<p>Though I've done extensive research online, I've never found any ranking of College History Departments. Does anyone know of the best colleges for History? Please don't just give me a list of the Ivy League Schools, I'd like to know about great History Departments beyond the Ivy League.</p>
<p>mister> what area of history are you looking to study?</p>
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<p>Unless you're looking for a specific time period or area (are you?), most colleges and universities which offer liberal arts will have decent History departments. It's a standard major offered. Also, bigger universities will offer more courses every year, but smaller universities and colleges may have smaller classes, so something to consider.</p>
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<p>History's a pretty popular major at many schools, which means in a big school there will be a lot of big classes and a lot of other people competing for professors' attention. I'd look for a smaller school with a strong undergrad focus. Yale and Princeton would be outstanding. Chicago is also excellent, Brown and Duke very good. After that I'd look at the top LACs: Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, Carleton, and Bowdoin all have very strong history faculties, and I'm sure there are many more. Look at their websites, see who's on the faculty, what they teach, and where their research interests lie. History is a mainstay for LACs, and at the top ones you'll get first-rate instruction, a lot of personal attention from faculty, and the opportunity to do serious work in the field if you're so inclined.</p>
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<p>There's no "college" ranking for history department. The top-20 graduate programs are all of the Ivies, Berkeley, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA, JHU, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, Rutgers-New Brunswick, Indiana, UT-Austin, and UVA.</p>
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<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergrad history</p>
<p>Yale
Berkeley
Princeton
Harvard
Stanford
Michigan
Columbia
Chicago
Johns Hopkins
Wisconsin
Cornell
Indiana U
U Penn
Brown
UNC Chapel Hill
UCLA
Northwestern
UVA
U Texas Austin
U Rochester
U Illinois UC
U Notre Dame
U Washington
U Minnesota
U Iowa
Duke
Rutgers
UC Santa Barbara
UC San Diego
NYU
Vanderbilt
Washington U St Louis
U Maryland CP
Ohio St
Missouri Columbia
Emory
U Pitt
Rice
SUNY Stonybrook
Dartmouth
Brandeis
U Kansas
Boston U
UC Davis
SUNY Buffalo
Michigan St </p>
<p>Rugg's Recommendations for history
Albion (MI) ……..
Amherst (MA) …..
Barnard (NY) ….
Boston Col. (MA) ….
Boston U. (MA) …….
Bowdoin (ME) …….
Brandeis (MA) …..
Brown (RI) ……..
Bryn Mawr (PA) .,
Bucknell (PA) …,
California, U. of (Berkeley) …
California, U. of (Los Angeles) …
Carleton (MN) ……
Centre (KY) …..,
Chicago, U. of (IL) ….’
Claremont McKenna (CA) ………
Colgate (NY) ……….’
Colorado Co. …..
Columbia (NY) ……,
Connecticut Co. ….’
Cornell (NY) ……..
Dallas, U. of (TX) ……….,
Davidson (NC) ……
Dickinson (PA) ….
Drew (NJ) …..
Duke (NC) …..
Emory (GA) ….
George Washington (DC) ….
Georgetown (DC) “,
Gettysburg (PA) …..
Grinnell (IA) …..,
Hamilton (NY) …..
Harvard (MA) …
Haverford (PA) ..
Holy Cross (MA) ….
Kalamazoo (Ml) …….
Kenyon (OH) ….
Lafayette (PA) …..
Lawrence (WI) …….
Macalester (MN) ..
Middlebury (VT) ……
Mount Holyoke (MA) …
North Carolina, U. of ….
Northwestern (lL) …..
Notre Dame (IN) ….
Oberlin (OH) ……..,
Pennsylvania, U. of ……
Pomona (CA) …….
Princeton (NJ) …
Reed (OR) ………
Rhodes (TN) ….,
Rice (TX) …….
Smith (M~) …………..
South, U. of the (TN) ….
Southwestern (TX) ….,
Swarthmore (PA) …..’
Texas Christian U. (TX) …..
Trinity (TX) …
Tufts (MA) ……
Tulane (LA) …….
Union (NY) ….,
Vanderbilt (TN) ..
Vassar (NY) ….
Virginia, U. of ….
Wabash (IN) …….
Wake Forest (NC) …
Washington & lee (VA) ….
Wellesley (MA) ………,
Whitman (WA) ……’
William & Mary (VA) ……,
Williams (MA) …..
Yeshiva (NY) …….</p>
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<p>One of the major reasons I applied to Harvard was the chance to take classes from Niall Ferguson, who happens to be my favorite historian. Ironically I'm not even going to be a history major :)</p>
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<p>White_Rabbit> He's one of my favorites too! I'm a British Imperial history major and he is definitely one of the greats. I chose to come to Berkeley to study under profs. Vernon and Laqueur who both chair the Center for British Studies here. H is one of my choices for grad school along with NYU (J.J. Lee) and Oxford (Roy Foster, affiliated with Hertford College).</p>
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<p>He seems really nice, I've e-mailed him and he sent me a pretty extensive reply that answered all of my questions.</p>
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<p>White > I have always been amazed by the graciousness of the faculty at H. Quite a number of years ago I emailed Stephen Jay Gould with a question I had regarding his book "Ever Since Darwin" and was amazed to actually receive a reply which led to a minor correspondence between us.</p>
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<p>Yes they all seem very interested in students. I'm not even on campus yet and I've received fairly detailed responses from every professor I have e-mailed about research or with questions about their classes. A short list of e-mail conversations includes Howard Georgei, Noam Elkies, Emma Rothschild, Niall Ferguson, Arthur Jaffe, and Christopher Stubbs. All of them seemed excited to answer my questions. I think the "Harvard doesn't care about undergraduates" is very overblown.</p>
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<p>Hmmm... how is the gourman report different from the Rugg's recommendation? I see Michigan at Gourman but not on Ruggs.</p>
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<p>Was surprised when I was at Boston College that 2 semesters of European history were required. Not sure if that's sitll the case, but it's an indication of how various history departments focus on different things.</p>
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<p>As an undergrad historian (though I have been a professional historical researcher for many years as well as a licensed tour guide in NYC) my two choices so far have been City College of New York (CUNY-CCNY) and Columbia University. I plan to pursue my PhD (with a minor in archaeology) and there was nothing I wanted more than to study under esteemed professors and historians Michael Wallace and Kenneth Jackson (CUNY Grad Center and Columbia U respectively).</p>
<p>Although not necessarily caring about pedigree v. department program I made my first choice Columbia. The main difference is that Columbia’s instructors MUST be full professors while CUNY doesn’t have that requirement. I prefer not to study under MAs. The other difference is do I want a good education or a great education? I’ll stick with the great education.</p>
<p>You may have a preference regarding the type of instructor(s) you want which means that you’ll have to do some more research.</p>
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<p>With all the schools you have listed that are good with history, are they also good with european history and which would be the most recommneded within the new england area?</p>
<p>I known University of Wisconsin is suppossedly (sp?) very good at history, not sure if for undergraduate though.</p>
<p>Wisconsin is strong in History, but it’s a big school so lower numbered courses will be larger and upper level smaller. </p>
<p>The department is large and comprehensive with particular strengths in US History (probably top 3), Women’s and African History (pioneering both), Latin American History, and European History. It’s a very stimulating atmosphere with great resources. Past Badger historians include: George Mosse, William Appleman Williams, Frederick Jackson Turner, Gerda Lerner, Jean Boydston and Stephen Ambrose to name a few.</p>
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<p>If you want to study American History in general, Gettysburg College is the way to go in many cases.</p>
<p>For Euro. Hist., I’d say McGill if cost is an issue, otherwise Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, etc. would be good.</p>
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