<p>I'm currently an undergraduate student majoring in art history and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations/advice for graduate programs in art history. Obviously, I would like the location to be in or near a big city with museums. Any advice/opinions are greatly appreciated :)</p>
<p>Check out the NRC rankings below. They came out in 1995, so they're pretty outdated, but it should give you an idea.
1 NYU 4.79
2 Columbia 4.79
3 Cal Berkeley 4.67
4 Harvard 4.49
5 Yale 4.44
6 Princeton 4.04
7 Johns Hopkins 3.93
8 Northwestern 3.83
9 Penn 3.80
10 Chicago 3.74
11 Michigan 3.71
12 CUNY 3.60
13 UCLA 3.52
14 Stanford 3.49
15 Delaware 3.40
16 Virginia 3.31
17 Bryn Mawr 3.28
18 Brown 3.20
19 Texas 3.17
20 Rutgers 3.04
21 Cal Santa Barbara 2.98
22 Pittsburgh 2.90
23 Cornell 2.87
24 Indiana 2.85
25 Boston University 2.85
26 Illinois 2.67
27 Kansas 2.56
28 Maryland 2.53
29 Ohio State 2.48
30 Minnesota 2.47
31 Washington 2.39
32 North Carolina 2.33
33 Washington (St. Louis) 2.31
34 Penn State 2.28
35 Wisconsin 2.14
36 Florida State 2.10
37 Case Western 1.79
38 Georgia 0.90</p>
<p>Don't you think that your concentration or specialty matters in the selection? What do you want to focus on? What kind of environment do you want (small, isolate school, lively, huge, active school, ect)?</p>
<p>I aspire to be a museum curator, specializing in Renaissance & Baroque art or modern art (haven't quite made up my mind yet). I would like a school that has its own art museum (research purposes) and access to other museums in a city. I'm leaning towards a big university because of access to resources. I attend a LAC right now, and would like to experience a bustling school in/near a big city.</p>
<p>I am personal friends with graduate students pursuing Ph.D.'s in art history at Columbia, NYU AND Yale (the three best programs), and know a few art history professors as well, so maybe can provide some perspective.</p>
<p>Here are the best art departments, ranked based on the "track records"
of their academic programs (source: earlymodern.com, taken from the NRC educational effectiveness ranking): </p>
<p>Ranked (38) </p>
<p>1 Yale University </p>
<p>2 New York University - Institute Fine Arts </p>
<p>3 Columbia University </p>
<p>4 University of California Berkeley </p>
<p>5 Harvard University </p>
<p>6 Princeton University </p>
<p>7 University of Michigan </p>
<p>8 Northwestern University </p>
<p>9 University of Pennsylvania </p>
<p>10 University of Chicago </p>
<p>11 Johns Hopkins University </p>
<p>12 University of California Los Angeles </p>
<p>13 Bryn Mawr </p>
<p>14 Stanford University </p>
<p>15 City University of New York - Graduate Center </p>
<p>16 University of Delaware </p>
<p>17-38 University of Virginia Brown University Rutgera-SUNJ New
Brunswick University of Pittsburgh University of Texas Austin Indiana
University Cornell University University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of California Santa Barbara Boston University University of
Kansas University of North Carolina Chapel Hill University of Minnesota
Twin Cities University of Wisconsin Madison Pennsylvania State
University University of Maryland College Park Washington University
University of Washington Case Western Reserve University Ohio State
University Florida State University University of Georgia </p>
<p>The rankings below show you that if you get a Ph.D. in art history from
a university that's not considered one of the top ones, you'll probably
be unemployed. </p>
<hr>
<p>Rankings of Art History departments producing the greatest number of
faculty within the top 57 art history departments in the United States.
(EARLYMODERN.COM) </p>
<p>OVERALL (for Associate Prof): </p>
<p>Columbia (8%), Yale (8%), Harvard (7%), NYU (7%), Berkeley (6%), Johns
Hopkins (5%), Princeton (5%), Chicago (5%), Michigan, Courtald
(France), Penn, Indiana, UCLA (70% of faculty come from these schools -
others have produced very few each) </p>
<p>OVERALL (for Assistant Prof): </p>
<p>Yale (13%), Berkeley (10%), NYU (9%), Harvard (8%), Princeton (8%),
Columbia (7%), Michigan (5%), UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Penn, Texas (71% of
faculty come from these schools - others have produced very few each) </p>
<p>Rankings by field: </p>
<p>American Art (includes modern art)</p>
<p>Yale, Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Berkeley (44% from these) </p>
<p>Ancient Art </p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, NYU, Princeton, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, Columbia, Penn (73%
from these) </p>
<p>African Art </p>
<p>Indiana, Yale, Columbia (62% from these) </p>
<p>Asian Art </p>
<p>Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Michigan, Chicago, UCLA, Yale, Columbia,
NYU (80% from these) </p>
<p>Mesoamerican Art </p>
<p>Columbia, Yale, UCLA (62% from these) </p>
<p>Islamic Art </p>
<p>Harvard, Chicago (57% from these, but there are only 14 professors
nationwide in this specialty) </p>
<p>Renaissance Art </p>
<p>Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Princeton, Yale, Michigan, Berkeley, Johns
Hopkins, Bryn Mawr (75% from these)</p>
<p>Thank you so much, your post was very helpful. I had a hunch Yale, Columbia, and Harvard were the top schools for art history graduate studies judging by how every single one of my art history professors graduated from one of them.</p>
<p>Funny how things work out like that :)</p>
<p>Remember, if you're shooting for those, recs are key.</p>