Instead of Graduate Program "Rankings"

[StrangeLight]

i mentioned this in another thread, but thought it merited its own topic. a lot of people on thegradcafe seem to be pretty consumed with graduate program rankings. i think the prestige or national recognition of a given graduate program is important to our future career prospects, but i firmly believe that the US news and world rankings system (which is what most people are referring to when they mention "top 10 in my subfield") is deeply flawed. the rankings are built upon the opinions of other historians, but those historians are ranking all subfields and usually only have a real knowledge of the movers and shakers in their own subfields. as a result, the big name schools tend to make it into the top 10 by default because profs will just say, "penn's a great school, they must have a strong african history program."

the US department of education hands out lots of funding to different schools and designates them as national resource centers for given geographical regions. schools have to apply for this designation and funding and they go up for review every 3 years, so the centers are usually located at the schools with the strongest area studies programs in whatever region for which they receive funding. the schools that become national resource centers are usually (but not always) the schools that receive title VI funding and the ability to grant FLAS fellowships to graduate students.

so, while the NRC and FLAS designations are built around "area studies" programs and not necessarily "history" programs alone, i think they provide a pretty strong indication (at least stronger than the US news and world rankings) of which school is strong in which geographical focus.

so, for the rankings obsessed, here is the funding situation for 2010-2013: (schools with slashes means they're in consortium, which means they're splitting the funding)

africa: boston university, harvard, indiana, michigan state, ohio, UC berkeley, florida, kansas, UNC, penn/bryn mawr/haverford/swarthmore (undergrad only), wisconsin, yale.

canada: maine/SUNY plattsburgh, washington/western washington.

east asia: columbia, cornell, duke, georgetown, harvard, ohio state, stanford, UC berkeley, hawaii, illinois/indiana, kansas, michigan, oregon, southern california/UCLA, virginia, washington, wisconsin, yale (no FLAS), michigan state, colorado (no NRC), utah, penn.

international: columbia, duke, indiana, michigan state, penn state (no FLAS), illinois, kansas (no NRC, undergrad only), minnesota, UNC, pittsburgh, wisconsin, washu.

latin america: columbia/NYU, florida international/miami (no FLAS), indiana, ohio state, stanford, tulane, arizona, UCLA, UC berkeley, florida, illinois/chicago, kansas, michigan, new mexico, UNC/duke, pittsburgh, texas-austin (no NRC), wisconsin madison/wisconsin milwaukee, vanderbilt, yale (no FLAS).

middle east: arizona (undergrad only), UC berkeley, columbia, george washington (no FLAS), georgetown, harvard, indiana (middle east), NYU, ohio state (undergrad only), princeton, UCLA, chicago, michigan, UNC/duke, penn, texas-austin, washington, yale, indiana (islamic studies, no NRC), portland state.

russia/eastern europe/eurasia: columbia (no NRC), duke/UNC (undergrad only for duke), georgetown, harvard, indiana (inner asian and uralic), indiana (russia and east european), ohio state, stanford, UC berkeley, chicago, illinois, kansas, michigan, pittsburgh, washington, wisconsin.

south asia: columbia, cornell/syracuse, UC berkeley, chicago, michigan, penn, texas-austin, wisconsin, washington.

southeast asia: cornell, northern illinois, UC berkeley/UCLA, hawaii (pacific islands, no FLAS), hawaii (southeast asia), michigan, wisconsin, washington.

western europe/europe: cornell (no NRC), UC berkeley (no FLAS), UCLA, forida, illinois, minnesota, UNC, texas, washu, wisconsin, yale.

[a piece of bread]

It is pretty good that you made a list of which school is strong in which area. People's main concern while thinking of applying to top schools, I think, is a higher chance in job market they will get when they receive their PhD's. I don't say this is a good reason, but still understandable because employers (universities, institutions or NGO's) do care where you got your PhD. In Turkey, for instance, if you hold a PhD degree from an American university, whatever its name is, you are one step ahead of someone having a Turkish PhD.

We all have many concerns out of academia. But it is my opinion that science should be done for its own sake. I am aware of the impossibility of what I say though After all I agree with you that we should look for the best fit with our research interests, not for top-10 schools.

By the way, why did you include Portland State in ME?

[StrangeLight]

ummm...

all i did was list every school that has been made a national resource center by the US department of education. i didn't compile the list myself. these are the schools (the ONLY schools, not just my selection or anything) that are funded by the US government as designated national resource centers.

portland state is on the list because they have title VI designation with the department of education. i didn't choose to include it, i included every school that has an NRC designation. every three years, virtually every school submits an application to the department of education to receive this designation. these are the places that currently hold NRCs for each subregion.

does that not make sense?

my point about the job market is this: people who are already in academia know which programs are strong in which historical areas. those strong programs rarely coincide with the non-academia "rankings" of "top 10" schools. princeton, for example, is highly ranked by US news and world rankings in many subfields but they only hold title VI funding for middle eastern history, meaning that their efforts to acquire this designation in other subfields failed to all the other schools listed. get it? who does or does not get title VI funding is a better indication of which programs are actually RECOGNIZED, CURRENTLY, as being the best of that particular focus, within academia. and it's other academics that ultimately hire you, so coming from a program THEY recognize to be strong (rather than one that sounds good to non-academics) is what ultimately matters.

my point isn't that we should look for fit instead of top 10 schools. it's that "top 10 school" is meaningless because those rankings are based on nothing, and a stronger indication, a better ranking system, would be to follow the national resource center designations. THESE are the places that employers want you to get your degree from (if you stay in academia), NOT the usual "top 10 lists" that are based on imprecise surveys. the competition for NRC designation is long and detailed and a greater measure of the strength of a given school's program and reputation.

Edited January 3, 2011 by StrangeLight

[natsteel]

my point isn't that we should look for fit instead of top 10 schools. it's that "top 10 school" is meaningless because those rankings are based on nothing, and a stronger indication, a better ranking system, would be to follow the national resource center designations. THESE are the places that employers want you to get your degree from (if you stay in academia), NOT the usual "top 10 lists" that are based on imprecise surveys. the competition for NRC designation is long and detailed and a greater measure of the strength of a given school's program and reputation.

I understand your point, StrangeLight, but allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment...

In my experience in multiple history departments at a large public university, I would estimate that over 90% of the professors in those departments have degrees from what would traditionally be considered Top 10 programs regardless of sub-field (i.e., US News). As much as we want to think the quality of a program matters more than the reputation of the university, my experience doesn't bear that out. Search committees seem to continue to be impressed by "the big names" and, since most committees are not made up of all specialists in a specific sub-field, I would guess many members do not have the kind of in-depth knowledge of the subtleties of individual programs needed to make some of the distinctions that you are making. Granted, the information you are using is widely available, but I wonder how many members of a search committee hiring someone outside their field or sub-field could be bothered to search it out.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying it's right, and I am also definitely not suggesting one forsake fit over name. But, as it appears to me and as my mentors have told me, "The big names still carry a lot of weight when looking for a job."

Edited January 3, 2011 by natsteel

[pudewen]

The other problem with StrangeLight's post is that the "national resource center" lists are no more right about which programs are best than simply looking at the US News top 10 would be, at least for the field that I'm familiar with. It's ironic that you bring up Princeton, which, for East Asia (my area) is certainly (I doubt you could find a single East Asian historian who would say otherwise) better for East Asia than several schools on the list you posted (as are UCSD and Johns Hopkins and probably more that I'm not thinking of) - Kansas, for instance, immediately jumps out as not belonging in the same league. My assumption is that the schools that are picked are chosen not simply because they are the best, but in order to spread out resources to different parts of the country and to try to ensure that the program as a whole funds schools in as many different states as possible (for political reasons), which is not really a relevant consideration for someone looking for the best programs nationwide in their area of study.

Edited January 3, 2011 by pudewen

[sankd]

Yeah, this list - which I have seen before - is really no good for choosing a graduate program. At most it is a nice indicator of funding for area studies or languages, but from personal experience it is no guarantee that you will find a professor at the university in history that you can work with.

Frankly, the poor methodology of the US News Rankings ends up working towards the truth stated above:

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying it's right, and I am also definitely not suggesting one forsake fit over name. But, as it appears to me and as my mentors have told me, "The big names still carry a lot of weight when looking for a job."

The rankings perpetuate this being based on program perception rather than quantifiable reality. So in order to get a good shot at a Research I, make sure you go to a program with a big name. It helps, sadly.

[EricaMarie]

I understand your point, StrangeLight, but allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment...

In my experience in multiple history departments at a large public university, I would estimate that over 90% of the professors in those departments have degrees from what would traditionally be considered Top 10 programs regardless of sub-field (i.e., US News).

"

This.

It's actually why I changed where I was applying in some cases. A professor at my school warned me that a majority of college professors got their degrees from a handful of schools, most of them "top-10." He worried that I wouldn't be able to get a job once I finished my Ph.D. and persuaded me to apply to schools like UPenn, Yale, and Johns Hopkins, as well as state schools like UConn and CUNY.

Whether we like it or not, the name on our degree makes a difference.

[BadgerHopeful]

Quite right. Whether it's fair or not, the "rank" or "prestige" (however erroneous those terms may be) of your program matters when it comes to the hiring process. If two otherwise equal candidates apply for an open position (similarly impressive references, writing samples, publications, conferences, etc.), the applicant from the top 20 program will be given an advantage over he who isn't.

[StrangeLight]

all fair points.

i will say, though, that search committees most definitely have people who specialize in that field on them, unless the program is so small that they're looking to hire the first faculty member in a given subfield. between last year and this year, my grad program has conducted 5 job searches for new faculty (not to replace retiring faculty, just to expand the department) and in every case, of the 5 committee members, at least 2 are from that particular subfield and the others defer to those two on their recommendations of which programs are or are not strong. so, absolutely, unless you're applying to a tiny college, your search committee will have a few members in your area of expertise and they will be familiar with your advisor, your LOR writers, and the quality of your graduate program.

more than the "top 10" OR national recognition, your job prospects depend directly upon the reputation of your advisor and that person's networks and contacts at other schools. the big name professor is not always at the big name school, and occasionally for certain subfields you'll look at the top 10 schools and realize that few of them employ the established heavyweight OR the up-and-coming superstar in your field. being X's student is more important than getting your degree from school Y. promise. and if you're a few years into teaching and you've already published, the reception of your work counts more than the rest. now, granted, a prestigious university might help you get published with a top publisher, but a big-name advisor would probably help more.

also, one of the reasons princeton might not have funding or designation as an NRC for east asian studies is because their faculty is too specialized within east asia or there's a gap. my own school lost their VI funding for western europe last year because they didn't have someone who covered medieval mediterranean history or literature or art/architecture. so universities that really focus their hires, across the departments, on particular eras, will be less likely to secure the designation. as for geographical proximity to other centers, that's why many schools enter into consortium. there's a level of prestige that goes along with NRC designation or FLAS fellowships for graduate students.