<p>Hey,
Thanks for taking the time out to read this. I am presently looking for selective schools that have the strongest English Major department, hopefully you guys can give some insight on some of the selective schools you know that have really great english programs. </p>
<p>Thanks a lot!</p>
<p>How selective do you want? I mean, Ivies have good ones...</p>
<p>Also, do you mean Literature or Creative Writing?</p>
<p>Ones that come to mind are Amherst, Hamilton, Kenyon...lots of liberal arts ones that emphasize writing.</p>
<p>Pretty selective, like top LACS, top privates etc. </p>
<p>Creative Writing specifically.</p>
<p>Also thanks for the suggestions, I'll be looking into the liberal arts schools now.</p>
<p>a couple of additions, with strong creative writing: Johns Hopkins writing program, Oberlin. Just about any good LAC will have a good English department. The top graduate programs are Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton, but many of their students come from LAC's.</p>
<p>Skidmore.
University of Mary Washington.</p>
<p>For women, Barnard.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon has a really great creative writing program.</p>
<p>I second Amherst, which in addition to a great English department has a Creative</a> Writing Center, which has several writers on staff and offers courses in creative writing.</p>
<p>LACs for English from Rugg's Recommendations</p>
<p>Allegheny
Amherst
Bard
Bowdoin
Bryn Mawr
Carleton
Centre
Claremont McKenna
Colby
Colgate
Colorado C
Connecticut C
U Dallas
Dartmouth
Davidson
Dickinson
Franklin and Marshall
Gettysburg
Grinnell
Hamilton
Heverford
Holy Cross
Illinois Wesleyan
Kalamazoo
Kenyon
Knox
Lafayette
Lawrence
Macalester
Middlebury
Mount Holyoke
Oberlin
Pomona
Reed
Rhodes
U Richmond
Sarah Lawrence
Skidmore
Smith
U South
St Olaf
Swartmore
Trinity (TX)
Vassar
Wake Forest
Washington and Lee
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Wheaton
Whitman
Willamette
Williams </p>
<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergraduate English</p>
<p>Yale
UC Berkeley
Harvard
U Chicago
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
U Penn
UCLA
Brown
Indiana
U Michigan
UC Irvine
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Rutgers
UNC Chapel Hill
U Iowa
u Virginia
NYU
U Notre Dame
U Illinois
U Washington
Duke
U Texas Austin
SUNY Stony Brook
U Rochester
Emory
Washington U St Louis
Dartmouth
U Minnesota
UC San Diego
Vanderbilt
Pomona
Brandeis
Swarthmore
Haverford
U Mass Amherst
UC Santa Barbara</p>
<p>St. Johns, they focus heavily on writing</p>
<p>I don't know how useful ranks are for English programs, but here are a few things to look for that I think make up a "good" English program. (The same criteria probably apply for almost any academic major):</p>
<ol>
<li> Breadth and depth of course offerings. (i.e. not just "Introduction to Fiction" and "Shakespeare.")</li>
<li> Course selection and rotation. (That they don't offer the same courses all the time).</li>
<li> Discussion classes.</li>
<li> Opportunities to publish analytical or creative work.</li>
</ol>
<p>Other considerations:
a) How popular is the major?
b) is a BA thesis required?
c) Are there a lot of conferences/ visiting faculty?
d) Are there writing tutorial programs?</p>
<p>I'm at Chicago and I love the English program, though I didn't choose the school for its renown in English. I've been impressed with the English offerings I've seen/experienced/heard about at Sarah Lawrence, Williams, Knox, Bryn Mawr, Oberlin, and Yale, in particular.</p>
<p>Kenyon, Kenyon, Kenyon</p>
<p>Yale, Chicago and Stanford are supposed to be killer English majors!</p>
<p>What public universities have strong English departments/majors?</p>
<p>UC Berkeley (best), UCLA, Michigan, Wisconsin at Madison, U of Virginia. SUNY Buffalo used to be very good; I don't know about nowadays.</p>
<p>University of California-Irvine has a GREAT creative writing program: a concentration in creative writing for undergraduate English majors and a top-ranking, highly selective, 3-year MFA. </p>
<p>This is just an impression, but UCI seems to be fostering an interdisciplinary culture, rather than entrenched academic departments, which is conducive to creativity, and its English, Comparative Literature, Critical Theory, and Drama Departments are all highly regarded.</p>
<p>See last fall's article, "Where Great Writers Are Made" in The Atlantic.</p>
<p>UC Irvine does have a strong English department - so does UC Davis and UCSD -- I'll bet UCSB is also quite good. UC Berkeley, though, stands out as having one of the best English departments in the country, along with Yale and Harvard. It also has some excellent writers on the faculty, including poets and novelists.</p>
<p>UConn has some outstanding english professors</p>
<p>I think University of Iowa has a good creative writing program...heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure.</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses!</p>