buckinghamubadger Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 I am posting this to help people who are either earlier along in the process or perhaps some who are making decisions. Based on the analysis of placement of programs I was considering the NRC rankings are much better indicators of program strength than the USNWR rankings. This said, no rankings are perfect. They are a short cut. I encourage everyone to do their own research on placement, fit, funding and a variety of other factors. This only acts as a starting point. This post hopes to eliminate some of the rankings ambiguity by translating their ranking range into a single ranking. This is done by ranking the programs first by their high S rank and breaking ties by ranking them by their low S rank. Alternatively one could use an average of the two, but I found that too time consuming. Here are the rankings ranges translated into a single rank using that method. 1. Stanford1. Harvard3. Michigan4. NYU4. Penn State6. Rice 7. UCSD8. SUNY Binghamton9. Columbia10. Yale11. WashU 12. Duke13. Princeton14. George Washington15. UC Davis16. UC Berkeley17. Illinois18. Indiana19. Emory20. Texas A&M21. MIT22. Pitt23. SUNY Stony Brook24. Michigan State25. University of Washington26. Florida State27. UNC28. Wisconsin29. Ohio State30. Arizona31. Rochester32. Cornell33. Minnesota34. USC35. UC Riverside36. Chicago37. Missouri38. UCLA39. Vanderbilt40. Brown41. Maryland42. Kentucky43. New Mexico44. Northwestern45. UC Irvine46. Colorado47. Purdue48. Penn49. Texas50. Washington State51. Oregon52. LSU53. Iowa54. Nebraska55. Mississippi56. Rutgers57. Arizona State58. Notre Dame59. Florida Intl. (IR)60. Kansas61. Georgia State62. Wisconsin-Milwaukee63. South Carolina64. Connecticut65. Temple66. Florida 67. Miami68. UMass69. Boston University70. Delaware71. Virginia72. Georgetown73. Syracuse74. Alabama75. Boston College76. UCSB77. Wayne State78. Johns Hopkins79. Tennessee80. SUNY Buffalo81. Howard82. North Texas83. Brandeis84. Texas Tech85. Georgia86. Florida Intl. (Poli Sci)87. Oklahoma88. Western Michigan89. Cincinnati90. Illinois-Chicago91. Missouri-St. Louis92. American93. CUNY94. Northern Illinois95. Hawaii96. Houston97. Southern Illinois98. Houston99. SUNY Albany100. Old Dominion101. Loyola-Chicago102. Claremont103. Nevada104. Catholic University105. University of Dallas toad1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wiesbaden Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 Very interesting and they make me think more about the ranking. Btw, some conventional ranked schools like BC, Syracuse, JH, or Georgetown, relatively got a low-level ranking. Expensive tuition or other factors influence their ranking? I am curious about differences which make the disparity. P.S. Houston mentioned twice I think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckinghamubadger Posted January 19, 2018 Author Share Posted January 19, 2018 My bad, Houston is #96 just ahead of SIU. That means that there is either one program missing or they factored University of New Orleans (the one program that they did not rank) in in some funny way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckinghamubadger Posted January 19, 2018 Author Share Posted January 19, 2018 47 minutes ago, Wiesbaden said: I am curious about differences which make the disparity. US News uses a survey of academics on program reputation. This leads to programs like UCLA, Penn and Northwestern, which have big name professors, to be ranked higher than programs like Washington and Stony Brook which seem to place better. NRC factors in 21 separate measures, presumably uses regression modeling, to come up with their rankings. These include I believe stuff like funding, publications of students and faculty and student outcomes (don't quote me on those exact criteria, but stuff like that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guest56436 Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 NRC would be better if it was more frequent, but it's not frequent enough to be considered accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckinghamubadger Posted January 19, 2018 Author Share Posted January 19, 2018 @Comparativist, to each their own. To me the US News rankings seem somewhat arbitrary, and I'll take infrequent over arbitrary. And every five years or so isn't very frequent either. But I suppose it has it's strong points. It is more frequent which may mean more responsiveness. There could also be something to be said for reputation which likely matters on the job market. Big named professors are great if you can become one of their grad students. I much prefer the NRC. They probably aren't old enough to be completely outdated yet (2010). But like I said earlier, rankings are just a shortcut. Everyone applying should do their own research. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
encyclopediabrown Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 Cool! For various reasons, there's a huge difference between the NRC survey-based rankings you posted here and the NRC regression-based rankings. For what it's worth, the regression-based rankings seem more reflective of the perceived status hierarchy in the discipline, as of the mid-2000s anyway. Of course perceived status != actual training quality. buckinghamubadger 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheldon2017 Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 The following ranking is based on a research conducted by Robert Oprisko in 2013. This study looks at every person listed as assistant, associate, or full professor during the 2012-2013 academic year. It is based on placement record.**This does not take cohort size into account. As such, percentage of students placed isn't represented here. Top Political Science Programs in Placing Ph.D.s in Tenure-Track Jobs at Research Universities Rank (Total) University Total Ph.D. Alumni Placed Total Placements of Assistant Professors 1 Harvard U. 272 46 2 U. of California at Berkeley 216 45 3 U. of Michigan 170 32 4 Yale U. 165 27 5 U. of Chicago 155 21 6 Columbia U. 139 36 7 Stanford U. 137 43 8 Princeton U. 118 26 9 UCLA 100 31 10 MIT 93 11 11 U. of Wisconsin at Madison 93 18 12 U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 91 25 13 Cornell U. 87 24 14 U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities 84 17 15 (tie) Indian U. at Bloomington 74 12 15 (tie) Ohio State U. 74 22 17 U. of Rochester 64 16 18 (tie) Duke U. 61 23 18 (tie) Northwestern U. 61 11 20 Washington U. in St. Louis 56 12 21 U. of California at San Diego 53 25 22 Johns Hopkins U. 52 12 23 (tie) U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 47 12 23 (tie) U. of Texas at Austin 47 15 25 New York U. 42 11 26 (tie) U. of Iowa 41 9 27 Michigan State U. 41 10 28 U. of Virginia 40 7 29 Syracuse U. 39 6 30 Florida State U. 38 17 toad1, devpolicy and audre.bored 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SerenityNow! Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 @Sheldon2017 Those are the rankings I used to determine where to apply. I essentially looked at which schools on this list realistically produce professors and then out of that group selected the ones that best matched my research interests and location preferences. However, I think that each of these rankings hold a different purpose, e.g. if you are after prestige and name recognition than you may find News and World Reports to be most helpful but if your aim is to become a professor than another ranking focused on that may be more useful. I think it is best to be an informed customer and check out all the different rankings and systems and look at the inputs in the different ranking systems but at the end of the day things like department fit, POIs, location, etc... should probably outweigh rankings when determining which program to attend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diter91 Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 2 hours ago, Sheldon2017 said: The following ranking is based on a research conducted by Robert Oprisko in 2013. This study looks at every person listed as assistant, associate, or full professor during the 2012-2013 academic year. It is based on placement record. Top Political Science Programs in Placing Ph.D.s in Tenure-Track Jobs at Research Universities Rank (Total) University Total Ph.D. Alumni Placed Total Placements of Assistant Professors 1 Harvard U. 272 46 2 U. of California at Berkeley 216 45 3 U. of Michigan 170 32 4 Yale U. 165 27 5 U. of Chicago 155 21 6 Columbia U. 139 36 7 Stanford U. 137 43 8 Princeton U. 118 26 9 UCLA 100 31 10 MIT 93 11 11 U. of Wisconsin at Madison 93 18 12 U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 91 25 13 Cornell U. 87 24 14 U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities 84 17 15 (tie) Indian U. at Bloomington 74 12 15 (tie) Ohio State U. 74 22 17 U. of Rochester 64 16 18 (tie) Duke U. 61 23 18 (tie) Northwestern U. 61 11 20 Washington U. in St. Louis 56 12 21 U. of California at San Diego 53 25 22 Johns Hopkins U. 52 12 23 (tie) U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 47 12 23 (tie) U. of Texas at Austin 47 15 25 New York U. 42 11 26 (tie) U. of Iowa 41 9 27 Michigan State U. 41 10 28 U. of Virginia 40 7 29 Syracuse U. 39 6 30 Florida State U. 38 17 Is this placement record based on a particular range of dates (eg 1990-2012) or in each department's entire history? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckinghamubadger Posted January 19, 2018 Author Share Posted January 19, 2018 @diter91, that is the number of professors with PhDs from the program in question currently with TT jobs at R1 Universities. As you point out, there is little control for the date of the appointment or the size of the program. The assistants is meant to control for date of appointment and if you read the article, placement efficiency is meant to control for size. This only includes R1 jobs. I used to be a much bigger fan of the Oprisko et al rankings than I am now for the reasons discussed here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckinghamubadger Posted January 19, 2018 Author Share Posted January 19, 2018 @SerenityNow!, ". I think it is best to be an informed customer and check out all the different rankings and systems and look at the inputs in the different ranking systems but at the end of the day things like department fit, POIs, location, etc... should probably outweigh rankings when determining which program to attend" Absolutely right, the rankings are just a short cut. Everyone needs to do their own research Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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