Latest NRC Ranking on Linguistic Programs

[Nel]

The latest NRC Ranking on Linguistic programs is just out today. Instead of having a definite hierarchy, NRC has chosen to give ranks in terms of range. Nonetheless, we can still satisfy our urge to rank stuff using PhDs.org (link: http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/linguistics) which utilizes the NRC data but customizes the criterions we deem important. By placing importance to only the NRC Quality measure (equal weighting of extremely important to both regression-based and survey based quality score), Research Productivity (all criterions included as extremely important) and Student Outcome (only placement rate and overall support & outcome as extremely important), the list below ranks the top 11 Linguistic Ph.D. program (just because there were 2 equally ranked universities in the 10th position) in the U.S. (with the range in front and the relevant department behind).

1-1 John Hopkins University (Cognitive Science)

2-2 University of California-Los Angeles (Applied Linguistics)

3-9 University of Massachusetts Amherst (Linguistics)

3-9 University of Pennsylvania (Linguistics)

3-10 University of California-Berkeley (Linguistics)

3-12 University of Maryland-College Park (Linguistics)

3-13 University of Chicago (Linguistics)

4-14 Stanford University (Linguistics)

5-15 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Linguistics)

5-16 San Diego State University (Language and Communicative Disorder)

5-16 University of California-San Diego (Language and Communicative Disorder)

Feel free to comment if this runs counter-intuitive to your own perception, or if you think this is a good ranking of the current status of Linguistics Ph.D. programs in the U.S.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Nel

[alinguist]

The latest NRC Ranking on Linguistic programs is just out today. Instead of having a definite hierarchy, NRC has chosen to give ranks in terms of range. Nonetheless, we can still satisfy our urge to rank stuff using PhDs.org (link: http://graduate-scho...ngs/linguistics) which utilizes the NRC data but customizes the criterions we deem important. By placing importance to only the NRC Quality measure (equal weighting of extremely important to both regression-based and survey based quality score), Research Productivity (all criterions included as extremely important) and Student Outcome (only placement rate and overall support & outcome as extremely important), the list below ranks the top 11 Linguistic Ph.D. program (just because there were 2 equally ranked universities in the 10th position) in the U.S. (with the range in front and the relevant department behind).

1-1 John Hopkins University (Cognitive Science)

2-2 University of California-Los Angeles (Applied Linguistics)

3-9 University of Massachusetts Amherst (Linguistics)

3-9 University of Pennsylvania (Linguistics)

3-10 University of California-Berkeley (Linguistics)

3-12 University of Maryland-College Park (Linguistics)

3-13 University of Chicago (Linguistics)

4-14 Stanford University (Linguistics)

5-15 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Linguistics)

5-16 San Diego State University (Language and Communicative Disorder)

5-16 University of California-San Diego (Language and Communicative Disorder)

Feel free to comment if this runs counter-intuitive to your own perception, or if you think this is a good ranking of the current status of Linguistics Ph.D. programs in the U.S.

It looks like you got this from the Chronicle's little application thing, which there are some problems with. For example, they clearly mixed up Applied Linguistics and Linguistics at UCLA. Also you're only reporting one statistic, the "S" measure. For the "R" (reputation) measure, Hopkins, MIT, and Chicago are tied for #1.

Edited September 28, 2010 by alinguist

[Nel]

It looks like you got this from the Chronicle's little application thing, which there are some problems with. For example, they clearly mixed up Applied Linguistics and Linguistics at UCLA. Also you're only reporting one statistic, the "S" measure. For the "R" (reputation) measure, Hopkins, MIT, and Chicago are tied for #1.

The ranking generated is from PhDs.org, which takes its raw data directly from the NRC 2005-2006 survey. PhDs.org does not belong to the Chronicle, but was originally created by a maths professor @ Dartmouth on a Sloan Foundation Grant. It has been around since the last NRC report. As the current 2010 NRC report do not put out rankings, they subcontracted the ranking work to phds.org to do the number crunching based on their data.

The list above is tabulated based on said criterions in my initial post.

There is no mix up with Applied Linguistics and Linguistics at UCLA, Both departments exist in UCLA. The Linguistics Department @ UCLA has been ranked 15-25 based on my selected criterions.

"R" measure does not mean "reputation" but regression-based quality score based on 20 program variables. Similar "S" measure is the survey-based quality score, based off the same 20 program variables. Both measures only defer in the methodology used to determine weights of the 20 variables. Also, I did not report on only the "S" measure, but have placed equal weighting to both "S" and "R" measure as being extremely important, as well as research productivity and student outcomes, in generating the ranking.

But you are right in saying that if we were to only use the "R" measure (regression-based quality score), and ignoring other criterions such as the survey-based quality score, research productivity, student outcome etc., Hopkins, MIT and Chicago are tied for #1. A more detailed explication would be (1-14) Chicago, (1-17) MIT, (1-19) Hopkins, in that order. We can still discriminate a precise ranking if we also take into consideration the lower range.

However, I still think my tabulation based on additional relevant criterions such as the "S" measure, research productivity and student outcome etc. reflects a more accurate picture of the latest NRC ranking.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Nel