<p>out of cornell, duke, uchicago, (schools i have a reasonable chance of getting into) which has the best physics/math programs
i dont no what best means....so dont ask
but i guess i like to interact with my teachers and do research
also
i heard uchicago has a good programs....is that just for graduate?</p>
<p>Gourman Report undergraduate rankings for Physics:</p>
<p>Caltech
Harvard
Cornell
Princeton
MIT
UC Berkeley
Stanford
U Chicago
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Columbia
Yale
Georgia Tech
UC San Diego
UCLA
U Penn
U Wisconsin Madison
U Washington
U Michigan Ann Arbor
U Maryland College Park
UC Santa Barbara
U Texas Austin
Carnegie Mellon
U Minnesota
RPI
Brown
Johns Hopkins
Michigan State
Notre Dame
SUNY Stony Brook
Case Western
Northwestern
U Rochester
U Pittsburgh
Penn State University Park</p>
<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergrad math:
Princeton
UC Berkeley
Harvard
MIT
U Chicago
Stanford
NYU
Yale
Wisconsin Madison
Columbia
Michigan Ann Arbor
Brown
Cornell
UCLA
Illinois Urbana Champaign
Caltech
Minnesota
U Penn
Notre Dame
Georgia Tech
U washington
Purdue WL
Rutgers NB
Indiana U Bloomington
U Maryland College Park
Rice
UC San Diego
Northwestern
Texas Austin
carnegie Mellon
Johns Hopkins
Washington U St Louis
Ohio State
SUNY Stony Brook
Penn State
UVA
RPI
Illinois Chicago
U Colorado Boulder
U Kentucky
UNC Chapel Hill
Dartmouth
U Rochester
U Utah
SUNY Buffalo
Tulane
USC
UC Santa Barbara
U Massachusetts AMherst
U Oregon
Duke
Louisiana State Baton Rouge
U Arizona
case Western
Michigan State
U Pittsburgh
Brandeis
US Air Force Academy</p>
<p>Mind you, many disagree with those lists. I looked up the cognitive psychology rankings for the Gourman Report, and some of the most impressive schools in that area (such as MIT and Harvard) were not even mentioned. The list tried to say that every State University of Whatever-the-Crap is better at cog psych than Harvard and MIT? Yeah, right.</p>
<p>Be very careful about relying on the Gourman Report. There is no documentation as to how the listings were derived. See these comments:</p>
<p>Also, no matter where the listings come from, they are based on data at least 10 years old. The most recent edition (10th ed.) of the Gourman Report has a 1997 copyright date and has not been updated since then.</p>
<p>If you do a search, you'll find a number of old threads about the reliability (or unreliability) of the Gourman Report.</p>
<p>The gourman report is almost 10 years old, but was accurate at the time of publication. A new version is due out this Dec. Cognitive science is a relatively new major for many colleges, so one has to do research elsewhere for accurate info until the new Gourman report is out.</p>
<p>To answer your original question about quality of programs and rankings, the answer is no. Chicago's known to have an intimate, friendly department, where undergrads and grad students work together on projects. A lot of my math major friends are close enough to their professors to not only get research and advising opportunities, but feel emotionally close enough to send one professor flowers when he was in the hospital.</p>
<p>With physics, my friends have loved their profs and have been able to get great research positions both on campus and at Fermilab, and they've done exceptionally in terms of grad school placement.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, no matter where the listings come from, they are based on data at least 10 years old.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>there would have to be data in the first place for it to be 10 years old....</p>
<hr>
<p>op:</p>
<p>ive stated my criticisms of gourmans 'rankings' several times on this board and dont want to do it again. however, i do want to point out an absolutely perfect example of how exactly poor these rankings are: dukes undergraduate mathematics ranking. its probably 40 spots too low. FORTY spots. of course, the ranking isnt too far off from how the nrc ranked dukes graduate department (which is also low since the department is quite small). but thats to be expected since all of the other great undergraduate math departments without equally good grad programs (per the nrc) got the shaft, too: caltech (perhaps the fourth best undergraduate math program in the country), carnegie mellon (a top 15 undergrad program), and washu (also top 15). </p>
<p>anyway, the three schools you listed are all great choices... not that the 'rankings' would confirm that. what a joke.</p>
<p>This thread has turned into a love-fest for morons. The Gourman Report rankings are corroborated by US News rankings in Eng and Bus and by the Baccalaureate Origins of PhDs study. Many knowledgeable posters on CC agree with the Gourman rankings. The bottom line is that the Gourman rankings are good. They are reasonable and valid. Show me where the rankings are clearly incorrect.</p>
<p>dis-grace-
You don't know what you are talking about. The Gourman Report does not rank cognitive psych. The Gourman Report does rank Psychology overall and both Harvard and MIT are ranked pretty high. I don't think MIT has ever been a Psychology powerhouse except perhaps in a few specific areas.</p>
<p>ericatbucknell-
I think you pulled that statement out of your ... about Duke being ranked 40 positions too low in math. Where did you get that? You are saying Duke belongs in the top 10 with Yale, Columbia, and Cornell? Duke is not mentioned in the Baccalaureate Origins Study for math. It is ranked 21st by US News for its grad program in math. And you know what the NRC graduate rankings say about the Duke math graduate program.</p>
<p>worried_mom-
You are just parroting some false information that found its way into print many years ago but you have obviously never actually seen the Gourman Report because if you had you would know that it does document its method. Why do you blindly choose to believe the false criticism yet you doubt the Gourman Report? Here is the description of the Gourman methods from the Gourman Report:</p>
<p>INTRODUCTION</p>
<p>Since 1967, The Gourman Report has made an intensive effort to determine what
constitutes academic excellence or quality in American colleges and .universities.
The result of that research and study is found within this book. </p>
<p>The Gourman Report is the only qualitative guide to institutions of higher education
that assigns a precise, numerical score to each school and program. This score is
derived from a comprehensive assessment of each program's strengths and
shortcomings. This method makes it simple to examine the effectiveness of a given
educational program, or compare one program to another. </p>
<p>These deceptively simple numerical ratings take into account a wide variety of
empirical data. The Gourman Report is not a popularity contest or an opinion poll,
but an objective evaluation of complex information drawn from the public record,
private research foundations, and universities themselves. Many of the resources
employed in this research, while public, are not easily accessible. Individual
researchers attempting to collect this data in order to compare institutions or
programs would face a daunting task. </p>
<p>This book is intended for use by: </p>
<p>• Young people and parents wishing to make informed choices
about higher education.
• Educators and administrators interested in an independent
evaluation of their programs .. </p>
<p>• Prospective employers who wish to assess the educational
qualifications of college graduates.
• Schools wishing to improve undergraduate programs
• Foundations involved in funding colleges and universities.
• Individuals interested in identifying fraudulent or inferior
institutions ..
• Citizens concerned about the quality of today's higher education.
For all of these researchers, the breadth and convenience of the data in The
Gourman Report can greatly facilitate the study of higher education. </p>
<p>Method of Evaluation </p>
<p>Much of the material used in compiling The Gourman Report is internal-drawn
from educators and administrators at the schools themselves. These individuals are
permitted to evaluate only their own programs-as they know them from daily
experience-and not the programs of other institutions. Unsolicited appraisals are </p>
<p>occasionally considered (and weighed accordingly), but the bulk 'of our
contributions come from people chosen for their academic qualifications, their
published works, and their interest in improving the quality of higher education. It
attests to the dedication of these individuals (and also to the serious problems in
higher education today) that over 90% of our requests for contributions are met
with a positive response. </p>
<p>In addition, The Gourman Report draws on many external resources which are a
matter of record, such as funding for public universities as authorized by legislative
bodies, required filings by schools to meet standards of non-discrimination, and
material provided by the institutions (and independently verified) about faculty
makeup and experience, fields of study offered, and physical plant. </p>
<p>Finally, The Gourman Report draws upon the findings of individuals, associations </p>
<p>and agencies whose business it is to make accurate projections of the success that </p>
<p>will be enjoyed by graduates from given institutions and disciplines. While the </p>
<p>methods employed by these resources are proprietary, their findings have </p>
<p>consistently been validated by experience, and they are an important part .of our </p>
<p>research. </p>
<p>The Gourman Report's rating of educational institutions is analogous to the grading
of a college essay examination. What may appear to be a subjective process is in
fact a patient sifting of empiricar data by analysts who understand both the "subject
matter" (the fields of study under evaluation), and the "students" (the colleges and
universities themselves). The fact that there are virtually no "tie" scores indicates
the accuracy and effectiveness of this methodology. So does the consistent
affirmation of the ratings in The Gourman Report by readers who are in a position
to evaluate certain programs themselves. </p>
<p>The following criteria are taken into consideration in the evaluation of each
educational program and institution. It should be noted that, because disciplines
vary in their educational methodology, the significance given each criterion will vary
from the rating of one discipline to the next; however, our evaluation is consistent
for all schools listed within each field of study. </p>
<ol>
<li>Auspices, control and organization of the institution; </li>
<li>Number of educational programs offered and degrees conferred
(with additional attention to "sub-fields" available to students
within a particular discipline);</li>
<li>Age (experience level) of the institution and of the individual
discipline or program and division;</li>
<li>Faculty, including qualifications, experience, intellectual interests,
attainments, and professional productivity (including research);</li>
<li><p>Students, including quality of scholastic work and records of
graduates both in graduate study and in practice;
• The Goullnan Report-Undergraduate </p></li>
<li><p>Basis of and requirements for admission of students (overall and
by individual discipline) </p></li>
<li><p>Number of students enrolled (overall and for each discipline); </p></li>
<li><p>Curriculum and curricular content of the program or discipline
and division;</p></li>
<li><p>Standards and quality of instruction (including teaching loads); </p></li>
<li><p>Quality of administration, including attitudes and policy toward
teaching, research and scholarly production in each discipline,
and administration research;</p></li>
<li><p>Quality and availability of non-departmental areas such as
counseling and career placement services;</p></li>
<li><p>Quality of physical plant devoted to undergraduate, graduate and
professional levels; </p></li>
<li><p>Finances, including budgets, investments, expenditures and
sources of income for both public and private institutions;</p></li>
<li><p>Library, including number of volumes, appropriateness of
materials to individual disciplines, and accessibility of materials;</p></li>
<li><p>Computer facility sufficient to support current research activities
for both faculty and students;</p></li>
<li><p>Sufficient funding for research equipment and infrastructure; </p></li>
<li><p>Number of teaching and research assistantships; </p></li>
<li><p>Academic-athletic balance.
ipecific information about the data used to rank institutions and programs is
Ivailable in Appendix A and Appendix B.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>collegehelp:</p>
<p>It's unkind of you to insist we are all morons because of our opinions about the Gourman Report. I admit to not having any experience with it before today, but I thought (possibly mistakenly) that this web site...</p>
<p>...was showing rankings according to the Gourman report. If it isn't, excuse my mistake. It does not mean I am a moron. Please don't be so quick to insult your fellow posters.</p>
<p>I never claimed MIT was a psychology powerhouse. It is and has been, however, an amazing school for cognitive psychology. Do you happen to know anything about cognitive psychology? What about psycholinguistics? These are the areas of psychology of which I was speaking.</p>
<p>what about Harvey Mudd, I feel like that's one that has been omitted from all the lists</p>
<p>CollegeHelp, contrary to your brash assumption, I have indeed seen the Gourman Report. And if its conclusions for a few graduate school categories are “corroborated” by USN&WR rankings, so what? Many people also have problems with those rankings too – or any rankings in general.</p>
<p>It was totally inappropriate for you to call people posting on this thread “morons.” Yes, many knowledgeable posters on CC do like the Gourman Report, but many other equally knowledgeable posters do not feel it is very reliable. Our opinions – which are obviously not shared by you – are every bit as valid as your opinion.</p>
<p>I simply stated that one should use a good deal of caution and not rely too heavily on the report. (I would say the same about any published ranking.) I suggested that the OP do a search to find other threads on the Gourman Report as this debate has been going on for years.</p>
<p>dis-grace-
Psycholinguistics is one of the areas in which MIT is strong. It has a long history in this area going back to the work of Noam Chomsky. MIT is strong in the area of computer modeling of psychological processes (information processing) but this is an area that goes back at least 40 years and is not new. Cognitive psychology has been around for over 100 years beginning with Ebbinghaus' work in memory and has been a recognized discipline by itself for 40 years.</p>
<p>worried_mom-
Yes the debate has been going on for years. The bottom line is that, whatever the Gourman method, the rankings have validity. If you look at the schools and their rankings, they make sense. You might dispute a ranking's exact position but the lists contain the top schools according to consensus. I will say that the Gourman criteria favor research universities and underestimate the undergraduate quality of LACs. This is a limitation but the ratings are still pretty accurate for research universities. If you have expertise in a particular field I will post the Gourman ranking for that field and we can discuss its accuracy.</p>
<p>And, I didn't particularly care for the "what-the-crap" from dis-grace and the "what a joke" from ericatbucknell. Under the first amendment, the ignorant are allowed to express opinions but I don't have to like it.</p>
<p>collegehelp, is the link I posted above actually related to the Gourman Report, or was I just confused? </p>
<p>The what-the-crap was stated in annoyance at the list I found online that you've implied is not what I took it to be. I don't like my random phrasing being picked apart by somebody who doesn't even know me well enough to say whether or not I can tie my shoes, let alone decide whether or not I'm an ignorant moron. I'm assuming I made a mistake in believing the link I found to be related to the Gourman Report, and if that is so, then I apologize for my silly assumption. However, I still find it a bit out of place for my mistake to be turned into something used to insult me. I know that this is the "just" the internet, and I shouldn't care, but I still find it a bit disconcerting. I'm surprised I managed to so thoroughly offend you.</p>
<p>dis-grace-
I sincerely apologize for my overreaction. I was actually responding to a long history of what I beleive to be unwarranted criticism of the Gourman Report. I was also reacting to what I perceived to be an arrogant tone and a perfunctory dismissal of the Gourman Report. BTW, I am told that public universities really do have some of the strongest undergraduate and graduate psychology programs.</p>
<p>The link you posted referred to the graduate edition of the Gourman Report, not the undergraduate, but the graduate edition does address cognitive psych. You are correct. It is possible that Cognitive Psych is not offered as a PhD concentration at Harvard and MIT and therefore it is not rated. I am not sure.</p>
<p>worried_mom-
The link in your post #5 summarizes some of the old criticisms of the Gourman Report. The false criticisms of the Gourman Report include the lack of tied ranks (tied ranks are possible but very rare), the rating of non-existent programs (Gourman included programs together based on subject although they might have very different names.), the statistical near-impossibility of being separated by 1/100th of a point (you have 1200 schools rated on a 1000-point scale...the US News overall ratings might differ fractionally if they were carried to the 10ths place), Gourman states clearly that he used a different weighting system for each discipline, which makes sense; there is no mystery here. </p>
<p>I try to keep in mind that schools hate rankings. A negative review in the Chronicle does not surprise me. They are bound to criticize rankings. They aren't in love with US News either. They would rather leave college choice at the mercy of their marketing machine. Rankings help consumers of higher education but create resistance and discomfort among schools.</p>
<p>I do agree that all ratings must be interpreted with a critical eye, which is what I have done with the Gourman Report. It would be nice to know the raw data and the precise formula's but the ultimate test is whether the results are valid. The Gourman Rankings are valid, although you could debate the criteria and debate the exact position in the rankings. The Gourman rankings are the most useful tool available for giving you some idea what are the best research university programs for prospective freshmen. On balance, the Gourman Report is quite useful although imperfect so I continue to provide information from it.</p>
<p>I am a physics/math person myself and through professors and students I have talked to, I would rank the three schools like this ...</p>
<p>1) UChicago
2) Cornell
3) Duke</p>
<p>University of Chicago has an amazing tradition in physics. Much of the Manhattan project was conducted there and its professors have won tons of Nobel Prizes. UChicago PhDs are ubiquitous on college physics departments across the country. An added bonus is that physics is not a very popular undergraduate major there, which means lots of resources concentrated on a small undergraduate student body. If you are seriously considering physics or math for long term study, UChicago must be the choice.</p>
<p>Cornell has a good reputation in the sciences as well. Its physics department is well respected and would make a good choice. Duke, on the other hand, does not come to mind when I think of physics and math. It has great programs in the humanities and life sciences, but physics is not its strong point.</p>