<p>I will be a junior next year, but for quite a while I've been college searching. I want to major in history (American), and thus really want a historical environment around me. My #1 choice is Georgetown, because of the great D.C. historical and political atmosphere (along with great academics). I'm also interested in GW for this reason. Other schools I'm looking at are U of Virginia, U of Chicago, UPenn, Boston U and B.C. However, I am not as familiar with their history programs as I'd like to be. Also, I'm interested in more info on schools like Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, etc - private, liberal arts colleges. Not quite sure though if history is considered a liberal art or social science, however dumb that sounds. </p>
<p>So, if anyone could give me some info on these school's history programs and their academic prestige, I'd greatly appreciate it. Or, naming any other universities (central/east coast) that have good history reps would prove useful</p>
<p>I don't know if this would apply for you, but a kid from my school (regular NJ suburban public school) who was not a URM, had a mediocre GPA/class rank/SAT and okay ECs got into Princeton, presumably because of the fact that he was REALLY good at history and little else. I don't know about how good their program is (I'm sure it's not BAD) but maybe they're looking for future historians and might be a tad more lenient in terms of admission.</p>
<p>My advice is to balance History with overall quality of school. Its hard to go wrong with the undergrad focused Ivies (Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown), all of which have substantial grants and money toward research in liberal arts departments. The top LACs (AWS) are also incredible. Personally I think the large research universities are overrated in liberal arts majors where I personally believe overall reputation and undergrad focus (and spending!) is much more important. </p>
<p>UChicago, Georgetown, and UVA will all offer great educations as well.</p>
<p>Gourman Report Undergrad rankings for history:
(Gourman tends to favor large universities, particularly publics)
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 (alphabetical):
(Rugg's tends to favor LACs. I am only including those not already mentioned above...there is overlap between Gourman and Rugg's)
Albion
Amherst
Barnard
Bates
Boston C
Boston U
Bowdoin
Brandeis
Bryn Mawr
Bucknell
Carleton
Centre
Claremont McKenna
Colgate
Colorado C
Connecticut C
U Dallas
Davidson
Dickinson
Drew
George Washington
Georgetown
Grinnell
Hamilton
Harvard
Haverford
Holy Cross
Kalamazoo
Kenyon
Lafayette
Lawrence
Macalester
Middlebury
Mount Holyoke
Northwestern
Oberlin
Pomona
Reed
Rhodes
Smith
U of the South
Southwestern
Swarthmore
Texas Christian
Trinity (TX)
Tufts
Tulane
Union
Vanderbilt
Vassar
Wabash
Wake Forest
Washington & Lee
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Whitman
William and Mary
Williams
Yeshiva</p>
<p>As can be seen by the large number of institutions listed above it's hard to find a decent university or college without a good history program. Because graduate schools are churning out so many doctorates in the field even lower level colleges have a choice of outstanding young historians. Look for colleges that have professors, courses and library resources in the areas you are interested in.</p>