<p>If anyone could rank these colleges in terms of the stregth of their history departments, I would really appreciate it. Also, it would be great if anyone has any advice for me on how to do this? What should I be basing this decision on? One of the biggest things I look for in a college is the quality of academics but I'm finding it difficult to determine what kind of education I would get as a history major at these colleges. For example, someone told me Ithaca isn't good for history, but their website lists tons of history courses I would be interested in taking. </p>
<p>Here's the colleges:
-Brown
-Middlebury
-Vassar
-Colgate
-Boston College
-Bucknell
-SUNY Geneseo
-Muhlenberg
-Hampshire
-Ithaca
-Fairfield
-Stonehill
-Lycoming </p>
<p>Please help me out with this!!</p>
<p>I am not too sure about the colleges you listed, but I noticed you had BC in there, I believe they have a very good History Dept, also if you are willing to go to MA have you looked into Tufts? I am also a History major, and they have an exellent program. I will be applying for a transfer there next year.</p>
<p>Every thread I start someone mentions that I look at Tufts. I guess maybe I initially overlooked it. The whole different campus thing just confused me at first. I don't really understand, the whole medford, boston, and some other campus. Which campus would I actually be at? Anyways, thanks so much for the advice. </p>
<p>Anyone else?? Please...</p>
<p>you would be at the Medford campus, that is the main campus. Tufts is a beautiful school with an amazing campus. What type of history do you want to concentrate in?</p>
<p>That's a good question and I've been thinking about that a lot lately. But I would defiitely have to take a bunh a different classes in college and then decide. At my small public high school, I haven't exactly had the most diverse history background lol. But as of right now, I'm thinking Russian, US, or Middle Eastern if that's even possible, lol I have no idea. Ideally I would love to double major in Russian and history, I think that would be really useful to learn the language too. </p>
<p>Oh I have a question for you about Tufts corrinas, I noticed that a lot of juniors and seniors don't get housing on campus, does that bother you? Do you think it would be a big problem? I would just really prefer to go somewhere that guarantees housing so I would know I have somewhere to go.</p>
<p>Well I do know that Tufts has a degree in Russian language and Literature, and here are a couple of samples of history courses relating to Russia</p>
<p>Early Imperial Russia
Revolutionary Russia
Modern Russia</p>
<p>I am not so sure about the housing as I live in Medford already and wouldn't be staying on campus. I suggest going on their website to find more info.</p>
<p>ps,
They do offer courses in middle eastern history as well.</p>
<p>To my knowledge, only the National Research Council (NRC) Report and the Gourman Report will give you this information. I couldn't find the info. from the Gourman Report on the web. I don't know if the NRC evaluated the history programs at some of the schools you're considering, but here is the ranking of the top history departments according to the prestigious NRC Report:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stat.tamu.edu/%7Ejnewton/nrc_rankings/area38.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area38.html</a></p>
<p>corrinas, thanks for the link, it really did help. Tufts garantees housing for freshmen and sophomores, but not juniors and seniors. At first I thought this would really bother me but by the time I've been there 2 years I'm sure I'll be more independent and have lots of friends and be willing to live outside of campus. Thanks for helping me reconsider a great college. </p>
<p>miriam: wow the print on that link was extremely small lol!! I had to squint. It only had Brown and BC on it, in that order. So I'm still wondering about the others if anyone has any opinons. Does it really matter if the school isn't strong in what you're planning on studying. I mean technical schools offer english majors so people don't always go to schools that are strong in their major. </p>
<p>I'm curious to see what CC'ers think about how important the strength of your major department should be in choosing a college? Opinions anyone???</p>
<p>I agree. I nearly went blind trying to make out the print. It's a long list, and I guess someone was trying to reserve space? You should definitely check out the Gourman Report. I haven't seen the latest edition, but I think it includes the "lesser known" programs as well. I would consider schools that are strong in programs across the board. If you want to know which schools have the greatest numbers of highly ranked departments across the board, the NRC Report is THE source. According to the NRC Report, these schools had the greatest numbers of highly ranked departments & programs:</p>
<ol>
<li>Cal-Berkeley</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Wisconsin</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Texas</li>
<li>Cal-San Diego</li>
<li>Washington-Seattle</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Illinois
20 Minnesota</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>North Carolina</li>
<li>NYU</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Penn State</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
<li>Suny-Stony Brook</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Cal-Santa Barbara</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="http://www.stat.tamu.edu/%7Ejnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60%5B/url%5D">http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60</a></p>
<p>Brown is the only one listed in Gourman, which seems to favor universities. </p>
<p>Ruggs Recommendations lists the following history departments under "most selective"
Brown
Middlebury
Vassar
Colgate
Boston College
Bucknell</p>
<p>under "very selective" Ruggs lists
Muhlenberg</p>
<p>None of the others are listed in Ruggs under history. Ruggs is not "scientific" in any way but it covers LACs.</p>
<p>How did you arrive at this list of colleges? Why not start with a list of good history departments and then narrow it down? You seem to prefer LACs. You seem to prefer the northeast. There are others that fit these criteria.</p>
<p>collegehelp...wow thanks for the two lists...that's actually extremely helpful!! I appreciate it. As for how I arrived at this list...after about two years of research these colleges are the ones I decided on that I would be happiest at. College is an experience and i think these schools are the places where i would have the best overall experience. If you have any suggestions as to which would be better I'm always open to opinions, but I'm pretty set on these. As to my criteria, I've posted this on another thread so to avoid redundancy I'll be brief. I'm looking for a small LAC in northeast, lots of grass, nice campus, strong academics, laid back kind of feel, not too far from home, strong academics, small classes, great professors, where I'd be happy. </p>
<p>I actually never thought of starting with strong history schools because I started this list back when I was a sophomore and wanted to be a lawyer. Now I want to be a college professor so finding schools that offer teacher certification limit my choices a bit.</p>
<p>My recommendations in order:
Brown
Middlebury
Colgate
Boston College
Bucknell</p>
<p>If you like Div I sports, then Boston Coll</p>
<p>I'm not a big sports fan, lol. It's good to know that many of my reaches and high match schools seem to have good history departments, but I'm trying to get rid of a few safeties right now and I was going to drop the one that was weakest in history. But that doesn't seem like it's too easy to determine so I'll just have to go by something else I guess. </p>
<p>If anyone knows about the history departments at Ithaca, Stonehill, Hampshire, Fairfield, or Lycoming let me know.</p>
<p>Shiningstar, not many of the schools you are looking into are great in History, and that is strange because History is truly a very common major, strong at most good universities. Anyway, here are a couple of schools I recommend you look into:</p>
<p>RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES:
Brown University
Columbia University *
Cornell University
Duke University
Harvard University *
Johns Hopkins University
Northwestern University
Princeton University *
Stanford University *
University of California-Berkeley *
University of Chicago *
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor *
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yale University *</p>
<p>LACs
Amherst College
Carleton College
Dartmouth College
Haverford College
Middlebury College
Pomona College
Reed College
Swarthmore College
Wesleyan University
Williams College</p>
<p>The universities with * next to them have very large History programs with a very diverse course offering.</p>
<p>Brown undoubtedly has the the strongest history program among those schools, and perhaps the best in the country.</p>
<p>Alexandre...it wouldn't make sense for me to replace any of the schools on my list w/ any from your list. I need a balance of safeties, matches, and reaches. It would be stupid to take off, say Hampshire, and add Yale. All of the schools on your list would be reaches for pretty much anyone.</p>
<p>Depending on your stats, it migh make sense to eliminate some safeties and apply to a few of the reaches on Alexandre's list instead. You might have more safeties than reaches when you should have more reaches than safeties. Some other LACs somewhat less selctive than Amherst, etc in your region are Connecticut College, Dickinson, Gettysburg, Hamilton, Kenyon, Lafayette, Allegheny</p>
<p>Michigan and Wisconsin are probably not reaches. Chicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Northwest are also not meda reaches...certainly not as tough as Brown. On the LAC side, Reed is not terribly selective, neither is Carleton. I realize none of those are safeties. Some are maches and others are reaches, but my point is, they are no tougher than say Colgate, BC and Vassar. It is merely a question of picking and chosing.</p>