<p>I should know the answer but I don't. Several of son's friends have talked about this and finally asked me as their school counselors didn't know. They are looking for programs in biology, chemistry, history, creative writing and various engineering programs. I answered their engineering questions, but don't know about the rest. </p>
<p>They're not concerned about prestige, just want strong programs. The US News premium online edition will list all schools with a major, but sometimes that's a VERY long list and doesn't speak to the strength of the program. </p>
<p>Does anything like this exist? Would appreciate a point in the right direction.</p>
<p>Have you checked the "college majors" subforum here at CC? Go to "College Discussion", then "college majors", and then to each major. There is a misc. majors list, too.</p>
<p>I haven't seen it so don't have first hand knowledge, but I understand that a book called "Rugg's Recommendations" has some good info like this. Not really a ratings book, but it does have lists of majors and schools that supposedly have strong programs in them. Not just the super-selective schools, either.</p>
<p>The NRC rankings are for grad programs and include a lot of factors that are not even relevant for undergrad education. In fact, in the sciences, kids will often have more decent research opportunities in "lesser" departments, as the top ones are so heavily grad student focused. And the very best are not even grad student focused, at least in the life sciences. They tend to be post-doc focused.</p>
<p>IMHO, given how many times undergrads change majors, look for the right offerings - no need to look at schools that don't offer engineering, for example, if your kid want to be an engineer right now - but don't sweat departmental specifics. The overall college culture will have a much bigger impact.</p>
<p>I have a copy of Ruggs reports and it is invaluable for someone trying to find and accertain the relative strength of college programs. It lists dozens of majors by college and groups them into good, better and best reputations for individual majors among college counselors.</p>
<p>The big criticism of the Ruggs reports is that there is no discussion of methodology, so no one really knows how the lists were determined. That said, I suppose a respected opinion is better than nothing. </p>
<p>IMHO, you can learn just as much by looking at the individual departments, counting faculty and courses for undergrads. </p>
<p>What most consider a weak department will have few faculty and a limited course selection. </p>
<p>I realize this is more work than just looking at a table online or in a book, but it is much more relevant.</p>
<p>there are a few post by Collegehelp that gives Gourman Report rankings for different programs (the downside is that it only evaluates large research universities and not LACs)</p>
<p>The top Unis are strong in just about everything, and particularly the basics like bio, english, history and engineering (assuming they have an E school). But its a little more difficult to discern differences amoung LACs. Since you have USNews, look under the Academic tab for five most popular majors. If, say, history is in the top five, it is likely a stronger program. OTOH, if history is your passion, and business, econ, math, egineering & bio share the top five spots, then I'd look elsewhere for a history program. Yes, all LACs will offer history, but if there are only 10 dept grads every year, choices will be extremely limited beyond the Frosh intro classes.</p>
<p>Interesting approach, but one big, fatal flaw:</p>
<ul>
<li> the popularity of programs is as much determined by what is popular at the moment as by what is good at a particular school. For instance, some humanities programs are very good but starved for students as humanities are out of fashion at the moment.</li>
</ul>
<p>A data point, but, "fatal flaw?" Since its only one data point, amongst many others; and, is a rather good starting point for LACs, IMO. </p>
<p>You may recall a discusssion on another thread about a Russian Studies major matriculating to UCSD. If I recall, another poster said that UCSD only graduates 5-6 kids per year in that major. IMO, the Russian offerings are too limited at that school; a passionate kid would want more than just a handful of classes from which to choose. Or, take Bucknell, which has many wonderful departments, but their history department is limited - biz and engineering are much bigger. They could have the world's greatest history prof, but if the upper division classes are limited to handful, what's the point of paying $45k for that one prof? If a major is out of favor -- the dept resources are limited.</p>
<p>Over30, I just pm'd you. I have literally hundreds of resources on every major available. Most aren't rankings, but rather reliable sources of information to help students and parents do just what NewMassDad suggests: evaluate individual programs. If you PM me or email me, I'd be happy to share.</p>
<p>Again, you just don't understand how universities work. Take your comment "If a major is out of favor -- the dept resources are limited." </p>
<p>This would be true if colleges can hire and fire like your local burger king. But they can't. They have tenured faculty. So turnover can be very slow. And keep in mind that it is the "small" majors that often lead to wonderful interaction with top faculty. You're not competing with as many other students for attention. So what's wrong with "only" graduating 506 kids per year? It's not the numbers that matter. </p>
<p>In fact, the situation with "hot" majors, the ones with big numbers can be the worst. In order to meet instructional demands, you could find larger classes, adjunct faculty, TAs and so forth. </p>
<p>So looking at popular programs is easy, but a lousy way to go. </p>
<p>Sorry blue, but shortcuts just don't work with this stuff.</p>