<p>What universities offer the best art history programs, preferably ones with good connections to respected art museums?</p>
<p>Columbia and NYU have excellent art history departments and are near the Met and Moma.
UC Berkeley has an excellent art history department, though the museums in the area are only so so -- LA has some great museums; check out UCLA.
Among the LAC's, Williams and Oberlin stand out as having good academic programs and good small art museums. Harvard, Yale, Smith are also top schools and also have good art museums.</p>
<p>When I was at Northwestern, the art history department was well thought of and the teachers were so good, nonmajors fought to get into the classes. Chicago has the art institute, so that may be interesting.</p>
<p>NYU and Columbia are the big names. </p>
<p>Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, etc. too. </p>
<p>Those are all really hard to get into though. Delaware and Rutgers are supposed to have really nice programs too, if you need safeties.</p>
<p>Just about every large university has a good art history department. Those in urban centers -- e.g., New York, Washington, LA, Philadelphia, Boston -- have access to that city's museums. </p>
<p>Williams has one of the best Art History programs in the country and so many museum directors are graduates that they are referred to as the Williams mafia. They have excellent handson opportunity at the three museums that are on or near campus and very strong connections for internship programs. </p>
<p>Other small liberal arts schools with good art history programs are Wesleyan, Oberlin, Kenyon, Hamilton, Vassar, Bard, Conn College, Skidmore. If you are female, Smith and Bryn Mawr.</p>