<p>Princeton is very good at engineering, actually, even though its departments are smaller. In the ISI ranking, it comes in just after Caltech and a few other top schools for engineering. Note, this is a quality based, not a quantity based ranking.
<a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Engineering%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Engineering</a></p>
<p>ooh, posterX, you are actually capable of praising a non-yale school. =)</p>
<p>that is, however, a hopelessly outdated ranking.</p>
<p>Actually, it's the most recent ISI/ScienceWatch ranking and is only a few years old (2002), so hardly outdated. Also, if you compare it to the 1998 ISI/ScienceWatch ranking, you'll see only minor changes in terms of the quality of the top programs.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure the Princeton math and theoretical physics departments are among the best in the world; definitely better than Caltech's and rivaling MIT's at the very least. Just look at the professors who teach there if you don't believe me.</p>
<p>What about chemistry and chemical engineering? Is Princeton a good chioce if I want to major in chemistry?</p>
<p>^ Princeton is amazing for Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>you cannot never go wrong by choosing princeton regardless of what you plan to major in</p>
<p>Top for chemistry, according to COHE (2005):</p>
<p>1 Harvard 2.16
2 Yale U. 1.98
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1.94
4 Northwestern U. 1.92
4 U. of California at San Francisco 1.92
6 Columbia U. 1.89
7 U. of California at Berkeley 1.86
8 California Institute of Technology 1.83
9 U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1.78
10 Stanford U. 1.75 </p>
<p>Top for chemistry according to ISI/ScienceWatch (most recent ISI ranking, 2002):</p>
<p>1 Yale University 778 +227
2 Caltech 1115 +204
3 Harvard University 1108 +202
4 MIT 1723 +159
5 Univ. Calif., San Diego 899 +148
6 Northwestern University 1229 +138
7 Univ. Calif., Santa Barbara 915 +127
8 Univ. Calif., Berkeley 2679 +126
9 Carnegie Mellon University 649 +125
10 U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Oh, posterX, here we go again. Youve been corrected on your misrepresentations numerous times but since you continue to post them repeatedly on all of the boards, I suppose Ill just have to sound tedious and correct you once again.</p>
<p>You are not being honest in your citations and are intentionally misleading students who read CC. The first ranking you are citing is NOT produced by the Chronicle of Higher Education (COHE) as you misleadingly suggest. This survey is the work of a private company and the results were simply reported in the Chronicle without endorsement by them and without lending their reputation to support the conclusions. </p>
<p>The survey is, in fact, controversial and is not universally accepted as authoritative. It was the work of a private company called Academic Analytics. These are rankings not of the overall reputation or quality of particular departments, but of something the authors call the Faculty Scholarly Productivity, essentially a measure of how frequently faculty members appear in print or are cited. </p>
<p>To its credit, The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote what appears to be a fairly balanced examination of the work of this company. Youll see that there is some praise (mostly from universities paying $30,000.00 a year for companys services) but also some withering criticism of the techniques that have led to some very curious results such as the following in their ranking of English departments.</p>
<p>(from the Chronicles article)</p>
<p>But a close look at other data in the index has some college officials raising their eyebrows. The University of Georgia's No. 2 ranking in English, for instance, has caused some scoffing. Say you have an exceptionally bright undergraduate poised to enter graduate school in English, says one university administrator who did not want to be named: "Would you really recommend the person attend the University of Georgia? It's where this unidimensional figure gets out of touch."</p>
<p>Now, as an advocate for Princeton, which is ranked #1 in English by this study, you might find it odd that I should criticize the companys system. Look, however, at the top ten universities for English. I wont quibble with the University of Georgias rank at #2, but neither Yale, nor Harvard ranks even in the top ten. (I suspect posterX that youll find some reason to dismiss this particular ranking as it applies to Yale!) Both Yale and Harvard are widely known to have outstanding English departments and it simply doesnt make sense that neither would make even the top ten. The problem is in what is being measured and how its being measured.</p>
<p>Another example will be found here, where, in Philosophy, Princeton is tied for second and Harvard and Yale (again, both known for being powerhouses in this area) dont make the top ten.</p>
<p>Here is the article in the Chronicle that reviews the companys work.</p>
<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i19/19a00801.htm%5B/url%5D">http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i19/19a00801.htm</a> = Chronicle article evaluating Academic Analytics</p>
<p>Similarly, the ISI/Science Watch survey is NOT an effort to assess the overall strength of departments at various universities. It is a very specific study of the number of papers produced by faculty members at those departments and the number of times they are cited by other researchers. It also openly acknowledges that the results can be greatly affected by a single important paper produced by a single faculty member resulting in numerous citations and accounting for a large part of an entire institutions score.</p>
<p>PosterX, I dont believe anyone but you refers to these rankings on CC and you only seem to do so for those disciplines in which Yale is ranked highly. Of course there are many sections of these rankings that show Yale doing very poorly but they never come up in your references.</p>
<p>The real gold standard for this kind of evaluation is done by the National Research Council, a non-profit and completely impartial organization. Unfortunately, their last study is from 1995 and the new one that was supposed to be out in 2005 has been delayed and may not appear until 2008. Here is a summary of their current but admittedly outdated study from 1995.</p>
<p>In Chemical Engineering, Math, Chemistry and Physics, the fields in which various posters have expressed an interest, the NRC rankings are as follows:</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering</p>
<ol>
<li> Minnesota</li>
<li> MIT</li>
<li> Berkeley</li>
<li> Wisconsin</li>
<li> Illinois</li>
<li> Caltech</li>
<li> Stanford</li>
<li> Delaware</li>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> Texas (Austin)</li>
</ol>
<p>Math</p>
<ol>
<li> Berkeley and Princeton (tied)</li>
<li> MIT</li>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> Chicago</li>
<li> Stanford</li>
<li> Yale</li>
<li> NYU</li>
<li> Michigan and Columbia (tied)</li>
</ol>
<p>Physics</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> Berkeley and MIT (tied)</li>
<li> Caltech</li>
<li> Cornell</li>
<li> Chicago</li>
<li> Illinois</li>
<li> Stanford</li>
<li> UCSB</li>
</ol>
<p>Chemistry</p>
<ol>
<li> Berkeley</li>
<li> Caltech</li>
<li> Harvard and Stanford (tied)</li>
<li> MIT</li>
<li> Cornelll</li>
<li> Columbia</li>
<li> Illinois</li>
<li> Wisconsin, Chicago and UCLA (tied)</li>
</ol>
<p>Overall graduate department faculty rankings in different disciplines were as follows in that study:</p>
<p>Physical Sciences and Mathematics</p>
<ol>
<li> Berkeley</li>
<li> MIT and Caltech (tied)</li>
<li> Harvard and Princeton (tied)</li>
<li> Cornell</li>
</ol>
<p>Biological Sciences</p>
<ol>
<li> UCSF</li>
<li> MIT and UCSD (tied)</li>
<li> Harvard, Stanford and Yale (tied)</li>
<li> Berkeley</li>
</ol>
<p>Arts and Humanities</p>
<ol>
<li> Berkeley</li>
<li> Princeton</li>
<li> Harvard</li>
<li> Columbia</li>
<li> Cornell and Yale (tied)</li>
</ol>
<p>Universities with Highest Number of Distinguished Programs</p>
<ol>
<li> Berkeley (32 programs)</li>
<li> Stanford (28 programs)</li>
<li> Harvard (25 programs)</li>
<li> Princeton (24 programs)</li>
<li> MIT (20 programs)</li>
<li> Cornell (19 programs)</li>
<li> Yale (19 programs)</li>
</ol>
<p>So, posterX, be careful what you wish for with these rankings and please avoid misleading readers by not citing sources accurately. If you want to call the Academic Analytics study authoritative, youll need to accept some pretty low rankings for Yale in many areas. (Im going to bet youll want to discard those particular rankings.) Most importantly, neither of the rankings you cite is intended to be an assessment of the overall quality of particular departments.</p>
<p>Finally, I hope readers look carefully at the NRC (National Research Council) rankings shown above and check out the link for even more rankings. These are widely-respected and referenced despite the fact that they need to be updated. What everyone should notice, however, is that MANY schools other than those in the Ivies (plus Stanford, MIT and Caltech) rank highly. Too often on these boards there seems to be an assumption that those eleven universities must dominate in all disciplines. This is far from the truth and there are centers of great scholarly achievement at universities across the country.</p>
<p>I agree with you, to an extent, of course. However, the NRC rankings were actually collected in 1993, making them now nearly 15 years old. While they are certainly the most exhaustive, unfortunately they are not as accurate as you tend to think they are. They also rank programs using a number of criteria, so there is no "one" overall ranking to be found there, despite what the PR department at Berkeley is claiming. You could use the NRC's faculty scholarly quality (surveys), educational effectiveness (Ph.D. program quality) or any number of other measures in order to come up with a different ranking each time.</p>
<p>The most "respected" rankings for faculty quality are the ISI/ScienceWatch rankings, which are published by the ISI, also known as Thomson, by far the largest and most respected source for scientific information in the world. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, just about any other ranking out there is based on surveys, and therefore is heavily biased towards the largest programs (such as Texas, UCSD and Berkeley) and heavily biased against smaller programs (like the ones that tend to be found at places like Caltech, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and other universities with smaller enrollments). If you don't believe me, do some research and you'll find hundreds of papers on the subject of rankings bias.</p>
<p>You need to make correlations between the rankings, both older and newer, in order to identify any particular patterns. For example, you will notice that Berkeley appears in the top 10 of all three rankings for chemistry. If you take the "average" rankings in chemistry, using the NRC's 1995 educational effectiveness ranking, you get the following ranking for schools that show up among all three measures and their average ranking:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard: 2.666</li>
<li>MIT 3</li>
<li>Caltech 3.666</li>
<li>Yale 4</li>
<li>Berkeley 5.666</li>
<li>Northwestern 7</li>
</ol>
<p>Oh boy, this just goes on and on. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Baloney; and you really need to stop spewing this. Ill stay with what Ive posted above and with THE most respected source for information on higher education, the Chronicle of Higher Education, which accurately describes the National Research Council rankings as the the gold standard in academe. <a href="http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i19/19a00801.htm%5B/url%5D">http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i19/19a00801.htm</a> Any serious discussion of the quality of PhD level departments begins there.</p>
<p>However if you personally believe so strongly in your ISI/ScienceWatch numbers then I assume youll agree that a large number of Yales departments really are lacking in quality. According to the ISI/ScienceWatch rankings, heres where we find Yale in some major academic disciplines:</p>
<p>Yales rank (1997-2001 ISI/ScienceWatch study in physical and social sciences):</p>
<p>Computer Science = not in top ten
Economics = not in top ten
Math = not in top ten
Physics = not in top ten
Geosciences = not in top ten
Psychology = #6</p>
<p>Yales rank (1997-2001 ISI/ScieceWatch study in biological sciences where you believe Yale to be a world leader):</p>
<p>Neurosciences = #7
Molecular Biology = #9
Biology = #9</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page2.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page2.htm</a>
<a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Physics%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Physics</a></p>
<p>Now, as for your strong belief in the accuracy of the Academic Analytics numbers (which you misleadingly label as Chronicle of Higher Education numbers), perhaps you would like to account for the following:</p>
<p>Yales rank (Acadmic Analytics surveys) for some major disciplines:</p>
<p>Astronomy = #10
Chemistry = #2
Computer Science = not in top ten
English = not in top ten
French = not in top ten
Geosciences = #8
History = #5
Mathematics = not in top ten
Music = #10 (you recently touted Yales program as the best music conservatory in the world though obviously you didnt cite ISI rankings on that thread.) <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4142089&postcount=5%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4142089&postcount=5</a> )
Physics = not in top ten
Philosophy = not in the top ten
Political Science = #3
Sociology = not in top ten</p>
<p>Look, Im certain Im tired of this and many readers of these threads are as well. I apologize to my good Yale friends for what might appear to be Yale bashing above. Its not intended to be. Rather, I simply want to point out how selective posterX is in his citations, picking and choosing to cite as authoritative and respected only those particular parts of each survey in which Yale ranks highly. The other parts of those surveys, where Yale ranks poorly, are never mentioned by our friend. </p>
<p>Contrary to what posterX claims, the two studies he cites are NOT considered the best gauges of academic quality. If he insists they are, then, based on their rankings, we would expect posterX to discourage any student considering Yale from going there if they are interested in economics, math, physics, computer science, English, French, music, sociology or philosophy and prefer other BETTER schools in the Ivy League if they are budding historians, biologists, engineers, classics majors, comparative literature majors, astronomers, political scientists or geologists. </p>
<p>Dont hold your breath waiting for this. </p>
<p>By the way, I dont intend to follow posterX to the other boards where he repeats this nonsense again and again, but on this board, I hope we can demand a higher level of honesty.</p>
<p>I think you ignored my post completely. I said start with the average rankings, using a variety of sources. If you look at the average rankings in the most popular departments (by # of undergraduate majors - e.g., English, history, psychology, biology, political science), I think you would find it very difficult to find a school as highly-ranked as Yale or Harvard.</p>
<p>If anyone had any lingering doubt about confirmed bias leading to obfuscation, this last post should make everything crystal clear. I rest my case.</p>
<p>I'm not biased at all, I'm just encouraging people to do their research and not listen to the "conventional wisdom" found on these threads. My advice is to visit and talk with as many students and professors as possible, and if you are going to try to look things up also, to try to compare a variety of rankings, facts and figures (such as the amount of research per student instead of the total amount, or the number of faculty and undergraduate majors in the top departments versus the overall student-faculty ratios, etc, etc.). I repeat these things at the risk of sounding like a broken record. Regarding the above, it's pretty clear to "anyone" that you totally missed my point.</p>