madteaparty Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 I just need a quick and dirty one, because DS has started to ask what a particular school is "known" for and I frankly cannot answer. He does not have an area of interest so it's not like I can search that particular degree. Oxford is the current interest but it's any university he hears of, like where he did tennis camp. All I know is the MBA and law school rankings, due to DH and self :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 US News rates the graduate programs, but not the undergraduate. I haven't heard of any ratings, but it would be great if someone did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 As he is interested in Oxford, here's a ranking for the UK. There are others, but this one is okay. You can search by subject as well as generally by university. http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2014/jun/02/university-league-tables-2015-the-complete-list L Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 I don't know of any general ranking for undergraduate departments. Some schools will be known more for sciences, liberal arts, etc., but getting down to the departmental level, especially for undergraduate degrees, is difficult. Measuring strength at the undergraduate level is difficult--do you measure it by students who are admitted to graduate programs, students who get jobs, etc. If you are looking for specific majors for certain professions (pharmacy, architecture, etc.) then you can find some statistics for those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted August 9, 2014 Author Share Posted August 9, 2014 As he is interested in Oxford, here's a ranking for the UK. There are others, but this one is okay. You can search by subject as well as generally by university. http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2014/jun/02/university-league-tables-2015-the-complete-list That's great, Laura. Thank you. I wish there was something similar for the US. L Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 US News rates the graduate programs, but not the undergraduate. I haven't heard of any ratings, but it would be great if someone did. Hmm, do you think the graduate ratings for specific departments could serve as approximations for undergraduate as well? I would think a university with a strong graduate program for a certain area would also have a strong undergraduate program, but I don't know if that is consistently true or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane in NC Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 This is where I turned to the statistics reported on IPEDS (the federal reporting site). Here one can not only see what majors are offered but how many students graduate with a particular major. Some colleges have thick lists of course offerings but closer inspection reveals that those courses are not offered regularly. IPEDS helped us narrow things down. Then conversations with the colleges themselves proved to be even more revealing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted August 9, 2014 Author Share Posted August 9, 2014 Hmm, do you think the graduate ratings for specific departments could serve as approximations for undergraduate as well? I would think a university with a strong graduate program for a certain area would also have a strong undergraduate program, but I don't know if that is consistently true or not. For my imprecise purposes with the 10 year old, this is exactly what I did. It seems though the liberal arts colleges are a bit underrepresented in the grad rankings... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Hmm, do you think the graduate ratings for specific departments could serve as approximations for undergraduate as well? I would think a university with a strong graduate program for a certain area would also have a strong undergraduate program, but I don't know if that is consistently true or not. While this may work at many institutions, there are universities that offer only a graduate degree in some fields, and not an undergraduate. More common, of course, is the opposite, where, especially at a LAC, there may only be an undergraduate degree offered in a given field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Hmm, do you think the graduate ratings for specific departments could serve as approximations for undergraduate as well? I would think a university with a strong graduate program for a certain area would also have a strong undergraduate program, but I don't know if that is consistently true or not. Maize others would know better than I. We did refer to the rankings to get an idea of how the department might rate, but others have said that it's sometimes a very poor indicator of the strength of the undergraduate programs, and as was pointed out obviously none of the LACs are included. I'm not sure that I would even use the size of a department to judge as sometimes a student can get more attention and research opportunities being in one of the less popular majors. Of course course selection and availability, teaching quality, and other aspects have to be taken into consideration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In The Great White North Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 When ds was looking at colleges, I got a book from ILL that listed the top 25 or 50 in each major. Sadly, I've forgotten what it was called, but did get the recommendation here before the last board reformat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkT Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 here's one http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703376504575491704156387646 and another: http://www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwen in VA Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 Do talk with the departments themselves. Ask questions like: How may students graduate from the department each year? Where do grads head -- work, grad school, law school, etc. What type of careers do typical students pursue? Can you name some of the grad schools this past year's class was accepted to? Are there any restrictions on the sub-field a thesis can involve? Story -- my son went to a highly-ranked LAC with a large and impressive-looking econ department. What we did NOT realize is that the department specialized in finance and actually discouraged students from pursuing the more peculiar areas of econ such as economic history. In fact, students are required to do their theses on a finance-related topic! He had no in terest in finance and so ended up not doing an honors thesis in that field and did one in one of his other majors. Obviously we should have asked MANY more questions, but we didn't know -- I thought economics was economics! (Ooops!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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