Some (hopefully useful) info on department sizes.

[ZiggyPhil]

I took a long break from GradCafe over the summer and early part of this semester, but now that I'm back I thought I'd share some data I collected that I think could help other people make a decision. 

 

I used department websites to get these numbers.  The APA collects some similar data but it is self-reported and incomplete, and I haven't seen any chart like this that can be used to compare different programs.  I've got data for the entire PGR top 50, as well as a few unranked schools I was interested in.  The first column (FTF) indicates how many full-time, Tenure or TT professors are in the department (so, this doesn't count lecturers, adjuncts, visiting professors, or affiliated professors in other departments).  The second column (GS) indicates how many grad students are in the department (both M.A. and Ph.D. students, for deprtments that offer both).  The third column is simply column 2 divided by column 1. 

 

How might this be useful?  It seems to me that everyone should care about column 3, which indicates how many grad students there are for each professor.  A high number here may cause concern that students will find it difficult to get the kind of intensive, one-on-one interaction with professors that is highly beneficial for graduate studies.  I think we can expect that, on average, professors in departments with a high number in column 3 will be less available to students than professors in a department with a low number.  As can be seen, there is quite a lot of variance in the student-teacher ratio at various programs - more than I expected. 

 

It also seems useful to  know the absolute size of departments, not just the student teacher ratio.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both small and large departments.  It's probably easier to feel a sense of community in small departments , while large departments probably offer more variety in courses and choice of dissertation advisors.  I would encourage applicants to consider what kind of department they would like to spend their time in - going to a huge department like CUNY is bound to be a very different experience than going to a small department like MIT, despite the fact that they have similar student/teacher ratios. 

 

(please forgive the wonky formatting - copy/pasting from excel doesn't work very well)

 

 

Name                          FTF      GS      GS/FTF

NYU                            27         42         1.6

Rutgers                       29         42          1.5

Princeton                     22         54         2.5

Michigan                     30          39         1.3

Harvard                       22          50         2.3

Pittsburgh                   19          47         2.5

MIT                            11           29         2.6

Yale                            25          39          1.6

Stanford                      27           58         2.1

North Carolina             25           33          1.3

Columbia                    23           71          3.1

UCLA                         17           50          2.9

USC                           23           34           1.5

CUNY                         40           95           2.4

Cornell                       19           46           2.4

Arizona                      26           30           1.2

UC Berkeley               24           49           2

Notre Dame                42           66           1.6

Brown                        16           31           1.9

Chicago                     23           57           2.5

Texas                        33           56           1.7

UC San Diego            23           38           1.7

Wisconsin                 22           43           2

Duke                        16           29           1.8

IU                             14           38           2.7

Ohio State                 20           40           2

Colorado                    25           43           1.7

Umass                      14           48           3.4

UC Irvine                   10           25           2.5

Penn                        14           40           2.9

Northwestern             19           38           2

UC Riverside             17           36           2.1

Maryland                   20           32           1.6

Miami                       14           27           1.9

WUSTL                    20           30           1.5

Georgetown              29           38           1.3

Johns Hopkins          12           34           2.8

Syracuse                  20           41           2.1

Virginia                     17           33           1.9

Carnegie-Mellon        17           35           2.1

UC Santa Barbara     11           28           2.5

Illinois @ Chicago      16           32           2

Washington              18           34           1.9

Boston                     22           47           2.1

Florida State             15           48           3.2

Rice                         12           22           1.8

UC Davis                  13           23           1.8

Minnesota                14           25           1.8

Rochester                15           21           1.4

Connecticut              19           31           1.6

Missouri                   16           29           1.8

Purdue                     20           47           2.4

Illinois @ U-C           13           30           2.3

Iowa                        13           22           1.7

[MattDest]

Very cool, thanks for sharing this. As someone in a program, one thing to think about is how many faculty/grad students are in your area of interest. I imagine that most programs are pretty good about keeping these ratios relatively even, but it's worth thinking about. 

[ZiggyPhil]

Very cool, thanks for sharing this. As someone in a program, one thing to think about is how many faculty/grad students are in your area of interest. I imagine that most programs are pretty good about keeping these ratios relatively even, but it's worth thinking about. 

 

Oh, I certainly agree, but a lot of programs don't list grad student interests, so for many schools it would be difficult to get this kind of information.