<p>What are the best schools for sociology?</p>
<p>Most top 50 schools have good sociology programs. Some of the better programs:</p>
<p>University of Michigan
Stanford University
Columbia University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of California-Berkeley
Cornell University
Northwestern University</p>
<p>You'll probably find some good options from this list. There's something for just about everybody:</p>
<p>Number of PhDs per 1000 graduates </p>
<p>Academic field: Sociology </p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database<br>
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database<br>
Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>1 Swarthmore College 7
2 Haverford College 6
3 Bryn Mawr College 5
4 Oberlin College 4
5 Whitman College 4
6 Hampshire College 3
7 Earlham College 3
8 Carleton College 3
9 University of Chicago 3
10 Wesleyan University 3
11 Pomona College 3
12 Brown University 3
13 Bennington College 3
14 Grinnell College 3
15 Goucher College 3
16 Clark University 3
17 Franklin and Marshall College 3
18 Harvard University 3
19 Reed College 3
20 Brandeis University 3
21 Antioch University, All Campuses 3
22 Macalester College 3
23 Tougaloo College 3
24 Centenary College of Louisiana 2
25 Northland College 2
26 Wellesley College 2
27 Bard College 2
28 Millsaps College 2
29 University of California-Santa Cruz 2
30 Rice University 2
31 University of Sioux Falls 2
32 Beloit College 2
33 Augsburg College 2
34 Stanford University 2
35 Smith College 2
36 Goshen College 2
37 Cheyney University of Pennsylvania 2
38 Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) 2
39 Manhattanville College 2
40 Yale University 2
41 Barnard College 2
42 University of California-San Francisco 2
43 Huntington College 2
44 Hamline University 2
45 Bowdoin College 2
46 Columbia University in the City of New York 2
47 Denison University 2
48 William Penn College 2
49 Presbyterian College 2
50 University of California-Berkeley 2
51 Rhodes College 2
52 Princeton University 2
53 DePauw University 2
54 Bethel College (North Newton, KS) 2
55 Eckerd College 2
56 Kalamazoo College 2
57 Southwestern University 2
58 Maryville College 2
59 Austin College 2</p>
<p>Universities with the very best Socilogy Departments are:</p>
<p>Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Harvard University
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>Other good Sociology Departments:
Brown University
Brandeis University
Tufts University
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Virginia
Yale University</p>
<p>Some LACs with excellent Sociology Departments:
Amherst College
Beloit College
Bennington College
Carleton College
Dartmouth College
Earlham College
Goucher College
Grinnell College
Hampshire College
Haverford College
Oberlin College
Pomona College
Reed College
Ripon College
Swarthmore College
Wesleyan University</p>
<p>As far as slightly less selective universities with still amazing Sociology departments go, check out:
Indiana University-Bloomington
Pennsylvania State University-University Park
University of Arizona
University of Maryland-College Park
University of Texas-Austin
University of Washington</p>
<p>Sociology
Ranked in 2005*</p>
<p>Rank/School<br>
score (5.0 = highest)
1. University of Wisconsin–Madison 4.9
2. University of California–Berkeley 4.8
3. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.7</p>
<p>This is from US news; sociologys programs ranked for PhDs, but it gives you some idea</p>
<p>
[quote]
....ranked for PhDs, but it gives you some idea
[/quote]
</p>
<p>At least you would know that the TA's would be pretty good!</p>
<p>It doesn't hurt if the school has a recognized PhD program. But, frankly, the PhD programs really don't have all the much connection to undergrad teaching, one way or the other. Undergrad is all about generalization: learning the methods and fundamental concepts of the field. PhD programs, especially in this day and age, are all about specialization in a particular area of research.</p>
<p>One thing I would pay attention to in selecting an undergrad Sociology program would be commitment to study abroad and overseas research opportunities for undergrads. Sociology is a great field for learning about cultures around the globe. Given the changing nature of the world economy going forward, this would be something really worthwhile to take away from a Sociology major.</p>
<p>And yet TA's only lead the discussion sections at Wisconsin. Profs still do the teaching in lecture and most advanced classes do not even have discussion.</p>
<p>The same goes for many schools....</p>
<p>Here's a snip from the current COHE about the emphasis on teaching and research. It may be true for many schools but not many of them are #1 in Sociology.</p>
<p>"Madison, the flagship research campus of the University of Wisconsin System, has asserted for years that teaching is a top priority. The university has made substantial investments in teaching and learning, including creating centers and symposia on the campus that concentrate on those topics. And professors in numerous fields can choose to focus on teaching, even on the tenure track. Professors like Mr. Wattiaux must be more than just excellent teachers to win tenure, though. They have to make a national impact on teaching or learning in their field."
At Madison, professors who concentrate mainly on teaching are in the minority, but they are backed up by a system with a high regard for quality teaching. In the biological sciences, for example, professors can choose research, teaching, or outreach as their primary focus and one of the same three as their secondary focus. Mr. Wattiaux, whose first focus is teaching, also had to show his tenure and promotion committee, which looks at cases just within the biological sciences, that he had established "a national or international reputation as demonstrated by scholarly work," according to tenure guidelines.</p>
<p>Caitilyn Allen, a professor of plant pathology who is chairman of Madison's 11-member biology divisional committee for tenure, says meeting that standard could mean writing an influential textbook, producing important scholarly articles on pedagogy, giving national talks, and amassing a collection of glowing outside letters.</p>
<p>Mr. Wattiaux also had to show that he was significantly improving the way students in his department learn. Accordingly, he went to work creating one new course a semester for four semesters, each of which used innovative methods.</p>
<p>An idea for one course came to Mr. Wattiaux after he kept hearing complaints from students that they were at a premier dairy-science program but had never touched a cow. So the professor designed a hands-on course that met in a barn, not a classroom. Each student was assigned to a cow and was responsible for the animal for the 15-week semester. During calving season, some students were even able to pitch in at a live birth.</p>
<p>It was not all smooth sailing, though, for Mr. Wattiaux. Much of the infrastructure at Madison is still geared toward research, he says, so his efforts had to be largely self-generated. And other professors focused more on research and had been teaching their own way for years, he notes. "I had to really walk a relatively fine line," he says. He tried not to come across as an upstart who was dictating to his elders how to teach.</p>
<p>Ms. Allen, the tenure-committee chairwoman, says Mr. Wattiaux is the ideal teaching professor: "someone who changes the way people think" in his field.</p>
<p>Even if teaching is not a professor's primary focus, it still matters when it comes to evaluation, she says. The committee has denied tenure to some faculty members who were excellent in their research but underwhelming in teaching. Before denying someone tenure, though, she says, Madison makes a point of trying to help professors who want to work on their classroom skills. Ms. Allen notes that many small grants are available to junior professors to learn about distance education or to take leaves to create new courses.</p>
<p>Faculty members in the arts and sciences who take sabbaticals, she says, must show how they will improve their teaching on leave, not just how they will conduct research. "In terms of the message and incentives," she says. "I think they really do care about excellence in teaching."</p>
<p>..."</p>
<p>Interesteddad, yours is a very sweeping generalization that is misleading and seems intent on creating undue fear and paranoia. </p>
<p>Yes, 3rd-5th year PhD students at top Sociology departments (in other words, authorities in the field in their own right) do lead discussion groups of 15-25 students at intro levels at most research universities like Cal, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern and Wisconsin. Discussion groups aren't the same as lectures. Teaching only takes place during lectures. However, I have never heard of a TA actually teaching a Sociology class (or any class other than 100 level foreign language and high school level math classes for that matter) at any major university.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Teaching only takes place during lectures.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think Sociology majors at schools where all Sociology courses are discussion-based with fewer than 20 students would disagree that teaching only takes place during lectures!</p>
<p>My daughter's sophmore Sociology course on Research Design last year had 7 students. A lot of teaching took place; very little lecturing. Because it's so one on one with the professor, the course was extremely interactive both in terms of group research projects and individual research projects. </p>
<p>I think it's the mentoring scale and active participation of undergrad education that drives the high PhD production rates at the small schools. In some ways, the scale of education more closely resembles the experience of a grad school program. In fact, one of the projects the class did was to "peer review" the research methodology of several PhD theses currently being prepared for submission.</p>
<p>BTW, I never said anything about TA's lecturing. I simply said that if the university has a top-shelf PhD program, you can be pretty sure that the TA's will be pretty knowledgeable in whatever role they play: leading discussion classes, grading papers, etc.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, I had a dozen or so classes at Michigan with fewer than 15 students. One of my classes had 6 students and was taught by not one, but two world class professors. Classes like the one your daughter took generally never have more than 15 students at Cal or Michigan. Yes, Freshman classes are huge (200-400 students) at major research universities. But those classes are very basic. There isn't much more one can get out of a tiny class when one is building the foundation. However, once past the Freshman level, classes at most elite research universities tend to get much smaller.</p>