, nau
Ball State University is very good.
All the programs listed are good but when it comes to masters in ex. phys. its not so much the program as the professor that you are applying for. You need to figure out what you are interested in studying/researching and find people who do that kind of research. See where they teach, contact them and apply to that school. You will find that a lot of times even if you have good stats, you might not get in b/c the professor you want to study under might not have a slot for a student (though this is more common with Ph.D. students). Contacting the professor ahead of time will help you to figure out if you have a good chance or not. If you know what kind of research you want to do post it and I might be able to suggest some people for you.
It depends on what area you are interested in. Some programs are strictly Cardiac rehab while others focus on different areas. This should be the main factor in your decision as it can be tough to get a job in this field, you need to know exactly what you want to do. It's probably not as important if you just want to coach, but in that case, I would try to pick up some sort of phys. ed. certification/licensure so that you can get a job teaching while you try to work your way into the coaching arena.
I hear Indiana has a great program, but I'm not sure what areas their focus is in.
Wake Forest.
Where on earth did you find UConn ranked #1?
I followed up on the UConn ranking at The American Academy of Kinesiology site. The ranking is for Ph.D. programs and only 32 schools participated while 37 did not. But the data for the 32 programs that did participate should be of interest to those looking to compare programs. The link to this pdf file is
http://www.aakpe.org/documents/DPE%20results.pdf
Also realize that there are really excellent faculty in biology and physiology departments that are outside of traditional kinesiology programs.