<p>I'm looking for major-specific college ranking systems besides the ones on the US News and World Report. I don't care what the major(s) is/are; I just need a few major-specific ranking systems that are comparable to the ones on US News.</p>
<p>I don't have anything against the US News system, but I disparately need to find some good alternative systems for a vast research project I am performing.</p>
<p>I would greatly appreciate anything and everything you can help me find. Thank you.</p>
<p>You will have a hard time finding anything comprehensive, reliable, and up to date. The closest to what you want, as far as I know, are:</p>
<p>The Gourman Report (from the mid-late 90s, I believe; criticized for a lack of methodology description)</p>
<p>Ruggs Recommendations (not even a ranking, just “Sears Good”/ “Sears Better”/“Sears Best” lists of schools that Mr. Rugg thinks are good for each of many departments)</p>
<p>Graduate department rankings (including a limited number by US News; a larger number by the NRC from 1995; and some newer bibliometric rankings such as HEEACT or the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index by Academic Analytics)*</p>
<p>Anecdotal reports about a few stand-out departments here and there (e.g., just among LACs, Art History at Williams, Math at St. Olaf, film at Wesleyan, English at Amherst, Anthropology at Beloit or Bryn Mawr, languages at Middlebury, Petroleum Geology at Guilford, Botany at Connecticut College, Political Science at Bowdoin …)</p>
<p>Regarding the limits of applying graduate department rankings to undergraduate programs, see:
<a href=“http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/undergrad.asp[/url]”>http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/undergrad.asp</a></p>
<p>I’m only going to use rankings for undergraduate programs, preferably at schools where a graduate degree in that program is offered.</p>
<p>I’m sure there’s got to be other undergraduate ranking systems out there.</p>
<p>If you research the undergraduate origins of the PHD programs, you can get a good idea of the success of the UG program. Surely someone will have those links, since they pop up on CC regularly. While researching, I found a link that Reed was using on its page, but I couldn’t easily google the sources.
[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>one site you might look at is the Inside College site - it has lists of college recommendations for every topic imaginable including by major (although I can’t speak to their methodology, if there even is any)</p>
<p>[College</a> Rankings & Scholarships | InsideCollege.com](<a href=“The Best College Rankings and Lists | Inside College | CollegeXpress”>The Best College Rankings and Lists | Inside College | CollegeXpress)</p>
<p>Gourman Report - undergrad</p>
<p>available on CC through the advanced search feature
type in keyword “gourman” and the the name of the major.</p>
<p>Well, the Gourman Report would be viable if there were an up-to-date edition. The most recent 10th edition was published in 1997. hmm…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you find them, please let us know.</p>
<p>To me, PhD production is about as good as any indicator of undergraduate department quality. However, the numbers may be biased by several factors (do a search for past threads).</p>
<p>Graduate department rankings tend to be heavily influenced, directly or indirectly, by research output. Professors who submit peer assessments know the strong departments at other schools by the quality and quantity of journal articles that come out of them. On what distinct basis would they know the strongest undergraduate departments?</p>
<p>One could look at student reviews, if any existed that focused on specific departments. But even then, how would you account for different standards among students at different schools?</p>
<p>You’re right. I didn’t realize that even the majority of US News major specific rankings were for graduate programs. There is a student review website of whose name I cannot speak that offers what you mentioned, although I can’t factor in the different standards among students at different schools.</p>
<p>Basically, it appears now that the US News offers the best system out there. They show undergraduate rankings for Engineering, Business, and their specialties; and they show graduate rankings for everything else.</p>
<p>So if I want to compare all the different undergraduate major programs out there, I should probably just use the US News graduate rankings (and undergraduate rankings for engineering and business), despite that graduate rankings are an indirect measure of undergraduate programs at best.</p>
<p>But what about those newer bibliometric rankings? How would you compare them to the graduate rankings by the US News?</p>