<p>This is a ranking of the top 20 baccalaureate schools of PhDs in humanities. Humanities include English language and literature, foreign language and literature, history, and other fields.</p>
<p>This information is from the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates 1995-2006 and from IPEDS. I divided the number of PhDs from a particular baccalaureate school by the number of bachelors degrees awarded by that school in the same fields (humanities). I think this is a more valid way to "normalize" PhD production.</p>
<p>The number of bachelors degrees is the total over three years 2002-2004 in humanities. These were the earliest available from the IPEDS website. I thought a three-year total would be more reliable than a one-year snapshot.</p>
<p>Other methods divide by total undergraduate enrollment. When you divide by total undergraduate enrollment schools are penalized if they have large numbers of undergrads in other fields.</p>
<p>I limited the schools to roughly the top 100 US News universities and top 100 LACs plus the SUNY schools, some additional tech schools, and a few schools that are not top 100 in US News but which produce large numbers of PhDs.</p>
<p>RPI and Harvey Mudd have low numbers and it is a fluke that they are at the top.</p>
<p>school, PhDs produced in humanities 1995-2006, bachelors degrees granted 2002-2004 in same fields, ratio</p>
<p>1 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 9 3 3.000
2 Harvey Mudd College 6 3 2.000
3 Oberlin College 519 481 1.079
4 Swarthmore College 249 316 0.788
5 Massachusetts Inst. Of Technology 60 80 0.750
6 Carleton College 248 349 0.711
7 Yale University 809 1150 0.703
8 Bryn Mawr College 175 264 0.663
9 Amherst College 251 384 0.654
10 Pomona College 155 249 0.622
11 Williams College 245 396 0.619
12 Stanford University 415 677 0.613
13 Wesleyan University 334 546 0.612
14 Smith College 245 426 0.575
15 Princeton University 465 842 0.552
16 Reed College 173 325 0.532
17 University Of Rochester 273 524 0.521
18 Northwestern University 354 715 0.495
19 Harvard University 792 1631 0.486
20 Wellesley College 200 414 0.483</p>
<pre><code> 21 EARLHAM COLLEGE 60 125 0.480
22 BROWN UNIVERSITY 456 951 0.479
23 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 343 723 0.474
24 RICE UNIVERSITY 155 336 0.461
25 DUKE UNIVERSITY 272 594 0.458
26 BENNINGTON COLLEGE 34 77 0.442
27 VASSAR COLLEGE 204 465 0.439
28 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 363 834 0.435
29 LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY 83 193 0.430
30 GRINNELL COLLEGE 131 313 0.419
31 WHEATON COLLEGE - ILLINOIS 150 365 0.411
32 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 131 319 0.411
33 MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 123 301 0.409
34 HAVERFORD COLLEGE 120 294 0.408
35 BARNARD COLLEGE 173 430 0.402
36 BAYLOR UNIVERSITY 228 572 0.399
37 KALAMAZOO COLLEGE 72 191 0.377
38 SAINT OLAF COLLEGE 176 478 0.368
39 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY 963 2797 0.344
40 BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY 139 411 0.338
</code></pre>
<pre><code> 41 MACALESTER COLLEGE 111 337 0.329
42 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN NEW YORK 428 1319 0.324
43 OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE 82 259 0.317
44 SCRIPPS COLLEGE 29 95 0.305
45 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 253 833 0.304
46 SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 40 133 0.301
47 WELLS COLLEGE 18 60 0.300
48 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 95 319 0.298
49 BARD COLLEGE 56 189 0.296
50 TUFTS UNIVERSITY 151 532 0.284
51 COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY 237 835 0.284
52 COLLEGE OF WOOSTER 89 319 0.279
53 CONNECTICUT COLLEGE 84 304 0.276
54 MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE 123 447 0.275
55 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 249 913 0.273
56 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 300 1117 0.269
57 BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY 71 269 0.264
58 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS 158 637 0.248
59 COLORADO COLLEGE 88 360 0.244
60 BATES COLLEGE 78 320 0.244
</code></pre>
<p>I know what you mean. I was scratching my head about that. I think you can earn dual degrees with other Claremont colleges, correct? Mudd should mention their prowess in the humanities in their literature.</p>
<p>Well, Mudders MUST graduate with at least a minor in one of our science/engineering majors. After fulfilling that requirement, we can obtain an off campus major in say economics from one of the neighboring colleges. I suppose Mudd could still be on the diploma though?</p>
<p>But doesn't your anomaly here show the problem with your method? Baccalaureate degrees earned in other areas can still lead to humanities doctorates. That they can shows the need to consider all graduates and not just the humanities majors.</p>
<p>Here is a list of top 30 humanities doctorates earned per baccalaureate degree of any sort. (Rates are docs/1000 grads for docs earned 1996-2005 and grads trailing by five years. Schools with > 500 grads).</p>
<p>St John's College (Annapolis, MD) 61.5
Reed College 46.8
Amherst College 44.9
Yale University 41.2
Swarthmore College 39.6
Bryn Mawr College 38.0
Carleton College 37.0
St John's College (Santa Fe, NM) 34.3
Wesleyan University 33.8
Haverford College 32.7
Oberlin College 32.3
Pomona College 31.0
Princeton University 28.8
University of Chicago 28.6
Harvard University 27.9
Grinnell College 27.3
Hampshire College 24.9
Vassar College 23.4
University of the South 22.6
Columbia University in the City of New York 22.4
Brown University 21.4
Bennington College 21.3
Earlham College 21.1
Smith College 20.7
Wellesley College 20.6
Barnard College 20.4
Kalamazoo College 19.6
Davidson College 19.1
Sarah Lawrence College 19l.1</p>
<p>Descartesz-
My method is not perfect. As you said, a student can get a PhD in a field unrelated to their undergrad major. But, it is more valid than using total undergrad enrollment in the denominator. Dividing by total undergrad enrollment seriously underestimates PhD productivity at large universities with programs in engineering, communications, education, nursing, and so on. The LACs have a limited curriculum and therefore a smaller denominator.</p>
<p>In your list, what happened to Stanford, Northwestern, MIT?</p>
<p>johnwesley-
The Arts and Sciences units would include students who earned bachelors in sciences and social sciences. I think the ratio of humanities PhDs to humanities bachelors is best. Even though PhDs in the humanities may have earned their bachelors in a non-humanities field, I think most students earn PhDs in the same field as their bachelors.</p>
<p>I appreciate your analyses and agree that including all graduates penalizes schools that are do not concentrate students with interests in continuing academic careers and even those that do not attract humanities-oriented students. Why, for example, should all the pre-pharmacy students at a large state U figure into evaluation of humanities education?</p>
<p>On the other hand, using all grads shines a light, I think, on the prevailing atmosphere at smaller schools (especially LAC's). St. John's, for example, is unabashedly humanities oriented and attracts students with these interests - this comes out using the latter methodology. You also see it with Shimer College in Chicago, whose results I have removed from the list because it is so small but figures into the top 10 when included. Northwestern, Stanford, and MIT, of course, fall of of my list because, where as their humanities grads might be very good, the aggregate undergraduate focus is much less on humanities. This would seem to be informative to any student, especially an aspiring humanities major. They can expect to get excellent training in their area of interest at, say, Stanford, but are more likely to encounter students with other interests, too. This might be a positive or a negative in school selection, depending on personal preference.</p>
<p>I also think the inconsistency in our results can be partially attributed to the date ranges of our datasets. I believe your use of later undergraduate populations slightly penalizes schools that have grown somewhat in the interim.</p>
<p>In sum, I found both approaches to be enlightening. I do wish college rankings would make use of this kind of data, which shows the effect of reputations in actual practice, rather than vague "reputation surveys".</p>
<p>Very helpful information for my D who is a thoroughgoing humanities kid. I'm pleased to see that by either measure many of the schools she's most attracted to--Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Wesleyan, Brown, Pomona, Wellesley, Earlham--rank very high on this scale.</p>