<p>Which colleges and universities have the best history programs/department?</p>
<p>Do they devote large grant funding to the program? Do they have high quality professors who are extremely well regarded in their field? Is the program's reputation for excellence known around the country?</p>
<p>I'm a prospective history major who is very interested in the field. I want to research schools that put an actual emphasis on history and don't just offer it as an underdeveloped, weak program. I'd love any insight offered.</p>
<p>You might find your search more manageable if you are interested in specific research areas in history. For example, a student passionate about Civil War history or California Mission history would find the “best” schools for each of those areas to be very different.</p>
<p>I’m interested in a variety of focuses, but mostly international history. I was hoping people could point me to colleges that are generally well known for many history areas.</p>
<p>By both measures, Yale and the University of Chicago are very strong. Almost any of the top LACs should have solid history departments, too (with perhaps more faculty attention but also fewer course offerings than selective universities).</p>
<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergrad history</p>
<p>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 for history
Albion (MI) ………
Amherst (MA) ……
Barnard (NY) ….
Boston Col. (MA) ….
Boston U. (MA) …….
Bowdoin (ME) …….
Brandeis (MA) ……
Brown (RI) ………
Bryn Mawr ¶ .,
Bucknell ¶ …,
California, U. of (Berkeley) …
California, U. of (Los Angeles) …
Carleton (MN) ……
Centre (KY) ……,
Chicago, U. of (IL) ….’
Claremont McKenna (CA) ………
Colgate (NY) ……….’
Colorado Co. ……
Columbia (NY) ……,
Connecticut Co. ….’
Cornell (NY) ………
Dallas, U. of (TX) ……….,
Davidson (NC) ……
Dickinson ¶ ….
Drew (NJ) ……
Duke (NC) ……
Emory (GA) ….
George Washington (DC) ….
Georgetown (DC) “,
Gettysburg ¶ ……
Grinnell (IA) ……,
Hamilton (NY) ……
Harvard (MA) …
Haverford ¶ …
Holy Cross (MA) ….
Kalamazoo (Ml) …….
Kenyon (OH) ….
Lafayette ¶ ……
Lawrence (WI) …….
Macalester (MN) …
Middlebury (VT) ……
Mount Holyoke (MA) …
North Carolina, U. of ….
Northwestern (lL) ……
Notre Dame (IN) ….
Oberlin (OH) ………,
Pennsylvania, U. of ……
Pomona (CA) …….
Princeton (NJ) …
Reed (OR) ………
Rhodes (TN) ….,
Rice (TX) …….
Smith (M~) ……………
South, U. of the (TN) ….
Southwestern (TX) ….,
Swarthmore ¶ ……’
Texas Christian U. (TX) ……
Trinity (TX) …
Tufts (MA) ……
Tulane (LA) …….
Union (NY) ….,
Vanderbilt (TN) …
Vassar (NY) ….
Virginia, U. of ….
Wabash (IN) …….
Wake Forest (NC) …
Washington & lee (VA) ….
Wellesley (MA) ………,
Whitman (WA) ……’
William & Mary (VA) ……,
Williams (MA) ……
Yeshiva (NY) …….</p>
<p>Riverside, the USNWR rankings of graduate History programs are a pretty good indicator of quality, even at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>This said, History rankings are not necessary for evaluating undergrad programs. The subject matter is pretty standard and the need for expensive infrastructure and research is non-existant. For this reason, virtually all good universities and LACs will have strong offerings in History. I suggest you look at universities that fit you best and not worry (or focus) too much about History rankings.</p>
<p>Re: post #7: “Gourman Report ranking for undergrad history”</p>
<p>I believe the most recent edition of the Gourman Report was from sometime in the 1990s. In any case, no one knows how the Gourman rankings were developed since the methodology has never been disclosed. For all we know, they are made up out of thin air. Without disclosure of its methodology, the Gourman Report should be dismissed.</p>
<p>zapfino, I agree that Gourman’s rankings are outdated and that his methodology is vague. However, somehow, they manage to be accurate, regardless of their age or methodology. Just compare his History rankings to those of the 2009 USNWR rankings:</p>
<p>GOURMAN (USNWR 2009):
Yale (1)
Berkeley (1)
Princeton (1)
Harvard (5)
Stanford (1)
Michigan (7)
Columbia (7)
Chicago (5)
Johns Hopkins (9)
Wisconsin (14)
Cornell (12)
Indiana U (22)
U Penn (9)
Brown (17)
UNC Chapel Hill (12)
UCLA (9)
Northwestern (14)
UVA (20)
U Texas Austin (17)
U Rochester (64???)</p>
<p>With the exception of Rochester (which is way off) and Indiana and UCLA (which are actually ranked within 10 spots of the USNWR rankings), the remaining 17 top 20 Gourman schools are ranked within 4 spots of the USNWR 2009 ranking. That’s pretty accurate.</p>
<p>^ Perhaps Gourman is aware of the USNWR graduate rankings. </p>
<p>Informally, I could name a number of good departments in any number of disciplines just from my general awareness of such things, discussions with persons in those fields, etc. and I think my lists would have some degree of accuracy. However, I don’t think others would view those lists as authoritative and I wouldn’t try to promote them as authoritative. If there is some sound basis for Gourman’s rankings, why doesn’t he disclose his methodology?</p>
<p>zapfino, Goruman’s rankings precede the USNWR subject rankings. I am not saying that Gourman’s rankings are authoritative, but he is under no obligation to share his methodology. Like them or hate them, his rankings are pretty accurate when compared to other rankings…and his were the original.</p>
<p>Where did I see that many rankings place considerable emphasis on responses to survey cards sent to current students, faculty and senior administration?</p>
<p>“I’m interested in a variety of focuses, but mostly international history. I was hoping people could point me to colleges that are generally well known for many history areas.”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I’d try narrowing down your field as “international history” is quite broad. I’d also consider diplomatic history, International Relations(More Poli-sci focused), and global history programs (More useful if you’re planning to teach history in K-12 as that’s too broad for most academic historians…though that is slowly changing). </p></li>
<li><p>Are you intending to continue this into grad/PhD programs, teaching K-12, and/or other reasons (i.e.personal interest)?</p></li>
<li><p>If you are doing it for the first, I’d seriously recommend narrowing your focus to an area, period, and sub-field…especially since grad history programs prefer students who have a narrow focused area of interest. </p></li>
<li><p>If you want a taste of doing academic research early, I’d seriously consider small liberal arts colleges. You’re not only more likely to get more research opportunities assisting a Professor on his/her research in that setting, but also more personalized attention which not only means more meaningful recommendations for grad school, but also better chances of being exposed to rigorous methodological, theory, and advanced topical courses earlier in your undergrad career. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Though this is also possible at the large research oriented Ivies, it is much harder to get such opportunities as the Professors are often busy with their own academic research and mentoring their grad students. Consequently, for too many Professors at research institutions, undergraduates become an afterthought in the process according to the many bitter rants I heard from high school classmates who went to Ivies or similarly ranked large research universities. Only exception to this are students who attended Princeton as they raved about the undergraduate focus of that Ivy.</p>
<p>When one promulgates findings reportedly based on data, it is a commonly accepted standard that one discloses the methodology. The Gourman Report just doesn’t meet this standard to my satisfaction.</p>
<p>zapfino, I am not a suporter of Gourman, but his rankings were the first of their kind and every ranking that has come since (NRC and USNWR) have been in line with his rankings.</p>
<p>riverside - I strongly echo Alexandre’s post #8. Find a school you like for its fit academically (by which I mean students with similar academic stats as you), that you can afford without taking on any or much debt, and that you like for its size, location, sports programs, Greek scene, arts, whatever is important to you outside of academics. You will take something like 2/3 of your courses outside of your major, and you will be living in this place for 4 years. You should choose somewhere that you really like to be outside of the classroom also. For a subject like history, it is just not important to pick based on having Pulitzer Prize winning historians or whatever. You will find most of the top schools (by which I mean any in the USNWR top 100) have fine history offerings. But more importantly, once you narrow the list of schools down based on overall academic selectivity and the other factors I mentioned, it will be easy to look at their history offerings and make your own “ranking”. That is the only one that counts.</p>
<p>With regard to the Gourman report, it has been pretty thoroughly discredited. This was discussed at length elsewhere, including the citation of a scholarly article by a professor from UPenn who detailed at length the various flaws. Anyway, no sense turning this into a debate on the Gourman report. Just create your own list of about 8-10 schools based on the criteria suggested, and the best schools for you will become obvious. I guess the final point is, the world in general has no idea who the “best” history departments are. It won’t make any difference for finding a job, and it won’t make any difference for getting into a great grad school.</p>
<p>fallenchemist, the Gourman Report has not been discredited. If anything, subject rankings conducted by the NRC and USNWR that came out in the mid 90s onwards have legitimized Gourman’s rankings, which came out a full half decade before all other comparable rankings.</p>
<p>Alexandre - You and I have always disagreed on this point. Just because a program is highly thought of for graduate work has little bearing on the undergrad experience. If that were true the LAC’s should never be attended, they shouldn’t even exist. Plus the argument that the more involved the top profs are in research with big groups, the less time they have for undergrads. There are a number of others, along with arguments as to why having a good grad program benefits the undergrad experience. But they certainly are not correlated that strongly. And I can point to two academic studies that shoot numerous holes in the Gourman Report.</p>
<p>In the end, you cannot use grad school rankings to “legitimize” an undergrad ranking scheme, unless you can show the two are directly tied together. They are not, as is demonstrated by how successful LAC students are in grad schools.</p>