2010 U.S. News History Rankings

[Nicolay]

1 Princeton University

1 Stanford University

1 University of California--Berkeley

1 Yale University

5 Harvard University

5 University of Chicago

7 Columbia University

7 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor

9 Johns Hopkins University

9 University of California--Los Angeles

9 University of Pennsylvania

12 Cornell University

12 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill

14 Duke University

14 Northwestern University

14 University of Wisconsin--Madison

17 Brown University

17 New York University

17 University of Texas--Austin

20 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey--New Brunswick

20 University of Virginia (Corcoran)

22 Indiana University--Bloomington

22 University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign

24 Ohio State University

24 University of Minnesota--Twin Cities

Full list at:

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... s/rankings

[Dirt]

OK, I have to say something(s).

Does anyone else find it ridiculous that Rochester is ranked #64? It was #27 in the last NRC rankings, and I don't think it's gone over the edge in the last 15 years. Rochester may have a small program, but I've always considered it to be one of very high quality. Other programs have been wronged here, no doubt, but this one jumped out and smacked me across the face.

Also, has anyone ever met/read a book by someone who received a Ph.D. in history from #28 MIT? Really, I thought this was a typo. MIT has a history doctoral program? And it's of equivalent quality with the doctoral program at UC Davis? Better than Iowa or UCSB? Really?

[Sgt. Pepper]

I happen to know for a fact that if it came down to it, Minnesota could kick Rutgers' ass, and I think we could take NYU also.

[StrangeLight]

Also, has anyone ever met/read a book by someone who received a Ph.D. in history from #28 MIT? Really, I thought this was a typo. MIT has a history doctoral program? And it's of equivalent quality with the doctoral program at UC Davis? Better than Iowa or UCSB? Really?

yep. one of my professors got her history PhD from MIT. history of science and technology in 20th century US. taught at UCLA, published fairly extensively, and has a pretty prominent position as a research chair in canada now.

[synthla]

This looks like the same list as before with a few schools moving up and down; I wonder if anyone moved dramatically. And I wonder how they even come up with these rankings. We can debate about rankings forever, but at least with law school, e.g., there is a significant amount of quantitative data released by the schools (GPA and LSAT of admits, etc.) and that data comes from a significantly larger pool of students. I'm not sure how you quantitativily rank most Ph.D programs.

[a piece of bread]

1-) it certainly depends on the topic you would like to study. my priority is more important than this list because of the existence of professors in your field.

2-) forget about 1, a friend of mine told me that harvard is harvard, princeton is princeton. your future employers will just look at which school you graduated from, not good professors if you received your PhD from a low-ranked school.

i do not know which one is true. i wish i could have an appropriate GPA for top schools :wink:

[StrangeLight]

1-) it certainly depends on the topic you would like to study. my priority is more important than this list because of the existence of professors in your field.

2-) forget about 1, a friend of mine told me that harvard is harvard, princeton is princeton. your future employers will just look at which school you graduated from, not good professors if you received your PhD from a low-ranked school.

i do not know which one is true. i wish i could have an appropriate GPA for top schools :wink:

if you're looking for a job in academia, your subfield's ranking and your dissertation advisor(s) mean more than the school's overall ranking or the history department's overall ranking.

if you're looking for a job outside of academia, harvard is harvard and princeton is princeton. and for what it's worth, harvard and princeton still rank at the top of most subfields, so there is a lot of overlap.

[zombiecaptain]

WashU isn't even in the top 5 for Modern US? That surprised me.

[kahlan_amnell]

I find these rankings somewhat surprising, particularly that the university where I'm getting my MA was listed in the top 50.

The university that I'll be attending in the Fall is not ranked.

[feisty]

Any word on the new NRC rankings?

They keep getting pushed back.

[Nicolay]

The NRC (National Research Council) launched a project in 2005 to assess research doctoral programs. The assessment is supposed to include rankings of programs in various disciplines to update the previous rankings released in 1995. Although data collection was supposed to begin in 2005, that data collection and the entire project have been repeatedly delayed without public explanation. After the most recent delay the NRC announced that the new assessment report would be released in February 2009. February has come and gone with no further date set for release of the assessment data, report, or rankings.

The official site for the study is at

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/pga/Resdoc/index.htm

[thepoorstockinger]

OK, I have to say something(s).

Does anyone else find it ridiculous that Rochester is ranked #64? It was #27 in the last NRC rankings, and I don't think it's gone over the edge in the last 15 years. Rochester may have a small program, but I've always considered it to be one of very high quality. Other programs have been wronged here, no doubt, but this one jumped out and smacked me across the face.

Also, has anyone ever met/read a book by someone who received a Ph.D. in history from #28 MIT? Really, I thought this was a typo. MIT has a history doctoral program? And it's of equivalent quality with the doctoral program at UC Davis? Better than Iowa or UCSB? Really?

As was mentioned above I assume they're including MIT's History and Anthropology of Science and Technology (or whatever the full name is) program in the rankings. In which case - yes, I have read several books from folks who got their PhD there. (That said, I think rankings are silly)

[reallywantcolumbia]

2-) forget about 1, a friend o mine told me that harvard is harvard, princeton is princeton. your future employers will just look at which school you graduated from, not good professors if you received your PhD from a low-ranked school.

if you're looking for a job in academia, your subfield's ranking and your dissertation advisor(s) mean more than the school's overall ranking or the history department's overall ranking.

Umm, I donno. From what I heard, it does matter quite a bit where you got your PhD (in terms of overall ranking). Now, if you're gonna work with a superstar at a low ranked school who is very well connected, well and good. He/she will make the calls for you and make sure you get interviewed (and get the proverbial foot in the door). Otherwise you could be rejected out of hand by the overstressed profs who are doing hiring searches and don't immediately recognize your school/adviser as a top-20. And also, if you're working with a superstar who is well connected but at a lower ranked school -- why is that person still at the lower ranked school? Departments, especially in the top-20, poach off of each other ALL the time. There's an kind of osmosis as up-and-coming profs move up the rankings/tenure track.

The advantage of a highly ranked school (in general) is that it will make it much more likely that someone will pick up your file and read it through carefully -- perhaps even interview you based on that name. The lower-ranked school just makes it that much harder -- you really need to shine, and have a lot of luck, if you want your application to be looked at by a top-20 department or a top-15 LAC. I know that my LAC would not even look at people who didn't got to a top-10 program -- and rarely at someone who didnt got to a top-5 program. It is a horribly snobbish and closed-loop kind of world. I sat on a hiring committee and went through the list of faculty at my school -- I realized that less than 10% went to schools that were not in the top ten programs in the country. All of those non-top-10 people had been hired in the 1960's.

Obviously this is all in relation to schools that are already in the top 20. I don't think it matters too much if your school is ranked 10 in Asian history but 12th in African-American history as long as it is generally ranked in the top few programs for history in the country. Now, in the unlikely event that the school is ranked 54th in general, but 9th in a particular subfield, that will probably make a difference. But honestly, that's pretty unlikely. The top twenty schools for each subfield are pretty much the top twenty schools overall -- with just a bit of shuffling around.

Think of it this way -- say every top-10 program produces 20 PhD's a year. That's 200 people going on the job market. In an average year, a top-50 department will have no more than about 4 faculty searches going on -- most for non-tenure positions. Perhaps one tenure track position per department on average. So there are 200 top-ten people applying to 50 tenure track positions and 150 non-tenure positions. If you're not up there, you need to make a hell of a push to get your foot in the door. In the end, it's a very 'natural selection' kind of world and going to a lower ranked school is quite a gamble!

EDIT: I just read over this post and realized that it came of as kinda elitist and snobby. I don't mean it to be. I just want to stress the fact that the academic job market is absolutely horrible right now, and it's hard enough getting a stable job if you go to a top-5 program...

[misterpat]

A few random thoughts while skimming the new rankings:

-UI-Chicago made a decent jump. Now I'm kind of mad I missed the deadline for that school.

-I expected WashU to jump up more.

-I didn't expect UCSB to drop almost ten spots.

-Missouri went up 12 spots.

[synthla]

Think of it this way -- say every top-10 program produces 20 PhD's a year. That's 200 people going on the job market. In an average year, a top-50 department will have no more than about 4 faculty searches going on -- most for non-tenure positions. Perhaps one tenure track position per department on average. So there are 200 top-ten people applying to 50 tenure track positions and 150 non-tenure positions. If you're not up there, you need to make a hell of a push to get your foot in the door. In the end, it's a very 'natural selection' kind of world and going to a lower ranked school is quite a gamble!

This makes a rather large assumption that everyone wants a top-50 department job. Frankly, I'm more than happy to let those top-10 grads fight it out for those positions, as there are a couple thousand other institutions of higher learning in the country - and honestly, I couldn't give a damn about the prestige of where I work, as long as I get to read a lot of history and get paid. Seriously, why are so many people prestige-whores? (And I'm not implying that you are, reallywantcolumbia.)

Also, 20 phds per year per program seems high to me, but I could be wrong.

[thepoorstockinger]

20 PhDs graduating per year from a program is a crazy, crazy high estimate. Most top schools in good years seem to aim for an entrance cohort of around 15 PhD students (obviously there is some variation here) and once you deal with the high level of attrition in grad school I can't imagine 200 top ten PhDs per year are graduating.

[StrangeLight]

look at the dissertation titles any department publishes. regardless of their incoming class size, you'll rarely see more than 3 PhDs conferred each year, and occasionally there will be years where no one finishes from a given department. there are also, of course, backlog years where 6 or 7 students finish at once, but that's still no where near 20 per department. i'd say only UCLA and schools with grad programs near that size manage anything close to 20 PhDs a year, and how many of those massive programs are top-10 anyway?

i'm headed to a program where people in my subfield who have finished their PhDs have always been placed somewhere within one year. even this year, when most schools called off their hires, the student graduating from my program in my subfield is off to a position at the US naval academy. i think you'll see lackluster yalies struggling to find jobs while students from schools outside the top ten manage to secure tenure-track placements right out the gate.

[gimlet]

I remember when my small liberal arts undergrad was hiring a few years ago. They brought three people to campus-- a Harvard grad who knew 12 languages, a very bright Berkeley grad and a guy from the University of Washington (which is not in the top ten for that area). They went with the UW guy because it was clear that he was the best fit for the school and the program- he was the only one of the three who was remotely down to earth. My advisor, who was chair at the time, remarked that social skills will often get you a lot further than a fancy degree. Just because you go to a top ten school-- or even a top twenty-- does not mean that you are automatically equipped to meet the needs of every school you interview at.

I'm not saying it's not awesome or advantageous to go to a top ten school, or that good rankings don't make a school more alluring, but really, no school can make you into something you aren't. There are trade offs in getting teaching experience vs. getting funding to go to conferences etc. Rankings don't tell you the important stuff-- like whether a school will be a good fit or whether the program has severe administrative problems. Rankings don't tell you if all the grad students are unhappy or whether they have faculty and opportunities that will get you where you want to be.

[reallywantcolumbia]

fair enough, perhaps I was being too bleak about this. But let's look at that "20 PhD's a year" I threw out there

Michigan is matriculating about 27 people this year. Columbia 20. Harvard (I think) 22. NYU about 25. Stanford about 15. Berkeley around 20. Yale is probably pretty small and so is Princeton. The attrition rate over 8 years at all of these places (except at NYU -- where I don't know), is something like 3 people per cohort. That means that the rest of the people there are getting PhDs. True, not all of them are getting them in the same year. But, on average, about that number of people will be getting their PhDs. In fact, up to a few years ago, many of these programs were taking a lot more grad students because they didn't fund them as well. I know that that was the case with Columbia. That would push up the average number of people getting their PhDs every year (across cohorts).

So, if about 80% of grad students in each cohort are getting their degrees and each cohort is, on average, about 20-22 people strong, then there must be (on average) about 20 PhDs being produced per department every year. Otherwise where are those PhDs disappearing? Perhaps there is a simple explanation to this, but nothing springs to my mind.

Anyway

no school can make you into something you aren't.

Absolutely. No question about that. But again, that doesn't take away from the fact that a top-20 degree makes it easier to get that interview. I had a very similar experience at my LAC -- three candidates, two from big schools, one from a significantly lower ranked school. The lower ranked guy was the BOMB! Amazing research and everything. He got offered the job -- took an offer at an Ivy instead. The chair of my department was pretty bummed, but said that there are maybe two or three truly exceptional candidates in the field every year who come to your attention no matter where they went to school. But they are literally a handful -- and they get a vast majority of the interviews. Now, I have some faith in my abilities as a historian, but I don't want to count on my truly "exceptional" qualities to get me a job interview -- not in this market. If you're an exceptional historian, it doesn't matter where you go -- you'll be fine. For the rest of us (a category in which I firmly place myself), things aren't always that easy.

i think you'll see lackluster yalies struggling to find jobs while students from schools outside the top ten manage to secure tenure-track placements right out the gate.

no argument there

Seriously, why are so many people prestige-whores? (And I'm not implying that you are, reallywantcolumbia.)

Thanks synthla!

[brithistorian]

Out of interest how many doctoral students do these unis take on every year? Are we talking 50 starting but only 20 finish of that year, or is more 25 start and 20 finish?

As an international perspective - Oxford take on around 80 students for DPhils EACH year! I'll see if I can find out how many complete

[brinswan]

The American Historical Association's website has this dissertation database that's pretty cool to look at. I haven't done it but I'm sure if you were to search for the dissertations from a given school in a given year you'd get a pretty accurate understanding of how may PhDs come on the market from each school. Anyways, I heard that the way the U.S. News university ranking goes is they essentially send letters to 2 department chairs in each school asking them to give their *opinion* over which schools are better. - What the ranking really measures is reputation. It's really no more accurate than that. When the NRC finally gets its act together it should be really interesting to see. Until then . . .

[thepoorstockinger]

So, if about 80% of grad students in each cohort are getting their degrees and each cohort is, on average, about 20-22 people strong, then there must be (on average) about 20 PhDs being produced per department every year. Otherwise where are those PhDs disappearing? Perhaps there is a simple explanation to this, but nothing springs to my mind.

Math isn't really your strong suit is it? 80% of 22 is not 20. It's 17.6. 80% of 20 is 16. So if we accept your numbers then you're looking at an average of about 17 per program or 170 per year (which I still think there's more attrition). But not all of them will pursue teaching jobs at American universities - some will pursue law school, some will work in government, some will go for museum jobs, some will go teach in other countries, some will teach at elite private high schools, some will some will abandon the academy for something totally unrelated to their degree.

Does having a PhD from a top ten program help you get a job later? Of course it does. But it's just one of several things like publications (and the quality of said publications), connections you establish, fit with the department you're applying to, ability to interview well, yadda yadda yadda.

[reallywantcolumbia]

Math isn't really your strong suit is it? 80% of 22 is not 20. It's 17.6. 80% of 20 is 16. So if we accept your numbers then you're looking at an average of about 17 per program or 170 per year (which I still think there's more attrition). But not all of them will pursue teaching jobs at American universities - some will pursue law school, some will work in government, some will go for museum jobs, some will go teach in other countries, some will teach at elite private high schools, some will some will abandon the academy for something totally unrelated to their degree.

Oh, I'm sorry -- I guess I should have done some precise calculations on my guess-stimations. But let's go with that -- 160 PhDs per year. The Michigan DGS told me that 90% of emerging PhDs pursue a career in higher education. Perhaps that's on the higher end of the spectrum. Extrapolating, you are still talking about ~140 PhDs (146 is 90% of 160) going into academia. Some into law school -- sure. We are still talking about a huge number of people -- my only argument was about the order of magnitude.

Anyway, this is a somewhat inane conversation at this point. I agree with your argument about publications, interviews yada yada yada....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opini ... l?emc=eta1

p.s. Don't trust the AHA dissertation listing to tell you how many PhDs are produced from each department. I used it to find grad students to contact at schools -- it is hopelessly out-dated and incompletefor most places.

[older and wiser]

For what it's worth, my top ten RI is conferring 17 Ph.D. degrees this year.

[StrangeLight]

seventeen? is it a large program or a bumper crop year, or is the attrition rate just really low?

also, just something to throw into the "number of applicants vs number of jobs" discussion, these job positions aren't just hiring "historians." they want someone who teaches US history, or asian history, or who could teach a world civilization course, a gender course, an ethnicity course. the AHA's numbers over the past 5 or 6 years have pretty clearly shown that there are far more people with US or european history degrees than job openings, but asian, african, and latin american history tend to have about as many job openings as new applicants.

depending on your subfield, competition could be much worse or not too bad.

and to just go against the grain of people's anecdotes of applicants from lower-ranked schools getting the top job, my UG school was hiring an african americanist. came down to two candidates, one from michigan and one from CMU. despite the department's other resident african americanist lobbying on behalf of the CMU candidate, in terms of research, quality, and fit with the department, they went with the michigan grad, and a colleague told me the decision was made largely based on ranking/prestige. not that the michigan PhD is poor by any means, but the decisive factor came down to name-recognition.

granted, this is a canadian university, and here we don't seem to pay much attention to rankings outside of the top 10/15. if you're top 10, good, if you're not top 10, move along.