Which Ivies are best in which subjects?

<p>These are the best 2-4 Ivies in each major.</p>

<p>The following list shows which Ivies are strongest in various subjects according to the Gourman Report for Undergraduate Programs. By “best” I mean that the school had a score of 4.7 or above (out of 5) for that discipline OR it was one of the top 4 out of 8 Ivies. The scores in the Gourman Report range from 5 (strong) to 2 (marginal). In the case of near-ties, I included both schools.</p>

<p>The Gourman Report states that its ratings are based on “extensive reseach” into the following criteria:</p>

<li>auspices, control, and organization of the institution</li>
<li>numbers of educational programs offered and degrees conferred (with additional attention to “sub-fields” available to students within a particular discipline</li>
<li>age (experience level) of the institution and the individual discipline or program and division</li>
<li>faculty, including qualifications, experience, intellectual interests, attainments, and professional productivity (including research)</li>
<li>students, including quality of scholastic work and records of graduates both in graduate study and in practice</li>
<li>basis of and requirements for admission of students (overall and by individual discipline)</li>
<li>number of students enrolled (overall and for each discipline)</li>
<li>curriculum and curricular content of the program or discipline and division</li>
<li>standards and quality of instruction (including teaching loads)</li>
<li>quality of administration, including attitudes and policy towards teaching, research and scholarly production in each discipline, and administration research</li>
<li>quality and availability of non-departmental areas such as counseling and career placement services</li>
<li>quality of physical plant devoted to undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels</li>
<li>finances, including budgets, investments, expenditures and sources of income for both public and private institutions</li>
<li>library, including number of volumes, appropriateness of materials to individual disciplines and accessibility of materials</li>
<li>computer facility sufficient to support current research activities for both faculty and students</li>
<li>sufficient funding for research equipment and infrastructure</li>
<li>number of teaching and research assistantships</li>
<li>academic-athletic balance</li>
</ol>

<p>The weight given to each criterion above varies by discipline. </p>

<p>I think the Gourman formula works against smaller schools such as Dartmouth which is no doubt excellent in most disciplines.</p>

<p>ARTS<br>
art Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
theater Cornell<br>
music Cornell Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia </p>

<p>ENGINEERING<br>
aerospace eng Princeton<br>
agricultural eng Cornell<br>
biomedical eng Brown Penn
chemical eng Cornell Princeton Penn
civil eng Cornell Brown Princeton Columbia<br>
electrical eng Cornell Brown Princeton Columbia<br>
engineering physics Cornell Princeton<br>
geological eng Princeton<br>
industrial eng Cornell Columbia<br>
materials eng Cornell Brown Columbia Penn
mechanical eng Cornell Brown Princeton Columbia Penn
mining and mineral eng Columbia<br>
systems eng Penn</p>

<p>HUMANITIES<br>
Arabic Harvard Princeton Penn
art history Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia Penn
Chinese Cornell Harvard Columbia Penn
classics Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
comparative lit Harvard Yale Columbia Penn
English Cornell Brown Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia Penn
French Cornell Yale Princeton Columbia Penn
German Cornell Harvard Yale Princeton<br>
Greek Brown Harvard Columbia Penn
Hebrew Harvard Columbia Penn
information science Harvard<br>
Italian Brown Yale Columbia<br>
Japanese Harvard Columbia Penn
Latin Harvard Yale Columbia<br>
linguistics Cornell Yale Penn
philosophy Cornell Brown Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
Portugese Harvard Penn
religious studies Dartmouth Yale Princeton Penn
Russian Harvard Yale Columbia Penn
Scandanavian languages Harvard Penn
Slavic languages Harvard Princeton Penn
Spanish Harvard Yale Penn</p>

<p>PROFESSIONAL<br>
accounting Penn
architecture Cornell Princeton<br>
business administration Penn
environmental design Cornell Harvard Penn
finance Penn
hotel mngmnt Cornell<br>
landscape architecture Cornell<br>
management Penn
marketing Penn
nursing Columbia Penn
operations research Cornell Columbia<br>
social work Penn
sociology Cornell Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
urban planning Cornell </p>

<p>SCIENCES<br>
applied mathematics Brown Harvard Yale Columbia<br>
astronomy Cornell Harvard<br>
astrophysics Harvard Princeton<br>
atmospheric sciences Cornell<br>
bacteriology/microbiology Cornell<br>
biochemistry Cornell Harvard Yale Columbia<br>
biology Cornell Harvard Yale Columbia<br>
biophysics Cornell Brown Yale Penn
botany Cornell<br>
cell biology Cornell Brown<br>
chemistry Cornell Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
computer science Cornell Yale Princeton<br>
ecology/environ studies Cornell Harvard Penn
entomology Cornell<br>
environmental sci Cornell Harvard Penn
genetics Cornell<br>
geology Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
geophysics Brown Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
marine sci Cornell Brown<br>
mathematics Cornell Brown Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
meteorology Cornell<br>
molecular biology Cornell Harvard Princeton Penn
nutrition Cornell<br>
physics Cornell Yale Princeton Columbia Penn
statistics Cornell Columbia Penn
zoology Cornell </p>

<p>SOCIAL SCIENCES<br>
American Studies Cornell Brown Yale Penn
anthropology Cornell Harvard Yale Columbia Penn
asian studies Cornell Harvard Yale Penn
behavioral sciences Cornell Penn
child psychology Cornell Penn
communication Penn
East Asian Studies Cornell Harvard Columbia Penn
economics Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia Penn
history Cornell Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia Penn
international relations Cornell Harvard Princeton Penn
labor and industrial relations Cornell Penn
Latin American studies Columbia<br>
medieval studies Cornell Columbia<br>
Near/Middle Eastern Studies Harvard Princeton Columbia Penn
political science Cornell Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
psychology Harvard Yale Columbia Penn
Russian/Slavic studies Harvard Yale Princeton Columbia<br>
sociology Harvard Yale Columbia Penn
South Asian studies Brown Harvard Penn
Southeast Asian Studies Cornell Harvard Penn</p>

<p>TECHNICAL<br>
agricultural business Cornell<br>
agricultural economics Cornell<br>
agriculture Cornell<br>
agronomy Cornell<br>
animal sciences Cornell<br>
dairy sciences Cornell<br>
dietetics Cornell<br>
farm/ranch mngmnt Cornell<br>
food services Cornell<br>
food services mngmnt Cornell<br>
horticulture Cornell<br>
natural resource mngmnt Cornell<br>
ornamental horticulture Cornell<br>
poultry sciences Cornell</p>

<p>Do you know the gourman report rankings for computer science for all schools? (not just the ivies)</p>

<p>yes, I do, but the Gourman report tends to underestimate LACs.</p>

<p>MIT
Carnegie Mellon
UC Berkeley
Cornell
U Illinios UC
UCLA
Yale
Caltech
U Texas Austin
U Wisconsin Madison
U Maryland CP
Princeton
U Washington
USC
SUNY Stony Brook
Brown
Georgia Tech
U Penn
U Rochester
NYU
U Minnesota
U Utah
Columbia
Ohio State
Rice
Duke
Northwestern
SUNY Buffalo
U Pittsburgh
UC Irvine
UC San Diego
U Mass Amherst
Rutgers NB
Indiana U Bloomington
Penn State UP
UC Santa Barbara
Syracuse
Iowa St
RPI
UVA
U Michigan AA
U Iowa
U Conn
Southern Methodist
US Naval Acad
US Military Acad
U Houston
U Kansas
Washington U St Louis
Mich St
Stevens Inst
Case Western
Texas A&M
U Oklahoma
Kansas State
Vanderbilt
Washington State</p>

<p>For some of those majors, you list 6 or 7 ivies. Kind of defeats the purpose, no?</p>

<p>bing-
There are not very many like that. There are a few majors in which 5 or 6 Ivies are among the very best in the country. It didn't make sense to leave any out because of miniscule differences in their Gourman score. It means they are all great.</p>

<p>CC's take on the Gourman Report</p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_rankings/gourman_report.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_rankings/gourman_report.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The Gourman Report (officially, Gourman Report: Undergraduate Programs and Professional Programs in American and International Universities) takes a boldly different approach. Instead of ranking schools by overall quality (whatever that is), Dr. Jack Gourman ranks the best English programs, the best Chemistry departments, etc. - everything from Accounting to Zoology. Gourman used dozens of criteria, from faculty salaries to how well the mission of the department is defined, to produce the quantitative rankings.</p>

<p>**Gourman's rankings are controversial, and favor large state universities according to some critics. **Nevertheless, this book has stayed in print since it was first published in 1991 (and again in 1996) and is a staple of guidance offices in many high schools.</p>

<p>College Confidential Comments: Our usual caveats about any ranking scheme apply to the Gourman rankings. Seemingly objective, quantitative rankings can be altered dramatically by changing the weights of individual factors. In addition, many issues, like quality of teaching, are difficult to translate into numbers that can be compared across many schools. Gourman's rankings are further complicated by an opaque methodology that produces numeric results without the detailed backup data.</p>

<p>While we would certainly not recommend choosing a school based on its relative position in the Gourman Report, we do think the book can be a valuable aid to identifying possible schools. This is particularly true when the student is strongly inclined to a particular major. Glancing through the top ten or twenty schools in Geology, for example, might yield several choices that had not occurred to the student. Even if the rankings are suspect, having some measure of program reputation may be better than having an undifferentiated list of a hundred or more colleges that offer a particular program.</p>

<p>so Cornell pretty much dominates Engineering and Science fields.</p>

<p>and technical</p>

<p>Sybbie-
I have come to respect the Gourman rankings as a useful tool. I don't think the difference between a 4.50 and a 4.55 should be taken too seriously, but the rankings have generally held up to scrutiny. For example, they captured U Delaware for ChemE (a relative unknown gem in that field) and Claremont McKenna for econ and international relations. The criteria they use tend to place LACs at a disadvantage.</p>

<p>They don't reveal the exact formula they used for each discipline and how they weight the criteria, but the results have face validity and agree with other indicators.</p>

<p>When two Ivies were very close, I counted them both.</p>

<p>According to this, Dartmouth is only good for religious studies and geology. It's still an interesting ranking.</p>

<p>californiakid-
The one thing I don't like about Gourman is that its formula seems to break down for LACs. Dartmouth is like an LAC. I think Dartmouth is very strong in most majors. If you read over the Gourman criteria, you can see why LACs rarely make their lists. So, with that caveat, the above list might be helpful. From personal experience, I know how clueless most applicants are about the specific strengths of a college in their major.</p>

<p>I probably should have listed Yale for theater/drama even though its score was quite a bit lower than Cornell simply because there are not many Ivies strong in theater according to the Gourman Report. This surprises me, because I always thought of Yale and Harvard as being strong in theater/drama...Hasty Pudding Club and all that...</p>

<p>doesn't his overall rankings go 1. harvard 2. princeton 3. Umich??? I guess he likes big state schools but provided reasons to it. Other than that he really didn't tell anyone how he came up with his rankings which makes them, in my opinion, one mans opinion.</p>

<p>When i was at UMCP this week we were given a presentation at the business school. The dean walked in while giving a tour to some extremely high ranking engineering person. The dean didn't know a presentation was going on but ended up talking to us for about 3 minutes. He did the best job conveying why we should go there. </p>

<p>At one point he said that no program in the smith school ranks under a 4.3 out of 5 and that a 4.0 and above was excellence. Was he talking about the Gourman Rankings??</p>

<p>what about real estate?</p>

<p>yeah can someone give me the rankings for IR programs (not just ivies... b/c obviously georgetown would be on there)?</p>

<p>collegehelp,
Is this correct? The University of Chicago is not in the Gourman report????? That in itself is evidence of something amiss in the rankings.</p>

<p>menloparkmom-
U Chicago IS included in the Gourman Report rankings. It is listed as a top college in 45 different majors.</p>

<p>does anyone know the gourman report rankings for physics for all schools?</p>

<p>where can we find the rankings? is there a book?? I can only find editions from 1997. Did he make a new one?</p>

<p>Cheapseats-
The Gourman Report for Undergraduate Programs was last published by Princeton Review in 1997. It is not available online as far as I know.</p>

<p>Getting back to your earlier post...
Which program at U Maryland are you interested in? I can look up U Maryland for you. I am not sure which report the Dean was referring to. It could be the Gourman report or possibly the peer assessment score from US News (but they are not broken down by specific major) or maybe NRC rankings.</p>

<p>Yes, Gourman's top three undergrad schools are Princeton, Harvard, Michigan. The top 25 from Gourman:</p>

<p>1.Princeton
2.Harvard
3.U Michigan
4.Yale
5.Stanford
6.Cornell
7.UC Berkeley
8.U Chicago
9.U Wisconsin
10.UCLA
11.MIT
12.Caltech
13.Columbia
14.Northwestern
15.U Penn
16.Notre Dame
17.Duke
18.Brown
19.Johns Hopkins
20.Dartmouth
21.U Illinois
22.U Minnesota
23.Rice
24.Carnegie Mellon
25.UC San Diego</p>

<p>Of Gourman's top 25 from 1997, 22 are also in the US News top 25 national universities from 2006.</p>

<p>I would not say that the Gourman Report was one man's opinion. Gourman had clearly stated criteria (listed above) and he had a different system for weighting these criteria depending on the major. This makes sense. How important are computer resources for medieval studies? The Gourman procedure was rational and objective and the results are valid given the criteria he used. The results roughly agree with the most widely used ranking system: US News.</p>