New Rankings

[Bumblebea]

2 hours ago, jungThug said:

Does anybody else think that Harvard's top 10 ranking is manifestly unjustified? 

Personally I feel the same way about Berkeley's dominance, especially over almost every subfield. (They have almost *no one* working in my specialty, yet they still somehow manage to get #1 in it every time.)

I'm truly boggled by these rankings, tbh. I don't think the NRC rankings are all much more accurate. So I feel like picking a graduate school in English is like, "you're on your own, sucker; no one has a f*cking clue about any of this."

[jrockford27]

On the one hand, a subjective peer survey has some merit, in the sense that people aren't hired based on hard math, they're hired based on perception.

On the other hand, English departments are often sprawling huge entities, often among the largest programs in a university.  Often times English departments bundle together comp-rhet/literature/film/etc. under a single umbrella.  A school may be very highly regarded in one and less so in the other, and people in the concentration area who make hiring decisions will recognize that, but it may not necessarily appear in the rankings.

And on still a third hand, as someone above astutely pointed out, high ranking and name recognition often correlate with strong placement, but not always.  Placements may also often have less to do with how well known your department is than how well known your adviser is.  So while I'm sure it probably feels good to be rated highly, those of us attending programs in the dirty thirties don't need to get too down on ourselves.

Edited March 14, 2017 by jrockford27

[Dr. Old Bill]

5 minutes ago, Bumblebea said:

 

I'm truly boggled by these rankings, tbh. I don't think the NRC rankings are all much more accurate. So I feel like picking a graduate school in English is like, "you're on your own, sucker; no one has a f*cking clue about any of this."

Amen.

In the interest of finding something positive in all of this, I wonder what we as grad students / potential grad students / current faculty would be able to come up with as legitimate criteria for better rankings. I know that it would take too much time and effort to actually undertake a ranking process, but what sort of components would such a process require? I'm thinking that some of the following might be more helpful than vetting students and faculty about their opinions on other programs...

-Placement rates, with additional weight given to tenure track placements
-Publications of professors (era/specialization-based), additional weight given to monographs etc.
-Faculty and student teaching load
-Stipend relative to area cost of living
-Average time to degree completion
-Number of student groups / area interest groups (sounds minor, but demonstrates the extracurricular engagement of students etc.)

These are just a few basic criteria that come to mind, but surely there are many other legitimate (and largely quantifiable) items that could lead to more legitimate rankings...

[Bumblebea]

7 minutes ago, jrockford27 said:

On the one hand, a subjective peer survey has some merit, in the sense that people aren't hired based on hard math, they're hired based on perception.

I agree. As someone who's been on the job market multiple times, I have to say that your program's perceived worth is the major currency. 

But since only 14% of those surveyed actually responded, I feel like they should really be tossed out. Or that US News should really put up a neon blinking sign of disclaimer. 

[Bumblebea]

4 minutes ago, Old Bill said:

In the interest of finding something positive in all of this, I wonder what we as grad students / potential grad students / current faculty would be able to come up with as legitimate criteria for better rankings. I know that it would take too much time and effort to actually undertake a ranking process, but what sort of components would such a process require? I'm thinking that some of the following might be more helpful than vetting students and faculty about their opinions on other programs...

-Placement rates, with additional weight given to tenure track placements
-Publications of professors (era/specialization-based), additional weight given to monographs etc.
-Faculty and student teaching load
-Stipend relative to area cost of living
-Average time to degree completion
-Number of student groups / area interest groups (sounds minor, but demonstrates the extracurricular engagement of students etc.)

These are just a few basic criteria that come to mind, but surely there are many other legitimate (and largely quantifiable) items that could lead to more legitimate rankings...

I totally agree. These are the criteria that actually matter for completing your graduate study. And these things would not be *that* difficult to compile. The fact that no one has made a substantive effort to gather and collate this kind of data yet tells me that people honestly don't have the drive or the motivation to see the status quo disrupted very much. Easier to genuflect at the altar of the handful of programs that always come out on top, etc. 

[piers_plowman]

3 minutes ago, Bumblebea said:

I agree. As someone who's been on the job market multiple times, I have to say that your program's perceived worth is the major currency. 

But since only 14% of those surveyed actually responded, I feel like they should really be tossed out. Or that US News should really put up a neon blinking sign of disclaimer. 

Very interesting, and dovetails with another question we've been considering: which is more important on the job market, the overall prestige (i.e. rank, as this survey reduces rank to pure prestige as others see it) of your program or the individual prestige of your letter writers? I'm in a decision situation right now in which one choice has a better overall department, prestige, and placement rate, but its faculty in my own subfield are relatively young and untested. Did you get the sense that the aura around the name on your degree did more for or against you than the reputations of your advisors?

[Warelin]

5 minutes ago, Bumblebea said:

I totally agree. These are the criteria that actually matter for completing your graduate study. And these things would not be *that* difficult to compile. The fact that no one has made a substantive effort to gather and collate this kind of data yet tells me that people honestly don't have the drive or the motivation to see the status quo disrupted very much. Easier to genuflect at the altar of the handful of programs that always come out on top, etc. 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Old Bill said:

Amen.

In the interest of finding something positive in all of this, I wonder what we as grad students / potential grad students / current faculty would be able to come up with as legitimate criteria for better rankings. I know that it would take too much time and effort to actually undertake a ranking process, but what sort of components would such a process require? I'm thinking that some of the following might be more helpful than vetting students and faculty about their opinions on other programs...

-Placement rates, with additional weight given to tenure track placements
-Publications of professors (era/specialization-based), additional weight given to monographs etc.
-Faculty and student teaching load
-Stipend relative to area cost of living
-Average time to degree completion
-Number of student groups / area interest groups (sounds minor, but demonstrates the extracurricular engagement of students etc.)

These are just a few basic criteria that come to mind, but surely there are many other legitimate (and largely quantifiable) items that could lead to more legitimate rankings...

I wholeheartedly agree with this. But what would you propose doing with students that don't go on to the national job market due to family location or those who choose an alternative career?

[urbanfarmer]

14 minutes ago, jrockford27 said:

On the one hand, a subjective peer survey has some merit, in the sense that people aren't hired based on hard math, they're hired based on perception.

While I agree that, as per the reasons so many people have given, the rankings are pretty bullshit... this IS true, to a certain extent. I have my MA from a (according to the newest rankings) top three program. I have literally been offered adjunct jobs over the phone without an interview, or told when I do go in that I pretty much already have the job.  I know that adjunct positions aren't exactly hard to get, nor are the hiring processes anywhere near as nuanced as the processes for better teaching positions... but I have to say that I've been a bit shocked by what having that school name at the top of my CV has meant to people who've hired me.

[Gray Under Gray]

I'm wondering how concerned I should be that Urbana-Champaign seems to have dropped quite a bit? I'm most likely attending this fall for my English MA. I know the ranking system is flawed, but prestige still carries a lot of weight, and if this is a sign of what's to come... 

 

Pretty sure it fell from a tie with CUNY #22 to #26.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Gray Under Gray

[Bumblebea]

2 minutes ago, piers_plowman said:

Very interesting, and dovetails with another question we've been considering: which is more important on the job market, the overall prestige (i.e. rank, as this survey reduces rank to pure prestige as others see it) of your program or the individual prestige of your letter writers? I'm in a decision situation right now in which one choice has a better overall department, prestige, and placement rate, but its faculty in my own subfield are relatively young and untested. Did you get the sense that the aura around the name on your degree did more for or against you than the reputations of your advisors?

It's really difficult to say because different institutions have different hiring criteria. It's also difficult to say because no one really KNOWS why they did or didn't get hired at a particular institution.

But the general rule of thumb is that small elite LACs (or schools trying to be small elite LACs) fall harder for name recognition. They want as much Ivy on the faculty as they can possibly get because it looks good to the parents shelling out $70k a year. The professors at those institutions are also going to be less familiar with professionalization as it works in your field. In other words, you might be the sole Americanist they'll have on their faculty. And they--a collection of people representing fields as diverse as medieval or world lit--are not necessarily going to know if your dissertation is groundbreaking or your publications are innovative. They also aren't going to care if you've held X fellowship from Y library. They are going to care much more about the name at the top of your CV.

Major R1 departments are going to be more discerning. That's where you'll often see someone from a lesser-known program get interviewed. HOWEVER, in this day and age, R1s are almost exclusively hiring people who already have TT jobs and books in the pipeline. This is because R1 schools want to hire someone they know they can tenure. Recently, administrations at R1 schools have taken away the tenure line entirely if the department hires someone and doesn't tenure them. 

So ... all things being equal, I would probably recommend going to the school with more prestige going for it. NGL, it's brutal out there and if you come from a program that's not at the top of that list, you pretty much need to kill yourself professionalizing. And regarding your particular situation: I wouldn't make decisions purely on the basis of faculty and where they are in their careers. I know too many people who go somewhere to work with a professor, only to see that professor leave for another program. Seven years is a long time. Faculty are the most unpredictable thing in this whole game. Reputation is much slower to change. 

[Warelin]

14 minutes ago, Gray Under Gray said:

I'm wondering how concerned I should be that Urbana-Champaign seems to have dropped quite a bit? I'm most likely attending this fall for my English MA. I know the ranking system is flawed, but prestige still carries a lot of weight, and if this is a sign of what's to come... 

 

Pretty sure it fell from a tie with CUNY #22 to #26.

Illinois was ranked #22 with CUNY under the old rankings. However, a drop from 22 to 26 isn't that different. It seems like there were also a lot less "ties" than there were.

[Bumblebea]

49 minutes ago, Warelin said:

 

 

I wholeheartedly agree with this. But what would you propose doing with students that don't go on to the national job market due to family location or those who choose an alternative career?

I'm not sure if such a thing could ever be accounted for, or if it should matter at all. Most people don't do "truly national" job searches in that most people have places where they absolutely will not live or jobs that they just won't take. And I think that most programs, regardless of ranking, have people who decide on an alternative career, or are confined to a specific location because of their family. I know people who went to the very best programs and made these decisions based on family or other interests. So I guess I feel like this would just balance out. 

Re: ways to assess programs: I would personally want to know how many grad students manage to have an article accepted to a peer-reviewed journal before they earn their degree. I think this is a good indicator of program quality for a few different reasons. First, it tells you something about program priorities. If grad students manage to publish, it is because they are being advised and guided well. Second, it tells you something about the time students have to pursue their research. Programs that demand more teaching oftentimes provide less time for grad students to undertake the onerous process of publishing an article. Third, it tells you that the grad students are doing research that is being recognized nationally. It's cutting edge enough, it's innovative, etc. 

[Dr. Old Bill]

21 minutes ago, Bumblebea said:

 

Re: ways to assess programs: I would personally want to know how many grad students manage to have an article accepted to a peer-reviewed journal before they earn their degree. I think this is a good indicator of program quality for a few different reasons. First, it tells you something about program priorities. If grad students manage to publish, it is because they are being advised and guided well. Second, it tells you something about the time students have to pursue their research. Programs that demand more teaching oftentimes provide less time for grad students to undertake the onerous process of publishing an article. Third, it tells you that the grad students are doing research that is being recognized nationally. It's cutting edge enough, it's innovative, etc. 

Yes, I think this is big. Honestly, this is one of the reasons why I'm giving some very serious thought to one of the programs I'm waitlisted at (even though I was accepted to one of my top choices). One of their Ph.D. candidates in my field has a whopping five peer-reviewed articles published, and has a whopping two books in the pipeline (not monographs, but still) with publication dates in 2019 and 2020. That suggests a great deal of professionalization and significant academic support from the department. Indeed, I don't know if I've heard of a grad student being that far ahead. Now, this may just indicate that that one student has everything going for her, and has simply powered her way through the program on the basis of her innate brilliance etc...but I don't know if that would even be possible without close engagement with mentors etc.

A large part of me wants to accept the top-choice program that accepted me outright, but the above situation (and what it implies) is the bulk of what compels me to attend the program's visit day and hope for waitlist movement.

[biyutefulphlower]

1 hour ago, Gray Under Gray said:

I'm wondering how concerned I should be that Urbana-Champaign seems to have dropped quite a bit?

If it's any consolation, the U of Florida is all the way down at #67th. 

Then again, I'm totally fine with an 'alternative career', so perhaps this doesn't stress me as much as it could/should?

 

[zombiekeats]

2 hours ago, Bumblebea said:

It's really difficult to say because different institutions have different hiring criteria. It's also difficult to say because no one really KNOWS why they did or didn't get hired at a particular institution.

But the general rule of thumb is that small elite LACs (or schools trying to be small elite LACs) fall harder for name recognition. They want as much Ivy on the faculty as they can possibly get because it looks good to the parents shelling out $70k a year. The professors at those institutions are also going to be less familiar with professionalization as it works in your field. In other words, you might be the sole Americanist they'll have on their faculty. And they--a collection of people representing fields as diverse as medieval or world lit--are not necessarily going to know if your dissertation is groundbreaking or your publications are innovative. They also aren't going to care if you've held X fellowship from Y library. They are going to care much more about the name at the top of your CV.

Major R1 departments are going to be more discerning. That's where you'll often see someone from a lesser-known program get interviewed. HOWEVER, in this day and age, R1s are almost exclusively hiring people who already have TT jobs and books in the pipeline. This is because R1 schools want to hire someone they know they can tenure. Recently, administrations at R1 schools have taken away the tenure line entirely if the department hires someone and doesn't tenure them. 

So ... all things being equal, I would probably recommend going to the school with more prestige going for it. NGL, it's brutal out there and if you come from a program that's not at the top of that list, you pretty much need to kill yourself professionalizing. And regarding your particular situation: I wouldn't make decisions purely on the basis of faculty and where they are in their careers. I know too many people who go somewhere to work with a professor, only to see that professor leave for another program. Seven years is a long time. Faculty are the most unpredictable thing in this whole game. Reputation is much slower to change. 

Yikes, is it really just Ivy or bust? This is definitely something that worries me. 

[Dr. Old Bill]

2 minutes ago, zombiekeats said:

Yikes, is it really just Ivy or bust? This is definitely something that worries me. 

That's not quite what @Bumblebea is saying. It may be a case of "Ivy or bust" for prestigious SLACs and R1s (and it certainly looks that way), but unless you absolutely don't want to be in academia if you can't proceed on a laurel-strewn path, there's a wide range of institutions that aren't Ivies, R1s, or SLACs...and they all need professors too. It's hard to deny that an Ivy is going to help your chances almost no matter what, just as it's hard (nay, impossible) to deny that TT positions are dwindling across the board...but if you're open to institutions outside of the R1 / pSLAC parameters, you may still be competitive if you get a degree from somewhere in the back half of the spurious, so-called top-50.

For my own part, I enjoy teaching as much as I enjoy research, so if I wind up somewhere with a 3/3 or 4/4 load, it's probably not going to bother me overly much.

[CarolineNC]

I'm trying not to be too bummed that UNC-CH has fallen from 15 to 18. I'm not doing a great job fighting it off. I was hoping we'd climb. I know these rankings are somewhat flawed, but they still affect job market prospects.

Edited March 14, 2017 by CarolineNC

[Bumblebea]

2 hours ago, Old Bill said:

One of their Ph.D. candidates in my field has a whopping five peer-reviewed articles published, and has a whopping two books in the pipeline (not monographs, but still) with publication dates in 2019 and 2020. That suggests a great deal of professionalization and significant academic support from the department. Indeed, I don't know if I've heard of a grad student being that far ahead. Now, this may just indicate that that one student has everything going for her, and has simply powered her way through the program on the basis of her innate brilliance etc...but I don't know if that would even be possible without close engagement with mentors etc.

I would urge you to look at the total picture regarding the graduate students. See if you can info about how many are publishing peer reviewed articles on the whole. I tell you this because every program has That Person. That Person exists in every department from Texas Tech to UC-Riverside to Buffalo to Yale to Stanford, and they're rarely representative of grad students in general. 

There is also good reason for "holding back" on publication, and this is something that many dissertation chairs and advisors advocate. You don't want to publish too much out of your dissertation because doing so could hurt its chances of getting published as a book. I was also told as a grad student not to publish too much before getting a TT job because everything I published before getting a job would not work toward my tenure case. Now, that advice might be out of date because there are so few TT jobs out there anyway, but that belief system is still in circulation at a lot of programs that have success placing their students. So you just want to keep that in mind. The reason the students at Top Program aren't flush with journal articles might have more to do with playing a long game than just coasting on their laurels. 

[jrockford27]

I once had a member of the faculty at my school tell me that they're suspicious of freshly minted PhDs with too many publications.  It's hard to believe, they argue, that a PhD student with voluminous record of peer reviewed and edited publications could possibly producing quality content across the board.

Also, ditto what Bumblebea said.

It's also worthwhile to consider that one reason people at brand-name PhD programs are able to publish a lot more because they typically teach a lot less.  Right now, I project I'll finish my diss in about 25 months - but if I get a non-teaching fellowship, I'd bet I can crank it out in more like 18.  Teaching load really matters that much.  While some schools fall over themselves for the brand, other potential employers may value someone who has designed and taught a number of classes and can hit the ground running as an instructor.  

Edited March 14, 2017 by jrockford27

[orphic_mel528]

I don't believe for a moment that the ranking of the university I chose will hold me back in any capacity, and I hope no one here believes that, either

[Bumblebea]

1 hour ago, jrockford27 said:

I once had a member of the faculty at my school tell me that they're suspicious of freshly minted PhDs with too many publications.  It's hard to believe, they argue, that a PhD student with voluminous record of peer reviewed and edited publications could possibly producing quality content across the board.

I don't know if I would be as cynical as this faculty member ... I have seen people produce many high-quality articles in well-regarded journals. But I do think that people like this are rare. And I also think that it's not the best move professionally because the monograph is the ultimate way to get ahead. Publishing eight journal articles is not going to get you as far ahead as publishing two articles and generating interest in your book project. 

And I don't mean to imply anything about the professor who said that, but I've often seen the "it's probably not quality scholarship" dig made out of envy. In my experience, the accusation is leveled by people at higher-ranked programs against people from lower-ranked programs. People from less elite programs are many times in a bind--they have to publish more just to get their name on the map, but then they're accused of publishing *too much* or giving the milk away for free or something. It exemplifies a lot about what's wrong with academia--you're told to work really hard but not look like you're working *too hard* or something. 

Quote

It's also worthwhile to consider that one reason people at brand-name PhD programs are able to publish a lot more because they typically teach a lot less.  Right now, I project I'll finish my diss in about 25 months - but if I get a non-teaching fellowship, I'd bet I can crank it out in more like 18.  Teaching load really matters that much.

It really does. I had a really high teaching load during grad school and was finally able to write and submit an article between year four and five--when I got the summer off from teaching.  

Edited March 14, 2017 by Bumblebea

[Bumblebea]

1 hour ago, CarolineNC said:

I'm trying not to be too bummed that UNC-CH has fallen from 15 to 18. I'm not doing a great job fighting it off. I was hoping we'd climb. I know these rankings are somewhat flawed, but they still affect job market prospects.

I wouldn't put too much stock in it, for all the reasons we've just enumerated.

And Claremont's program is inexplicably ranked in the top 50. What the hell. 

[NowMoreSerious]

7 hours ago, Bumblebea said:

I'm not sure if such a thing could ever be accounted for, or if it should matter at all. Most people don't do "truly national" job searches in that most people have places where they absolutely will not live or jobs that they just won't take. And I think that most programs, regardless of ranking, have people who decide on an alternative career, or are confined to a specific location because of their family. I know people who went to the very best programs and made these decisions based on family or other interests. So I guess I feel like this would just balance out. 

Re: ways to assess programs: I would personally want to know how many grad students manage to have an article accepted to a peer-reviewed journal before they earn their degree. I think this is a good indicator of program quality for a few different reasons. First, it tells you something about program priorities. If grad students manage to publish, it is because they are being advised and guided well. Second, it tells you something about the time students have to pursue their research. Programs that demand more teaching oftentimes provide less time for grad students to undertake the onerous process of publishing an article. Third, it tells you that the grad students are doing research that is being recognized nationally. It's cutting edge enough, it's innovative, etc. 

 

Good points, but you as well as I know that WHERE you get published is a very important factor.  

[Abyss21]

12 hours ago, eadwacer said:

I never know what to do with rankings since I've decided I'm going to Canada. What's the best way to compare Canadian universities to US? World rankings don't seem especially helpful, and I've never really thought about it before, since I grew up in the US and didn't anticipate leaving until quite recently.

From what I've heard, all Canadian universities (even the highest ranked ones) are typically considered second-tier in comparison with the top American universities. What this means is that places like NYU and Duke, even though they are ranked lower than University of Toronto, are still considered more prestigious. That being said, going to one of the top 4 Canadian universities (UofT, McGill, UBC, or University of Alberta) is still considered competitive for post-grad jobs. For instance, even though it is not an American university, UofT has about a 50% placement rate, which is still quite strong. McGill's placement rate is likely similar and UBC and University of Alberta might be a bit lower, but it's still not bad.

[claritus]

14 hours ago, jungThug said:

Does anybody else think that Harvard's top 10 ranking is manifestly unjustified? They haven't placed any of their grads in a TT position for over 2 years now. On the other hand, CUNY Grad Center has had a much better placement rate despite having a bigger program and a fraction of the resources at Harvard; moreover CUNY's faculty/grad students are getting published with more frequency than Harvard. Yet CUNY is 20 and Harvard is 8. It is also telling that the 2 "hottest" fields in English studies -- Rhet-Comp and Digital Humanities -- remain unrepresented in Harvard's English faculty, a sign that shows how entrenched Harvard's English program is in outmoded conversations. These rankings are pretty stupid and they uphold the illusion of elitism even when there's no substance in the matter. 

Not really, no. I don't know where you are getting your stats, but they have placed numerous grad in TT positions over past the past two years. And while CUNY does have some excellent faculty members, the quality of work of those at Harvard is pretty undeniable, at least in terms of pedigree. It's really not about frequency of publication; it's about the quality of journals and academic presses. Likewise, while Rhet-Comp and Digital Humanities are "hot," that doesn't necessarily translate to rankings. In particular, Rhet-Comp is not even always considered to be part of these rankings, which are focused on Literary Studies. Moreover, while Harvard isn't great re. Digital Humanities, people like Leah Price, Philip Fisher, and Deidre Lynch are at the forefront of other "hot" fields like Book History and Affect, so I don't think your characterization of the department as outmoded is totally fair. 

I get where you're coming from—I wouldn't want to attend Harvard, at least not for my subfield. It doesn't have the same sort of dynamism or sheen as some of the other programs in the top 10, and some of the prominent faculty members are close to retirement. That being said, they will always be able to make good hires, the faculty will always have publications with a golden pedigree, and no matter how conservative the department seems, they will still have grad students who go on to do amazing work. Think of people like Namwali Serpell and Sianne Ngai, Jared Hickman, Holger Syme, etc... No arguments against CUNY being a great program, but it really doesn't have the same profile as Harvard. 

Edited March 15, 2017 by claritus