An observation, for what it’s worth. The three rankings that drive overall opinion are college, law, and business. Aspiring kids and their parents come in contact with the first; professional society comes in touch with the others. There are few universities both academically (as in the opinion of the academy) and professionally (what the real world thinks) great in all three. We know who they are.
Shanghai has additional rankings listed by subject - I just posted the overall list, but there are more detailed rankings on their website. Agree that research rankings would perhaps be more directly relevant to those on grad school level or higher. However, there does tend to be a correlation between research and undergraduate program rankings, at least for R1’s.
Most PhD program applicants are probably working with their undergraduate faculty advisor to choose a specific set of schools, rather than doing so by looking at Shanghai ARWU or US News. After all, the rec letter factors in rather heavily when the committee is figuring out their incoming admitted class. Also, it’s hard for a rankings system to capture differences among the various departments. For instance, Cal Tech is excellent at what they do in Econ but it’s limited to just a few specialties. Does that qualify them for the #14 spot on US News? Or the 100+ spot on Shanghai? Both seem inaccurate (IMO). US News does provide some specialties but not a comprehensive list of schools. Shanghai just ranks based on overall subject. So, again, they aren’t perfect metrics.
But I wouldn’t rule out Princeton or MIT from being considered “great” as well, yet both offer only a subset of the divisions you mention. Both certainly have top-ranked PhD programs and a good share of Nobels.
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Why was there a pop up ad for U Chicago that basically froze my phone screen?
This only happens for this school, really annoying.
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While there may be a non-zero correlation between graduate and undergraduate rankings that doesn’t mean the graduate research rankings are relevant to the criteria a particular undergraduate student emphasizes in their college decision. You mentioned “at least for R1s”. This highlights that some colleges do not prioritize graduate research, yet still have excellent undergraduate teaching. A lack of prioritization on faculty/graduate research is not necessarily a bad thing for an undergraduate student.
The degree of the the correlation between graduate research ranking and undergraduate program ranking is also all over the map, depending on how the specific rankings are calculated. For example, you mentioned Caltech was ranked 14th in one economics PhD program ranking and over 100th in a different economics faculty/graduate research ranking.
The website that Caltech ranked highest in is 100% based on a rank 1-5 reputation survey given to admins. The website that Caltech ranked lowest is based on total number of publications/awards, without considering that Caltech is a small college, with fewer faculty than peers. Neither ranking seems to consider that according to IPEDS and federal reporting, Caltech has not given any economics PhDs during the >10 year period for which stats are available.
The first undergraduate economics ranking that came up in Google is Niche. Their formula is as follows. The largest 2 components are overall ranking and percent majoring in Econ. With only 1 econ major in the latest IPEDS, Caltech is going to do poorly in percent majoring in Econ and probably has ~0 econ majors in their Niche survey, which may prevent Niche from being able to rank Caltech. This fits with Caltech not being ranked (only checked up to top 100). So I guess Niche’s undergrad econ ranking is more corelated with Shanghai faculty research econ ranking than USNWR PhD econ ranking. All of these rankings seem too ridiculous to take seriously.
Niche Undergraduate Economics Formula
35% – Overall Niche Ranking (not specific to Econ)
17.5% – Percent Majoring in Econ
12% – Niche member interest in Econ at college
10% – Self-reported SAT scores of Niche members interested in Econ at college
9% – Niche survey of Econ alumni at college
9% – Research expenditure in Econ (6% per capita, 3% total)
6% – Number of majors in Econ
2.5% – Ratio of econ major SAT score to non-econ major
Still, those graduating college at a top R1 have the opportunity to do research and/or form relationships in a top-ranked academic department. All else equal, that helps them across a wider variety of post college outcomes. That doesn’t negate the value of attending those institutions with excellent teaching, but there’s a reason why HYPS and UChicago (to name a subset) might have better post-college outcomes than, say, Notre Dame, all else equal. One can receive an excellent education at any of those schools, but if they wish to enter a top PhD program or work for McKinsey or attend T15 law school, they will tend to get more mileage from having graduated from the higher ranked R1’s.
That’s why it’s important to understand the methodology behind the rankings.
While the number of PhD’s is very small each year, something like 1 or 2, they do graduate PhD economists. Cal Tech doesn’t have an econ department - they have a “social sciences” program and the PhD isn’t in “economics” but “social sciences” - this is a distinction w/o a difference and, in fact, is very similar to economists who obtain their PhD’s at a business program (Stanford, for example) and thus have a PhD in “business” rather than “economics” (even if the training is equivalent to an econ PhD elsewhere). Guessing that IPEDS understands this issue.
They are likely to be less helpful for highly specialized or niche programs and more useful in assessing the reputation and rigor associated with broad-offering national universities. The reality - fortunate, unfortunate, or otherwise - is that it’s not just parents and potential employers who look at these - university administrators keep a close eye on at least the US News rankings (as do the deans of the various divisions and schools). Rankings increase funding and they are correlated with higher selectivity, prestige, etc. And those “few” (I count several so maybe lalvahoo and I differ on exact number) with a deep bench of high rankings - undergrad, professional, graduate and research - tend to be considered as “great universities” that have influenced the direction of culture and society.
Notre Dame has a lot of differences besides just degree of faculty/graduate focus on research, including students self selecting to a religious college, so let’s instead compare to a highly selective LAC that has little focus on graduate research. I’ll use Amherst as an example since they have published detailed post grad outcomes, such as https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/FY17%2520Career%2520Center%2520First%2520Destination_FINAL_3%25202%252017.pdf .
The linked report mentions that the most common employer of Amherst grads was Google and most common grad school was Harvard. You mentioned McKinsey. McKinsey is listed as well as an employer in the report, although not as common as Google. Goldman Sachs, Bain, etc. Not having graduated from a R1 that is high ranked in faculty research rankings or high ranked PhD programs does not appear to be hurting Amherst grads in being hired by prestigious employers, like the one you listed. Considering the grad schools listed, and higher rate of PhDs than most “national colleges”, there is also no indication that not having graduated from a top research R1 is hurting them in attending a top PhD program.
You also mentioned T15 law schools. Law school admission is primarily determined by stats – GPA and LSAT. Which undergraduate college was attended has little influence, including whether the college is ranked high in faculty research rankings. Amherst is highly selective with a lot of high LSAT kids, so I expect they have their share who attend T15 law schools. I don’t care enough about this to calculate it myself, but according to collegetransitions,.com, Amherst has more T15 law school alumni per capita than both Chicago and Harvard. The lack of emphasis on faculty research also doesn’t appear to hurting Amherst grads in T15 law school admission.
Caltech’s social sciences PhD has program is described as interdisciplinary research in areas common to economics, political science, political economy, history, psychology, anthropology, law, and public policy . While economics is one of the many social sciences listed it sounds quite different from a traditional economics PhDs. In any case, in the most recent IPEDS, Caltech listed the following PhD stats, suggesting this program does not have many participants.
Caltech PhD Totals
Economics PhDs – 0
Any Kind of Social Sciences PhDs – 0
Any Kind Interdisciplinary PhDs Besides Math + CS – 0
Different rankings have different methodologies and assess different things. I can’t recall a ranking that tried to assess rigor, but some do try to assess reputation. USNWR is particularly big on reputation. As noted in the earlier Caltech economics example, 100% of the ranking was based on a reputation survey given to college admins. USNWR originally also had 100% of the national rankings based on a reputation survey given to college admins. After complaints about this methodology, they switched to a psuedo-scientific looking formula with numbers and calculations, but have always kept their 5 = “Distinguished” and 1 = “Marginal” college admin survey has as one the highest weighted component of their rankings formula.
I don’t doubt that colleges care about their USNWR ranking, and I don’t doubt that their ranking influences various things about their college. However, this does not mean that the ranking has any correlation with what a particular student prioritizes in their undergraduate college selection. And it certainly does not mean whatever random ranking was listed in the first post with no specified methodology should have any relevance to their college decision.
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Those graduating top non-R1 schools also have the opportunity to do research and/or form relationships in a top-ranked academic department (unless of course you excluded non-R!s from the academic rating.)
Here is a list of top ten feeders to Ph.D. programs, adjusted for number of undergraduates.
|1|California Institute of Technology|496|
|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
|2|Harvey Mudd College|270|
|3|Cornell University|1675||3|Swarthmore College|425|
|4|Massachusetts Institute of Technology|1140|
|5|Carleton College|450|
|6|Reed College|317|
|7|Grinnell College|311|
|8|Williams College|376|
|9|Haverford College|231|
|10|Pomona College|270|
It doesn’t seem like attending a non-R1 is a definite disadvantage.
I do not know whether looking at rankings between a national university and an LAC would be all that useful. (As a reminder, the subject is ranking systems rather than comparing national universities to LACs). Apples to apples ie comparing like-institutions within a ranking system seems to make more sense IMO. LAC’s have a solid history as feeder programs to PhD, although outcomes such as selectivity and competitiveness of the grad program isn’t provided in resources such as College Transitions and similar. Someone graduating from a top-ranked national university with a rec letter from a faculty member well-regarded in the field would have a better shot at a top PhD program, all else equal, than someone whose faculty advisor is less-well known - whether that be due to a less “prestigious” (ie lower ranked) national university or a quite prestigious LAC. That’s just how heavily those rec letters factor into an admission decision for that level of study (and of course YMMV depending on specific subject area). Regardless, LAC’s are an excellent option for many students and the top institutions in that category have excellent placement outcomes, including employers and professional school. No disagreement there!
Those who are choosing economics research are graduating with pretty good training in micro theory (but not macro). The first year courses and research include pretty standard econ courses. The field of Econ often cross pollinates with other social science fields; a great example is the area of experimental econ (which Cal Tech is known for). It’s a small program and it doesn’t offer the wider gamut of economic specializations that you see in more “traditional” economics PhD programs. However, the outcomes in recent years include TT placements in econ departments. A lot comes down to whether the academic market likes your stuff - that’s as true for those coming out of Cal Tech as anywhere else.
Reputation will be tied to perceived rigor. And it’s a self-repeating trend as the top students will be attracted to the rigor and the reputation.
I suspect that rankings correlate quite robustly with what many students prioritize in their undergraduate selection! The “prestige” factor is attractive to many. That may not be the most intelligent way to go about deciding how to spend one’s time and treasure in the application process, but it’s a pretty common one nonetheless.
All the rankings that have been posted except USNWR do not separate R1s from LACs. For example, the Shanghai rankings you listed rank Amherst between 901-1000, as listed at https://www.shanghairanking.com/institution/amherst-college , in the same rankings list as the R1s, like Chicago.
If you don’t like using LACs, then we could substitute Dartmouth instead. It was ranked a relatively low 300-400 in the Shanghai faculty research ranking you listed and doesn’t do as well in faculty research rankings as many peers, yet still does extremely well in all the post-grad outcomes you listed. I expect the primary drivers for most of the categories you listed relate to the individual student, rather than the ranking on a particular faculty research list.
For example, I mentioned that law school admission is primarily determined by stats (+ URM), yet the colleges towards the top of college ranking lists tend to do well in law school admission. This does not mean that that attending a “feeder” college is important for law school admission. Instead it primarily occurs because the applicants with high enough stats to be admitted to highly selective law schools tend to be highly concentrated at highly selective undergrad colleges. There are also differences in the rate of applications. Students from certain colleges with comparable stats are far more likely to apply to highly selective law schools than others.
There are too many variables to draw a straightforward conclusion. For example, maybe the smaller typical class size at LACs and better typical connection with professors results in higher quality LORs on average? Maybe the LAC style described above increases chances of applying to a PhD, with different degrees of mentoring/role models? Maybe kids who are interested in PhDs are more likely to apply to LACs for undergrad? Maybe the PhD admissions prioritize things like about the individual student such as quality of student and quality or research over the name of the professor writing the LOR?
What is more clear, is if you look at who actually attends “top PhD programs”, there tend to be grads from a good mix of colleges, including students from LACs. And the kids who attend highly selective LACs tend to do well in PhD admission. For example, the page at https://econ.williams.edu/grad-student-list/ references a 2015 study which found that Williams was the college with the highest per capita rate of economics PhDs, and lists the colleges at which William econ majors received their PhDs. It’s not all top PhD programs, but it’s the clear majority.
The author of the study referenced above does not find a clear conclusion to whether LACs hurt/help after controlling for higher quality of students at more selective colleges, saying, “Once we control for GRE scores and students’ other prior academic credentials, the estimates provide no evidence that students from top-50 liberal arts colleges or non-English-speaking international universities have an advantage or disadvantage in gaining access to the top-15 economics PhD programs.”
I interview students for admission to a HYPSM college. One of the questions I ask in each student I interview is why they want to attend the college. The answers are widely varied. Some students give a generic answer, like it is a “good college.” Others go in to elaborate detail and talk for long periods about offerings and opportunities in their planned field of study, opportunities for out of classroom experiences, relatives/friends attending, location, perceived assistance in long term goals, and many other topics. However, I have yet to year any applicant mention being attracted to rigor or mention anything positive about perceived rigor or the college.
I’d expect only a very small portion of undergrad students care about the faculty research and PhD rankings that have been linked in this thread, including the one in the original post. As such, I’d expect that placement on these rankings has little direct influence on any of the discussed topics. However, USNWR national ranking tends to get noticed by a larger portion of students. There are studies that have found a variety of influences from USNWR ranking, including influences on things like number of applications. A higher USNWR ranking is associated with an increase in applications, as some students (not all) do care about USNWR ranking or perceived “prestige”. This increase in applications can contribute to an increase in selectivity and a higher concentration of top students. Some students caring about ranking or prestige is not synonymous with perceived rigor. For example, Chicago’s USNWR ranking, number of applications, and selectivity have shot up in recent decades. Did the perceived rigor have a corresponding degree of increase during this period? Or portion of applicants attracted to rigor?
Something ranked between 901-1000 is sufficiently far from UChicago and its research university peers so as not to be a relevant discussion point. As mentioned earlier, LAC’s can have great outcomes, but they are not research universities. Shanghai is more useful for subject rankings, although (as also mentioned earlier) those have limitations as well. You mention Dartmouth which has kept its R1 status over the past few years - it might have some catching up to do but is probably considered a peer school by UChicago. Someone is free to correct or clarify.
In any case, rankings are generally useful but not precise metrics.
There can be a bump depending on where you graduate as admissions committees understand things like relative rigor - by institution and by major. Law schools or other professional programs are no exception. But the repetitive trend that attracts the best students to the best colleges and universities will also tend to propel those students to excellent grad programs.
Discussions of how someone gets into a PhD program are not really the topic of this thread; however, in general the description I provided earlier tends to hold - PhD programs admit a handful of students every year and fully fund them - admission relies very heavily on recommendations from known faculty. This is precisely why many from undergrad who didn’t have the benefit of working with noted faculty will stop off at a master’s program first to generate that letter. Perhaps many of those are LAC grads - not sure. (this is not to say that LAC grads can’t do excellent research w/o the benefit of a noted mentor). I’m not familiar with most of the Williams current econ faculty but they’ve had their share of noted economists - Rappaport, for instance.
Interestingly, rigor is precisely why many apply to UChicago undergrad. But, as we have discussed on other threads, Stanford and UChicago each have a distinct institutional culture. Again, not the topic of this thread, but “rigor” can be found at most if not all of UChicago’s undergraduate peers (whether “rigor” is required in order to graduate is another topic).
Most applicants to undergrad don’t know about Shanghai or other similar research ranking systems and probably don’t deviate from US News if they are relying on rankings at all. However, that doesn’t mean that UChicago’s placement on Shanghai is out of wack - it’s probably fairly representative of the school’s overall research reputation in the world.
UChicago’s undergraduate ranking has moved a lot more than its graduate in recent decades - it wasn’t too long ago that most never knew there was an undergrad program in Hyde Park. That significant climb happened not because rigor increased but because (similar to what its peers had already done) the university finally decided to treat the College as a valuable asset of the university. The ranking fell into place accordingly and is now consistent with the university’s other (graduate) rankings. And it hasn’t moved all that much since.
The point was Amherst has a poor 901-1000 ranking and Dartmouth has a relatively poor 300-400 ranking, yet they don’t appear to suffer any of the negative consequences from the ranking that you previously listed.
When looking at law school admissions scattergrams, I have not seen a clear pattern related to either major or institution. Applicants from perceived “hard” majors do not appear to have better results than perceived “easy” majors with comparable GPA+LSAT stats. I’d make a similar comment about undergrad institution. Some may or may not provide a “bump”, but it’s small enough that I do not see any evidence of that attending a high ranked R1 colleges gives you “more mileage” for attending a T15 law school than attending colleges without highly ranked faculty research (such as LACs), as was originally claimed.
One key difference between LACs and R1s is LACs have few grad students. This can give undergrads more opportunities to work with professors in positions that would typically done by grad/PhD students at R1s. I wouldn’t assume attending a LAC means undergrads won’t have the opportunity to work with faculty.
I also haven’t seen any support for your theory about grads from highly selective LACs being more likely to pursue master’s. Instead everything I’ve seen suggests the opposite. For example, the post grad page at https://www.swarthmore.edu/career-services/post-graduation-statistics lists the following percentages of grad degrees among Swarthmore grads, immediately after college. I chose Swarthmore because they are a highly selective LAC that has detailed reporting .I’ll compare to Yale, which is a highly selective R! tha provides similarly detailed reporting.
Post-graduate Plans
PhD – 14% of Swarthmore Undergrads, 4% of Yale Undergrads
Master’s – 12% of Swarthmore Undergrads, 8% of Yale Undegrads
Swarthmore grads seem far more likely to pursue PhDs and seem likely to start at PhDs vs Master’s, immediately after college. Many highly selective LACs form a similar pattern with a high rate of PhDs compared to colleges ranking well on faculty research lists, like Shanghai. I also don’t see support for Swarthmore students not attending highly ranked PhD programs. The most common grad colleges for Swarthmore students are below. Again many other highly selective LACs follow a similar pattern.
Most Common Grad College: Swarthmore Undergrads
1 . Harvard
2. Penn
3. Yale
4. Princeton
This was largely my point. Chicago had a unique reputation as a rigorous college when they were ranked much lower still in USNWR, which contributed to unique group of self selecting applicants. Chicago’s USNWR, Shanghai, or other numerical ranking is not the key factor in Chicago’s reputation as a rigorous college.
As noted earlier, Chicago’s ranking on specific components of the Shanghai ranking were all over the map. By far the Chicago’s strongest component of the ranking was historical Nobel prize winners, which was weighted as (20% + 10%)/0.9 = 1/3 of the overall weighting, but Chicago was ranked as low as 141st in their citation index metric. Other rankings that place more emphasis on citations and less emphasis on Nobel prizes could place Chicago very differently. Depending on what criteria is used in the weighting, I expect Chicago’s ranking could be just about anything. I’d make a similar comment about other colleges.
For example the page at https://www.universityguru.com/university/university-of-chicago-chicago lists Chicago’s ranking on many lists. Some of the ones that Chicago ranks especially high and low on are below. Most rankings below are from 2021 and have not been updated for 2022. I see little consistency, as one would expect given the wide variation of ranking formulas.
Chicago’s Highest Listed Rankings
Tiburg Economics Ranking – 1
RUR Research Performance Ranking – 4
USNWR National Ranking – 6
Chicago’s Lowest Listed Rankings
Payscale College Salary Ranking – 186
Webtronics Ranking of Universities – 164
CWTS Leiden Ranking – 121
Note that Amherst receives greater recognition in U.S. News for its opportunities for undergraduate research/creative projects than does UChicago: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/undergrad-research-programs.
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You misunderstood my point about “negative consequences” so you should go back and read that. Rankings generally reveal differences in reputation and quality among similar institutions.
Since there is no one major that is “correct” for law school, it’s not surprising that there is a lack of pattern mapping those majors to admission. What would be interesting (haven’t looked for it) would be whether “hard” majors are given a bit of a GPA break.
As a grad of an LAC, I assure you that undergrads at those institutions have an opportunity to work with faculty! That has some advantages for the research-oriented; however, what LAC’s might lack, even at the top, would be faculty who are well-known in the subject field. It will depend on the field; my LAC, for instance, had nationally-known and prominent faculty in several fields (some humanities, math and CS come to mind) but not in others (social sciences come to mind). That is not unique to an LAC, as research universities of “lower ranking” might have the same issue. Someone who has academic interests in a number of subjects (not untypical for someone coming to UChicago, for instance) may prefer to apply to a research university with a deep field of prominent faculty across many divisions. That characteristic tends to be correlated with ranking. You mentioned grad students but my experience with my kids at UChicago is that it’s an advantage to have them there. Faculty and grad students will often teach to their research interests, which tend to be consistent with the contemporary trends in the subject areas. They (undergrads) are learning state-of-the-art research techniques and areas of academic inquiry. Not always possible in an LAC which specializes in “teaching” or in a lower-ranked research university where faculty may not be keeping up.
Chicago’s ranking on Shanghai hasn’t really budged since those rankings were created. Among the elite research universities, the undergraduate ranking on USNews has generally been consistent with their research ranking. There are underlying trends that make this so - UChicago was an outlier because it wasn’t following those trends (to the detriment of the university) until 2000 or so. Your continued point about understanding the methodology and the context of the ranking isn’t being debated; however, I also expect that digging into the myriad ranking systems (some “gold standard” while others more obscure) will still show some universities coming out consistently on the higher end. I’m not surprised by the Webtronics ranking lol. UChicago is often criticized for lack of easily-accessible information via internet search.
Users are flagging posts complaining (correctly) that this thread has devolved into back and forth debate between @Data10 and @JBStillFlying. So I’ll ask those users to move it to PM, if they feel the conversation needs to continue.
As it is, the thread may not remain open much longer as there is really no now information being imparted.
My son just went through the grad school process. He didn’t look at US News etc. His focus was (1) Citation rankings (2) NIH funding (he is pursuing Biology) (3) # of professors/PIs working in his subset of molecular biology (4) Quality of Life in the city he will be in for ~5 years. These rankings were meaningless.
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I think that’s smart/great - but just curious, when he does it that way, does it alter the list much? In other words, maybe school A is #5 o this list and #8 on another…but in the end, do the top schools still remain the top schools - forgetting a specific name. In other words, I’ll say a Chicago, Rice, Duke, Vandy are in the same band regardless of how ranked.
I’m confused here. If you’re into “outcomes”, doesn’t the WSJ/THE ranking heavily weight towards outcomes? Chicago is not at the top. All I’m saying is that it depends what survey you use. Rankings may help Chicago marketing efforts given the lack of name recognition (it often gets confused as being a state school like Penn vs Penn State and Wash U/etc)…
I would disagree a bit here. In terms of international/global reputation, Vandy and Rice are all but unheard of outside the US…
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Hmm. While I don’t know those rankings in detail, I do see that UChicago is ranked 14 among US colleges (I presume that is the specific ranking list you are referring to) while, say, Notre Dame (the school I was using as an example earlier) is ranked 28th, behind the usual suspects as well as some top LAC’s. Is there anything inconsistent that you see there?