<p>Hey I'm interested in History as a major. What top-tier schools should I look at. Btw I don't think I'm interested in HYPS and Willliam and Mary and Georgetown are already on my list.</p>
<p>I recommend you focus on the school and undergraduate program as a whole, not on history departments in particular. Unless, that is, you are familiar enough with historians on the current scene, whose works you like, to be able to choose based on where they teach (assuming they do teach undergrads). Usually that kind of choice does not come into play until grad school. If you at least have a strong preference for particular regions and periods, that also could help identify strong departments, but you would not have much by way of undergraduate rankings to help in the effort. The next best thing might be the USNWR graduate history rankings, which do include break-downs by regional areas.
[Rankings</a> - History - Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-history-schools/rankings]Rankings”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-history-schools/rankings)</p>
<p>Georgetown comes out at 36th overall, Wm & Mary at 42nd. Do those rankings understate the quality of undergraduate history instruction? Maybe. I would expect the undergraduate programs to be at least as good as those numbers suggest, but not so much better as to put them into contention with the top 20 or so private universities on that list. You might also want to consider some of the liberal arts colleges (which of course are not represented in the USN list at all.)</p>
<p>Check out the history column in the following tables, representing undergraduate origins of PhD recipients in various fields:
[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>Yale and Chicago are the only two universities on that list. Yale (tied for #1 in the USN graduate history ranking) is at #1 in the undergraduate PhD origins list as well. Chicago (tied for #5 in the USN) is at #10. All the schools in between are LACs.</p>
<p>Thanks that’s helpful. I guess most high-level undergraduate schools have a good history department anyway so it’s a moot point.</p>
<p>^ Yes, that should be the case. </p>
<p>At a school with a top graduate program, you will find professors who are famous in the field (like Asian specialists Jonathan Spence at Yale or Guy Alitto at Chicago). You might have a few of those at the best LACs too, but the real strength there will be the close attention you get from faculty who will show you how to “do history”. At a good college that is a bit farther down in the history and PhD-production rankings, the class sizes may be a little larger, and you’ll probably get more lecturing (vs. small seminars) compared to the LACs, Yale or Chicago. The faculty may be one or two degrees of separation from the Jonathan Spences and Guy Alittos, but many of them still will be good teachers. And, you might like the overall college experience better at one of those schools, especially if you are a normal smart person with an interest in history, not a hard core intellectual bent on becoming a professional historian. That’s one reason I say look at the whole school.</p>