US News Rankings in Graduate School Decisions?

[Scalia]

When students post on this board asking questions about choosing a graduate school, of course most advice is situation specific.

That being said, has anyone been checking up on the schools they applied to through various ranking sources (e.g. US News)? Where do you think the ranking between quality schools that you would consider attending would be? Top 50? Top 25? Top 10!?

Furthermore, how has the overall reputation of the program influenced your decision to attend/not attend?

[pheonixx]

I don't rank the quality of schools from outside sources (e.g. US News). This really isn't a valid method of ranking psychology PhD programs because you're really applying to work with a professor and not to a program. Plenty of my schools are not in the top 25 but the professor is one of the best in their specific field so it's a great option for me. I could go to a top 5 school but if I don't have a mentor that researches my interests, it's a terrible option for me.

[Eigen]

You could always work out h and m indices on the faculty you want to work with, although those are pretty rough measures.

Personally, I didn't really take rankings into account at all.

[critic1]

I would not take rankings into account- the U.S. News Methodology is skewed...it uses Rate my Professors as one of its ways to measure quality programs....that's a poor sign. It's all about the program being a great fit for you. I actually Googled schools that had my program of interest in my region and went from there. Yes, I will be honest and say I did look them up on U.S. news and the one program that is in the top 5 which I thought would be a perfect fit and its rankings would help me in the long run.... false! I actually found out it is not such a great program. Many of the classes are taught by TAs and there are hardly professors who teach, also they hardly fund their students-which is ridiculous. Had I known this earlier I would not have wasted the application fee and my professors time writing recommendation letters for me.

With the other program it has the faculty I want and when I visited I knew it was the right match. Overall, rankings hold very little truth over what programs are excellent. It's more about whose a great fit for you and if you will be prepared to enter the workforce competent in what you have learned at your program of choice.

Sorry for the rant- but try to avoid program rankings dominate your decision to attend a program.

Edited February 15, 2012 by critic1

[stereopticons]

I did look at the rankings--both U.S. News and NRC--but I don't think they really factored in to where I chose to apply, honestly. I created my own rating method, which I mentioned in another thread, and used that instead. I did use the US News and NRC rankings to roughly divide my list of schools into tiers, but that didn't really change my decision much.

[wannabeaphd]

I have to say that I had a ranking of my own in terms of programs (reputation, faculty, opportunities, proximity, ability to get in) but I ended up allpying to: 1 top 10, 1 top 25, 2 top 50, and 1 less than top 50 program. It seems to have worked out well, and now i really know where I fall in the pack.

[lewin]

Sometimes you can find discipline-specific rankings within that area's journals. A recent article in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, for example, ranked social psych departments by research impact. (Top 20, woot!)

ETA: Nosek et al. 2010

Edited February 17, 2012 by lewin00

[Behavioral]

Sometimes you can find discipline-specific rankings within that area's journals. A recent article in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, for example, ranked social psych departments by research impact. (Top 20, woot!)

ETA: Nosek et al. 2010

For the lazy:

http://projectimplicit.net/nosek/papers/citations/appendices.htm

[crazygirl2012]

I only looked at it after the application process was complete. I used it as more of a self-esteem boost, as in, "whoa, I got an interview at program ranked __; I really didn't expect that!". I'm going to try not to place too much weight on rankings when I make my decision-- assuming I have a decision to make, that is!

[Behavioral]

Whether you believe the rankings are valid or not, there still exists the marked correlation that arguably the best and most productive researchers are at these "top" schools and that top post-doc/faculty placements are usually cornered by these institutions, too. Also, these "top" schools tend to have the best resources, the most federal funding, and when it comes to hiring, require the least amount of "justification" to consider you for employment.

It's important to choose a program based on fit, but at the same time, this is an investment towards the rest of your 40-50+ year career, and the academic field isn't as fluid a meritocracy as many would like it to be, so these first steps/choices make a huge impact over the trajectory of where you end up later in your career. Your true calling may be from 'Podunk State U', but if Stanford or Mich admit you to Social Psych, for example, you'd be making (in my, and in most professors' opinion) a huge mistake by doing so.

[Eigen]

What you say is true, but it's more of a one directional correlation at least in my field. "Good" institutions are mostly ranked well, but there are well ranked places that aren't that good.

A major problem is that USNWR ranks by total funding instead of per researcher funding, which pushes a lot of huge state schools higher in the rankings than they should be.

While rankings can be generally helpful, you can find more accurately which is "better" looking at funding, publication statistics, facilities and placement records directly.

Also, be careful with using correlational data (lots of people at top schools come from top schools) since there is a definite sample bias- better students tend to cluster at top schools, so it's hard to separate their abilities from the fact that they went to a top school when examining placement rates.

[Behavioral]

What you say is true, but it's more of a one directional correlation at least in my field. "Good" institutions are mostly ranked well, but there are well ranked places that aren't that good.

A major problem is that USNWR ranks by total funding instead of per researcher funding, which pushes a lot of huge state schools higher in the rankings than they should be.

While rankings can be generally helpful, you can find more accurately which is "better" looking at funding, publication statistics, facilities and placement records directly.

Also, be careful with using correlational data (lots of people at top schools come from top schools) since there is a definite sample bias- better students tend to cluster at top schools, so it's hard to separate their abilities from the fact that they went to a top school when examining placement rates.

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,69173.0.html

To the extent that you believe that the regular posters who claim are professors are telling the truth (yeah that's a confusing clause), then there is reason to believe that it is not solely the quality of the graduate, but also the signal the program serves during hiring/recruiting. One of the assistant professors in my program (a top school in marketing) was hired with 0 publications in 2008, but the professor came from another top university. Had he/she come from a mid-ranked or low-ranked university, they probably wouldn't have even gotten their CV looked at.

But I agree on the other points--small programs that are productive are usually overlooked by USNEWS and other rankings. When you're looking at sub-specialties, like I/O Psych, for example, schools like Bowling Green State U pop up as top programs that wouldn't otherwise in any other ranking.

Reading top journals in your topic of interest is an easy way to see who's publishing where, and should give you some clue as to the general productivity of a department if they're all publishing in the same A-level journals.