I am currently a Sophomore attending UConn as an in-state student. I am a Political Science and Philosophy double major in the Honors program wishing to eventually go to law school. I applied for a transfer to multiple universities. So far, I’ve been accepted to Case and Northeastern University. Selectivity wise, Northeastern is more “highly regarded” as it has less than 30% acceptance rate. However, Case appears to have smaller classes and be slightly above in the rankings (#42, compared with Northeastern tied at #44). Both are in large cities, however, since Case is mostly a STEM school I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on which school is “best” for my majors or best to get me en route to law school?
First, acceptance rate is not an indicator of being highly regarded. Being a small school can drive down acceptance rate, so can pushing for more applicants via mailings or marketing campaigns, and many other factors go into that. And even it was, Northeastern and CWRU have similar acceptance rates relatively. More relevantly, they have similar student profiles when it comes to GPA/SAT.
Secondly, a difference in general ranking of 10-20 spots in a ranking (a general one especially), let alone 2, is not meaningful. I don’t think you’re really considering any relevant criteria as you’ve listed it here.
Both Case and Northeastern are pretty STEM focused but also both have solid programs outside of STEM, so again I don’t think that criteria separates them.
The biggest difference between the two schools in my opinion:
Co-op: Do you like Northeastern’s co-op program?
Location: Cleveland vs Boston are very different despite both being cities
Honestly, these two schools are very similar. Can you visit both and talk to students/professors at each? This is a personal decision, not an objective one.
When thinking about rankings of political science departments, one type of ranking is:
Alumni-based rankings
There are a couple of rankings based on the work of the alumni of a program. McCormick & Rice (1982; 2001) looked at whose graduates publish in five “leading journals” (a journal was leading if it was published by the national or one of the regional political science associations). Michigan, UC Berkeley, Chicago, Rochester and Indiana are the top 5. In a later study, Rice, McCormick & Bergmann (2002) looked at whose graduates publish books that had been reviewed at the flagship journal APSR. Harvard, UC Berkeley, Yale, Chicago and Princeton top that list (when weighed by size of the graduating class, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Case Western Reserve and UC Berkeley are at the top). Masuoka and Grofman look at which departments have produced the highest number of highly-cited faculty (determined by being in top 400 of all faculty). The top 5 are Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, Michigan, and Chicago. They also look at placement records (additional tables and figures) as such – the top 5 in 1991-2000 placements were Harvard, UC Berkeley, Michigan, Princeton, and Chicago.