Rankings

[fuzzylogician]

I was just wondering if you guys know of any (un)official rankings of linguistics departments either as a whole or by subfield. I haven't had luck finding much of anything online, except some vague rankings of "Humanities" as a whole which don't really help. When I was researching programs I used professors' advice and a whole lot of virtual leg-work (basically, I checked out the website of every department that appears the Linguist List's complete list of linguistics programs), but I'm still thinking it might just have been me missing something very basic, as I sometimes tend to do... So, which programs would you say make up the top 5/10/20 in the field? I know my professors had a very clear idea where the better places were, but what do you think?

(Yes, I know it's tantamount to gossip and shouldn't factor into the decision where to go, but it's still interesting :-D).

[Phonologist]

Here's the National Research Council's 1995 ranking. The new report is supposed to be out any day now, but they've pushed it back so many times that no one really knows when we'll actually see it.

http://consusrankings.com/1995/08/13/na ... rams-1995/

But I actually think that all of the top 10 isn't really the "top" since linguistics is such a small field. I'd say the NRC's top 5 are the best programs, and 6-10 are second tier (and the second tier might include schools beyond number 10).

[paigemont]

I use this. It's at least partly based on that same National Research Council thing, but I think it's still useful:

http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/linguistics

[fuzzylogician]

I use this. It's at least partly based on that same National Research Council thing, but I think it's still useful:

http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/linguistics

Thanks, I knew that site but it gave me some really weird lists that made me think it couldn't be trusted. Do you know what it bases its ratings on, except the NRC report?

Phonologist: thanks, that helped! I wonder if 1995 rankings can really reflect the current situation. I am pretty sure not since some very good programs (at least according to my profs) aren't even mentioned or are ranked very low.

I think it would be interesting if the people in this forum posted which programs they thought were the top 5/10 in their subfield. I imagine the list would vary quite a lot across subfields. My preferences going into this process were: 1. MIT , 2. UMass, 3. UCLA, 4. Rutgers, 5. NYU, but I am so confused right now I don't know anymore.

[Phonologist]

I think it would be interesting if the people in this forum posted which programs they thought were the top 5/10 in their subfield. I imagine the list would vary quite a lot across subfields. My preferences going into this process were: 1. MIT , 2. UMass, 3. UCLA, 4. Rutgers, 5. NYU, but I am so confused right now I don't know anymore.

Wow, I sat here and tried to come up with a ranking of the top 5 programs for phonology, but it's hard because they're all doing such different things. Instead I'll rank programs according to my interests, which center on phonetic explanation in phonology from a synchronic, UG-based perspective:

1. MIT

2. UCLA

3. Stanford

4. Johns Hopkins (cog sci)

5. UNC Chapel Hill

Even that was hard. Only a few years ago UCLA would have been a clear #1, but the critical mass has since dispersed making the other programs much more competitive. The ex-UCLA crowd at MIT as been particularly successful in the field recently, enough that for me they're #1.

[Dinali]

One of my professors told me that Chicago is poised to catapault back to the upper ranks of theoretical linguistics. I was going to apply there anyway but that recommendation moved it up a bit in my personal rankings.

[paigemont]

Thanks, I knew that site but it gave me some really weird lists that made me think it couldn't be trusted. Do you know what it bases its ratings on, except the NRC report?

If you run a search for a few of the criteria, it lists the sources at the bottom of the page. They are the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, National Research Council, Survey of Earned Doctorates, and Survey of Graduate Students and Postgraduates in Science and Engineering. I have absolutely no clue how trustworthy/dated/thorough these things are, but there are links to more information if you're curious.

I think it would be interesting if the people in this forum posted which programs they thought were the top 5/10 in their subfield. I imagine the list would vary quite a lot across subfields. My preferences going into this process were: 1. MIT , 2. UMass, 3. UCLA, 4. Rutgers, 5. NYU, but I am so confused right now I don't know anymore.

I'm curious -- why did/do you like NYU so much? My preferences were something like 1. Illinois (TIE), 1. Stanford (TIE), 3. Brown, 4. UCSD, 5. UCLA. My main reason for ranking Illinois so high is that it will allow me to do field work in the Caucasus and has lots of good-looking NLPish research going on.

Pardon me for hijacking the topic slightly, but does anyone have any sources that rank schools within the subfields of computational linguistics/computational semantics? If not, do you have any personal opinions about such things?

[fuzzylogician]

I'm curious -- why did/do you like NYU so much?

First, I like the work of two of their semantics faculty. That's a lot for me, at most places I only really like one;

Second, I like the location;

Third, one of my recommenders specifically thought one of the NYU faculty, whom he knows well, would be a good advisor for me, personality-wise, as well as interest-wise. This is a *very* famous and experienced person and I value his opinion greatly.

There are also some drawbacks to NYUs program that keep them from placing higher on my list, so I'm still unsure. It's a good thing I still have two months before I have to decide...

[psycholinguist]

Phonologist: thanks, that helped! I wonder if 1995 rankings can really reflect the current situation. I am pretty sure not since some very good programs (at least according to my profs) aren't even mentioned or are ranked very low.

The DUS here claims that Berkeley isn't renowned for its linguistics program, so either he's right and the survey's out-of-date, or the survey's right and he's out-of-date.

[fuzzylogician]

or both

[psycholinguist]

* laughs * True!

[nocturne]

This NRC listing is the only one I've found that goes all the way up to 41 is here:

http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_r ... area7.html

This is also from 1995.

Re: Berkeley, I can't imagine why LSA would have their Summer Institute there this year if they weren't considered to have an outstanding program...

[ellbell]

Anyone know how UCSD stands these days? A few of the professors I spoke to recommended the program highly, but it's only 14 on the NRC rankings. I wonder if it's improved since 1995? That or the professors I spoke to were biased...

Also, does anyone know their placement rate? It's not listed on phds.org.

[nocturne]

I consider UCSD to be high on the list, at least for my purposes (syntax & semantics). In the scheme of things, a #14 rating isn't that bad, considering that on gradschool.com they list about 60 schools that offer linguistics Ph.D.s.

As for placement rate, a good way to look into that would be to Google their alumni.

[Dinali]

Another practical way to get at least an idea of the rankings is to start with a couple that you know are good (MIT and UCLA are good bets) and look at where they have been hiring from recently. Then look at where those universities have been hiring from, and those, and so on. You'll find a few hubs and will be able to build a network pretty easily. I say "practical" above, because if you're looking for where you can get the best education, then it's almost anywhere; all you need is one good scholar and a library. If you want to know the best university to graduate from in order to find a job, the above method will probably give you a solid idea.

[paigemont]

Re: Berkeley, I can't imagine why LSA would have their Summer Institute there this year if they weren't considered to have an outstanding program...

Not to talk down my apparent future program, but the Summer Institute was held in Illinois in 1999, and UIUC doesn't rank very high on any list that I've seen. Not that that means Berkeley can't hold its own among the best programs in the country -- it's certainly great for cognitive linguistics, phonetics (according to some of the phonetics people here, anyway ), language documentation and revitalization, historical, etc.

[Phonologist]

Not to talk down my apparent future program, but the Summer Institute was held in Illinois in 1999, and UIUC doesn't rank very high on any list that I've seen. Not that that means Berkeley can't hold its own among the best programs in the country -- it's certainly great for cognitive linguistics, phonetics (according to some of the phonetics people here, anyway ), language documentation and revitalization, historical, etc.

Yeah, and it's going to be at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2011. Berkeley does have a great program though; it's just pretty eclectic and laid back. Most Berkeley professors would never be too involved in any of the "hot debates," so it's hard for the department to get much recognition. Lakoff might be a different story, but Lakoff is Lakoff (ew).

[nocturne]

Yeah, and it's going to be at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2011. Berkeley does have a great program though; it's just pretty eclectic and laid back. Most Berkeley professors would never be too involved in any of the "hot debates," so it's hard for the department to get much recognition. Lakoff might be a different story, but Lakoff is Lakoff (ew).

I stand corrected.