What are examples of PhD programs that have declined in quality/prestige in recent years?

[bwgvsu]

What are examples of PhD programs that have declined in quality/prestige in recent years?

[guest56436]

 Notre Dame, UCLA, George Mason, Wisconsin, Chicago, Northwestern. 

[Hopeful23]

Do you know of any that have increased in quality/prestige?

[guest56436]

Duke, WUSTL, MIT, UC Davis, UPenn, NYU, Emory, Vanderbilt, AU, USC.

[bwgvsu]

5 minutes ago, Hopeful23 said:

Do you know of any that have increased in quality/prestige?

I just took a look at the US News and World Report rankings, which must have been updated in the past day or two. MSU went from 32 to 29. University of Pennsylvania is now ranked 19. Correct me if I am wrong, but was this program in the 20s-30s? 

[guest56436]

It was 28th or something like that.

[bwgvsu]

I wonder what explains the jump.

[guest56436]

4 minutes ago, bwgvsu said:

I wonder what explains the jump.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/polisci/news/department-hires-7-new-professors

(Plus some other good hires in recent years).

And they are placing well, especially in IR. 

Most of the jumpers in the rankings this year had made a bunch of hires (especially senior lines). The ranking methodology favors perceptions of faculties and prestige over actual graduate training. 

Edited March 15, 2017 by Comparativist

[oakeshott]

A kind soul shared the list below on PSR. They're changes in US News ranking positions.*

Basically, the biggest winners in the Top 60 are Houston (+17), American (+12), UMass Amherst (+12), Vanderbilt (+12), Penn (+9), and Georgetown (+7). The biggest losers are Johns Hopkins (-9), and UCSB (-6).

Some of the results are inconsistent with the claims being made in this thread (see, e.g., Chicago, MIT, Wisconsin).

*As a disclaimer, I haven't checked any of the numbers on this list myself.  

1. Top 10

Duke +3
UC Berkeley +2
Stanford +1
Columbia no change
Harvard no change
Michigan no change
Yale no change
MIT -1
Princeton -1
UCSD -1

2. Ranked 11-60

Houston +17
American +12
U’Mass Amherst +12
Vanderbilt +12
Penn +9
Georgetown +7
UC Davis +6
UC Riverside +6
Boston U +5
Brown +5
Colorado +5
North Texas +5
Arizona State +3
Georgia +3
MSU +3
NYU +3
Stony Brook +3
Southern California +3
Syracuse +1
Texas +2
UNC +2
Emory +1
Texas A&M +1
Cornell no change
WUSTL no change
Chicago no change
Florida State no change
Ohio State no change
Pitt no change
Rutgers no change
Wisconsin no change
Binghamton -1
Illinois -1
Maryland -1
Notre Dame -1
Virginia -1
Northwestern -2
U Arizona -3
Indiana -4
Iowa -5
Penn State -5
Rice -1
Rochester -2
UCLA -2
UC Irvine -5
UC Santa Barbara -6
George Washington -4
Minnesota -5
U. Washington -5
Johns Hopkins -9

 

 

 

[guest56436]

35 minutes ago, oakeshott said:

Some of the results are inconsistent with the claims being made in this thread (see, e.g., Chicago, MIT, Wisconsin).

That's because some of my suggestions were longer term than the past rankings. For example, Chicago used to be a powerhouse top 5-10 program. It then bled out a huge amount of senior faculty in the late 90s and 00s and dropped pretty hard in the rankings. Wisconsin has been gutted financially and only seems to place well for comparative these days - no one considers it a top program anymore despite its lack of falling in the rankings. MIT was never a traditional political science strength but it has gradually worked its way into the top 10 over the years.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Comparativist

[Monody]

As some have noted on PSR, you should also note that a drop in the ranking does not necessitate a drop in the program's quality given first the low response rate of the survey (around 30 or so percent I think), second the possibility that other programs simply became better, and third similar to second that no tie to tie need also not be a downturn.

[oakeshott]

All very good points.

My general approach to these rankings is that small variations (say, +/- 3 or 4) don't really provide too much information, especially among the mid and lower tiers. But once you start to talk about changes in the order of +17 (Houston) or -9 (JHU), clearly something's changing with those departments. Similarly, trend lines can be more important than individual observations.

@Comparativist's point about time frames is interesting. I agree intuitively, but I wonder if it's possible to dig up some tangible evidence. What are the longest-running Political Science rankings? I was only able to find USNWR rankings for 2009, 2013, and 2017.  

[guest56436]

29 minutes ago, oakeshott said:

All very good points.

My general approach to these rankings is that small variations (say, +/- 3 or 4) don't really provide too much information, especially among the mid and lower tiers. But once you start to talk about changes in the order of +17 (Houston) or -9 (JHU), clearly something's changing with those departments. Similarly, trend lines can be more important than individual observations.

@Comparativist's point about time frames is interesting. I agree intuitively, but I wonder if it's possible to dig up some tangible evidence. What are the longest-running Political Science rankings? I was only able to find USNWR rankings for 2009, 2013, and 2017.  

There's another problem though: as you get down the rankings, the difference between programs gets compressed. For example, you might have a .2 difference between 10-20 spots. What this means is that if - say - three or four of the respondents gave a certain low-ranking program a significantly different grade than it has gotten in the past then it could really change their place in the standings. The rankings are averaged with the previous editions - and while this reduces excessive variation for most of the rankings, it doesn't have the same effect for the bottom 50s. 

That being said you are right - big jumps usually signify something dramatic is happening. Or, they could have lost/gained someone prominent within a small faculty. 

I think the NRC rankings are the longest running - but they are done really infrequently.

I think these are the 1995 ones (which as you notice, has lots of interesting change from today):

https://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area39.html

Edited March 15, 2017 by Comparativist

[Bibica]

Keck retired at JHU. She was a big deal.

[VMcJ]

Here are the US News Rankings in 1995, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013 for Political Science (p.13) for Top 20 and some other programs.

( http://web.mit.edu/ir/rankings/USNews_Grad_Rankings_1994-2016.pdf )

As you can notice, in two decades:

- Harvard was always 1st;
- Princeton worked its way to the Top 3, while Columbia did it to the Top 10 and NYU to the Top 15;
- Chicago, as @Comparativist noted, dropped from Top 5 and now is Top 15;
- MIT and Duke are very stable in their places as "Top-10-but-too-close-to-15";
- Wisconsin, Rochester and Minnesota have been falling for a while.

[oakeshott]

1 hour ago, VMcJ said:

Here are the US News Rankings in 1995, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013 for Political Science (p.13) for Top 20 and some other programs.

( http://web.mit.edu/ir/rankings/USNews_Grad_Rankings_1994-2016.pdf )

Such a cool document! Thank you!

[polyscinoob]

I think the ranking stuff is pretty fascinating, 

Top 10 positive changes in rank vs score

University	2013 Score	2013 Rank	2017 Score	2017 Rank	Score Differential	Rank Differential
University of Pennsylvania	3.3	28	3.8	19	0.5	9
University of Houston	2.3	68	2.7	51	0.4	17
University of Oklahoma	2.1	83	2.5	61	0.4	22
Vanderbilt University	3.1	36	3.5	24	0.4	12
University of California—Davis	3.5	23	3.9	17	0.4	6
University of California—Riverside	2.5	54	2.9	48	0.4	6
American University	2.3	68	2.6	56	0.3	12
University of Massachusetts—Amherst	2.3	68	2.6	56	0.3	12
Georgetown University	3	40	3.3	33	0.3	7
Duke University	4.2	10	4.5	7	0.3	3

-----

University	2013 Score	2013 Rank	2017 Score	2017 Rank	Score Differential	Rank Differential
University of Oklahoma	2.1	83	2.5	61	0.4	22
University of Houston	2.3	68	2.7	51	0.4	17
Vanderbilt University	3.1	36	3.5	24	0.4	12
American University	2.3	68	2.6	56	0.3	12
University of Massachusetts—Amherst	2.3	68	2.6	56	0.3	12
Temple University	2.2	76	2.4	65	0.2	11
University at Buffalo—SUNY	2.2	76	2.4	65	0.2	11
University of Connecticut	2.2	76	2.4	65	0.2	11
Georgia State University	2.1	83	2.3	72	0.2	11
University of Pennsylvania	3.3	28	3.8	19	0.5	9

 

 

If anyone is interested, you're more than welcome to the data set.

USNews_rankings_dataset.xlsx

Edited March 16, 2017 by polyscinoob

[VMcJ]

@polyscinoob, your graph is very interesting as we can see clearly four tiers: Top 6, Top 20, Top 50, and everyone else, give or take a few. Or "those with more fives than fours", "those with more fours than threes" and so forth.

Edited March 16, 2017 by VMcJ

[em2]

Anyone have access to the expanded rankings for subfields (particularly political theory)? I'm surprised Brown didn't make top 10 and want to know how close it got.