American Ph. D. Program Rankings (but who's Number One?)
October 14, 2010 1:46 PM   Subscribe

As those of you in American academia have probably heard by now, this week the National Research Council finally released its 2005 rankings of American PhD programs, only five years behind schedule. This time, the rankings have been made 80% more scientific by the addition of error bars. Among the startling findings:

* In electrical and computer engineering, UCLA and Purdue are ahead of Carnegie Mellon.
* In computer science, UNC Chapel Hill is ahead of the University of Washington.
* In statistics, Iowa State is ahead of Berkeley.

Ever since the NRC data were released from the parallel universe in which they were gathered, bloggers have been having a field day with them—see for example Dave Bacon and Peter Woit, and especially Sariel Har-Peled’s Computer Science Deranker (which ranks CS departments by a combined formula, consisting of 0% the NRC scores and 100% a random permutation of departments).

As Jeffrey Mervis points out in last week’s Science, …Those who simply want to know who’s Number 1 in neuroscience, for example, or read a list of the top ten graduate programs in any particular field will walk away disappointed after massaging the Report’s Excel spreadsheets, available at www.PhDs.org or www.nap.edu/rdp. That’s because, like Mr. Potato Head, the NRC assessment can look quite different depending on your definition of “best.”
And these are not your old College Rankings, as previously.
posted by JL Sadstone (4 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: This post is ranked number two in being posts about this according to the National Jokey Deletion Reason Council.. -- cortex



 
...made 80% more scientific by the addition of error bars.

Funny, that's exactly what the side of this box of cereal says.
posted by griphus at 1:49 PM on October 14, 2010


The other post on this isn't that old.
posted by smackfu at 1:50 PM on October 14, 2010


Double?
posted by dilettante at 1:51 PM on October 14, 2010


My bad. I did conduct a search but this didn't show up. (Brother Stevens from Alaska warned about too much information and the possibility of clogging...) I shall slink away now, if I may.
posted by JL Sadstone at 1:58 PM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


« Older What Do I Do With Those Damn Anime Kids?   |   wonderful magical animal Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments