<p>I have no interest in studying studio art in college - but I want to study art history more than anything. Which schools have the best Art History programs?</p>
<p>write, most large publics have strong art history departments -- Michigan, Cal, Virginia for example. Among super-selective medium sized universities I'd list all of the ivy league (maybe not Dartmouth) plus Stanford, CMU, JHU.</p>
<p>Small liberal arts colleges that are especially well known for art history are Williams, Wesleyan, Vassar, Bard, Oberlin, Skidmore, Hamilton, Conn College. If you are female Smith and Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>Access to a museum -- either on campus or in a nearby city -- is important as is the college's track record in securing internships and entry level jobs for its graduates. </p>
<p>I would give Williams special commendation in this area: three worldclass museums on or near campus, excellent placement for internships and post-graduate, high name recognition. So many Williams grads are museum directors and curators that they are called the Williams mafia.</p>
<p>[Edit: I just looked at your profile on another thread. You'd be an ideal Williams candidate.]</p>
<p>Good luck and let us know how you do.</p>
<p>If art history is your passion, NYC is where you should be.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins -- DEFINITELY!</p>
<p>Oberlin College with the Allen Memorial Art Museum has long held the honor of greatest collection at an undergraduate college museum. It;s right on campus. The Ellen Johnson wing for modern art is exciting always. She was my art history professor there. She used to go on-site in Southern France to photograph the landscape scenes that corresponded to each of Monet or Cezanne's landscapes, put them up for us to compare (the actual scene and the painting). She knew all the Abstract Edpressionists and post- from the l950's and 60's first-hand, so was able to help the museum collect a great piece from each of them. She lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house when she was a professor, which is now part of the college community today. The relationship between Oberlin and the History of Art is very deep. </p>
<p>As at any great LAC, you'll also learn to write and analyze firsthand information very clearly, which is essential to Art History (my major at Oberlin, can't you tell...?)</p>
<p>Anyway, I am sure each place mentioned on this thread is worth checking out, but just wanted to add my perspective on Oberlin. </p>
<p>Johns Hopkins has the Rose Collection in its museum, also right on campus, plus the
Walters Art Gallery, so that's exciting. Study its department and see if you like the coursework and approach.</p>
<p>Williams College is famous for its fine offering in Art History.</p>
<p>If your stats don't indicate JHU, you could also pick the City of Baltimore as your destination (Goucher College). With careful selection, the poster who suggested NYC has a great idea: if you position yourself in NYC, you can always be sure the museums will be part of your four years. Just be sure you like the department offering of the Art History program, that it uses these resources well. </p>
<p>I was in the Metropolitan and heard a prof from Parsons School of Art lecturing his students in front of a great painting. That was delightful. They also sketched their way through the gallery after his lecture. I know Parsons is an Art School, not an LAC or uni, but I'm suggesting that you could ask or seek from the catalogue course descriptions whether the professors actually take you to these museums as part of the coursework. </p>
<p>Seek a school where Art History is an important major, not a frill. See if there are cross-disciplinary studies with History, language, and so on. I'd be sure, with an Art History major, that the college can also teach you to write well elsewhere in its English department. I'd look over the Art History department carefully: count the numbers of courses, how many faculty are full-time, and so on to measure their commitment to this major. Good luck!!</p>
<p>Consider publics - UT-Austin's Blanton Museum of Art is the largest art museum on ANY university campus. In all, UT's art collections at its Blanton Museum, Ransom Humanities Research Center, and miscellaneous facilities total around 120,000 works of art - from antiquity, to the Renaissance (including the Suida-Manning Collection), to contemporary American (Michener Collection), to one of the largest Latin America collections in the world. Amazing resources right on campus that are pretty much unmatched by nearly every university (it's what a multi-billion $ endowment can do!)</p>