2013 U.S. News and World Report History Rankings

[Taco Superior]

In terms of the "correlation between top twenty ranking and top twenty resources/funding," you might find it interesting to check out this funding spreadsheet that we've been putting together over at the English and Comp Lit thread:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Al9pLrYezRcSdGdUTk0zWk5QVUJFSGxVZ2FJQ1QwWFE#gid=0

 

It's not complete, but so far what it shows is that, to a large degree, the more glaring correlation is actually between private schools and top level resources/funding. Quite a few top 25 public universities (UT Austin, UIUC, Indiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, etc) have much smaller stipends and/or much greater teaching loads than comparable and even lower ranked private universities.

 

Anyway, if you put together one of these for History it would no doubt be a boon to future applicants and would add data to the rankings debate! (not to be pushy)

Edited March 21, 2013 by Taco Superior

[playingivory]

Taco- That was incredibly enlightening, thank you for posting!!! I would be very interested to see one of those put together for History.

[vtstevie]

Yeah, I'd be interested in that too. Perhaps I'll start playing around with Google Docs today at work to get one started, would folks want to contribute?

[annieca]

Not sure about that. The UK newspapers go all-out ranking in their "leagues tables". Germany is increasingly concerned with this kind of thing. There are plenty of Asian rankings systems, too. Call it another unfortunate American cultural export or symptom of runamok globalization, but it's slowly making headway in the rest of the world, for sure.

 

The UK has this thing called the Russell Group which is apparently the big thing. It's a list of 20 schools that they consider top-tier. As far as I know, the 20 don't change - only their position within the Group. In that vein, I wouldn't say it's the same.

 

And yes, the UK does have some rankings in "Student Satisfaction" which I swear, they ask the first years and not the third years. 

 

I'm only going to speak for the UK here, but I think it's definitely an American export. *And* it's something we place much more importance on than in the UK. I have friends applying for PhD's in International Politics and Law in the UK and they want to go to Edinburgh or Kings College. They know those are good and they're in the Russell Group. To them, it doesn't matter where, as long as they're in there somewhere.

 

I have had many, many of my British and European friends say that Americans are the most competitive people they have ever met in the world. And I tend to agree. Rank schools by job placement rates, fine. Rank them by connections? Iffy. But to have this squabbling over #2 versus #5? That seems petty. It also seems just... wrong to rank entire History departments. Stanford is amazing for East European modern history but can Harvard or Yale say the same? As many have said before me and many will say after me, it is all about fit. And if you find the right schools for your research needs then choose the one where you are the most likely to be guaranteed a job.

 

My two cents.

[New England Nat]

I don't think anyone is squabbling about if 2 is better than 5 really. 

[turnings]

Yale has Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore for eastern europe so yeah I'd say they're alright on that front.

[getitlow]

In terms of the "correlation between top twenty ranking and top twenty resources/funding," you might find it interesting to check out this funding spreadsheet that we've been putting together over at the English and Comp Lit thread:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Al9pLrYezRcSdGdUTk0zWk5QVUJFSGxVZ2FJQ1QwWFE#gid=0

 

It's not complete, but so far what it shows is that, to a large degree, the more glaring correlation is actually between private schools and top level resources/funding. Quite a few top 25 public universities (UT Austin, UIUC, Indiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, etc) have much smaller stipends and/or much greater teaching loads than comparable and even lower ranked private universities.

 

Anyway, if you put together one of these for History it would no doubt be a boon to future applicants and would add data to the rankings debate! (not to be pushy)

 

This is awesome. I this we should do a similar survey for history as I guess many prospective applicants will benefit a lot from the data.