Art history graduate program rankings

[losemygrip]

Sure to be controversial. This is from the Art History Blog. The industrious author (god bless him) went to the trouble of trying to make sense of the new NRC grad program rankings. Basically, he just averaged the two different ranking categories in order to create numbers for a single ranking. The original list was complex (and all prospective grad students should refer to it, as it provides a lot of interesting data about length to degree, financial aid, etc.) I should also add that this is based more on objective data than the old "reputational rankings," where they just ask people what are the best programs in the field. It helps to eliminate the ones that are resting on their laurels.

NRC Rankings, Revised

by Jon Lackman | 1 September 2011 | Books, Career

I just discovered that the NRC revised its rankings back in April after discovering errors in its data. So, I should go back and revise the findings of my last post on this subject. Using my (admittedly arbitrary) method of average the NRC two rating systems, I get this revised ranking:

1 University of California-Berkeley

2 University of Chicago

3 Columbia University in the City of New York

4 Yale University

5 Princeton University

6 New York University

7 Harvard University

8 University of California-Los Angeles

9 Northwestern University

10 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

11 University of Texas at Austin

12 University of Pennsylvania

13 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

14 Duke University

15 Brown University

16 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

17 University of California-Santa Barbara

18 University of Southern California (*)

19 University of Wisconsin-Madison

20 City University of New York Grad. Center

21 University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Campus (*)

22 Stanford University

23 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (*)

24 University of Maryland College Park

25 Bryn Mawr College

26 Temple University

27 University of Delaware

28 Johns Hopkins University

29 Washington University in St. Louis (*)

30 Penn State University

31 Emory University

32 University of Washington

33 Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Campus

34 Indiana University at Bloomington

35 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (*)

36 Case Western Reserve University

37 University of Kansas

38 University of Georgia

39 State University of New York at Stony Brook

40 Boston University

41 University of Iowa

42 University of Virginia

43 Ohio State University Main Campus

44 University of Missouri – Columbia

45 Cornell University

46 State University of New York at Binghamton

47 Florida State University

48 Virginia Commonwealth University

49 University of New Mexico Main Campus

50 University of Louisville

*: An asterisk indicates that the program scored the same as the one above it.

[fullofpink]

Eh...

I really hate these lists. Now, if they were arranged by field.....

[Seeking]

The rankings differ by specialization.

 

For example, for European Renaissance Art, perhaps Princeton would rank much higher than the schools ranked above it.

 

For South Asian Art, Columbia and Univ of Penn would perhaps tie up, Minnesota coming close behind.

 

For Islamic Art, Harvard would top - not because it's Harvard.

 

I don't think Duke and Delaware should top schools such as Stanford and Cornell.

 

For South-East Asian Art, Cornell is the best place to go.

 

But thanks for the informative links.

[Atlantis]

Another thing about this list in particular, or rather the source material from which it was culled, is that by the time the data got published it was already out of date. One could potentially argue that Berkeley, with the recent departure of TJ Clark and his wife Anne Wagner, as well as the overall mayhem in the University of California, has lost some of its standing, whereas the University of Chicago has been continuously expanding its offerings with some of the brightest and freshest people out there. Similarly, Yale has lost Alex Nemerov... and so on. Of course, most of these switches are being made up for somehow, but not always. Since the job carousel is turning perpetually, these lists are nothing more than historical snapshots, but rarely reliable tools to plan the future...

[juliette22]

Might be stupid, but I have a question: how many programs are they? I don't think they are many more than 50 but I might be wrong. (in the US only of course)

[GhostsBeforeBreakfast]

What would be, say, top 3 for modern and contemporary?

[YepUrsi]

Interesting. Kind of surprising to see the tech school MIT ahead of Cornell and Stanford. But other than that, it pretty much the schools which always win. However, I think we should move away from these national rankings. Higher education is international these days. And I want to know how these schools compare to Oxford, Cambridge, Munich.

[Nesbit]

Interesting. Kind of surprising to see the tech school MIT ahead of Cornell and Stanford. But other than that, it pretty much the schools which always win. However, I think we should move away from these national rankings. Higher education is international these days. And I want to know how these schools compare to Oxford, Cambridge, Munich.

MIT has an excellent Architecture History, Theory & Criticism PhD - so that could be why back in 2011 it was up there.

 

I don't think an international equivalent exists, but you might find this useful for UK History of Art Programs: http://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2014/may/university-guide/?view=subject&subject=S345

 

There's also always the more general Times Higher Education rankings and others with a similar focus on the Universities as a whole and their research output, student experience etc.

[kokoschka]

I'm not sure it makes sense to even consider a non-US program if you plan for a career as an academic in the US but I'm sure there are exceptions. Recent hiring trends have not favored those shorter doctoral programs, though.