The rankings of universities and departments of economics for 1920 and 1957 that are found below were based on the pooling of contemporary expert opinions. Because the ultimate question for both the Hughes and Keniston studies was the relative aggregate university standing with respect to graduate education, “The list did not include technical schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, nor state colleges, like Iowa State, Michigan State or Penn State, since the purpose was to compare institutions which offered the doctorate in a wide variety of fields.” Hence, historians of economics will be frustrated by the conspicuous absence of M.I.T. and Carnegie Tech in the 1957 column except for the understated footnote “According to some of the chairmen there are strong departments at Carnegie Tech. and M.I.T.; also at Vanderbilt”.
The average perceived rank of a particular economics department relative to that of its university might be of use in assessing the negotiating position of department chairs with their respective university administrations. The observed movement within the perception league tables over the course of roughly a human generation might suggest other questions worth pursuing.
Anyhow without further apology…
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About the Image: There is no face associated with rankings so I have chosen the legendary comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello for their “Who’s on First?” sketch. YouTube TV version; Radio version: Who’s on First? starts at 22:15
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From Keniston’s Appendix (1959)
Standing of
American Graduate Departments
in the Arts and Sciences
The present study was undertaken as part of a survey of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania in an effort to discover the present reputation of the various departments which offer programs leading to the doctorate.
A letter was addressed to the chairmen of departments in each of twenty-five leading universities of the country. The list was compiled on the basis of (1) membership in the Association of American Universities, (2) number of Ph.D.’s awarded in recent years, (3) geographical distribution. The list did not include technical schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, nor state colleges, like Iowa State, Michigan State or Penn State, since the purpose was to compare institutions which offered the doctorate in a wide variety of fields.
Each chairman was asked to rate, on an accompanying sheet, the strongest departments in his field, arranged roughly as the first five, the second five and, if possible, the third five, on the basis of the quality of their Ph.D. work and the quality of the faculty as scholars. About 80% of the chairmen returned a rating. Since many of them reported the composite judgment of their staff, the total number of ratings is well over 500.
On each rating sheet, the individual institutions were given a score. If they were rated in order of rank, they were assigned numbers from 15 (Rank 1) to 1 (Rank 15). If they were rated in groups of five, each group alphabetically arranged, those in the top five were given a score of 13, in the second five a score of 8, and in the third five a score of 3. When all the ratings sheets were returned, the scores of each institution were tabulated and compiled and the institutions arranged in order, in accordance with the total score for each department.
To determine areas of strength or weakness, the departmental scores were combined to determine [four] divisional scores. [Divisions (Departments): Biological Sciences (2), Humanities (11), Physical Sciences (6), Social Sciences (5)]….
… Finally, the scores of each institution given in the divisional rankings were combined to provide an over-all rating of the graduate standing of the major universities.
From a similar poll of opinion, made by R. M. Hughes, A Study of the Graduate Schools of America, and published in 1925, [See the excerpt posted here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror] it was possible to compile the scores for each of eighteen departments as they were ranked at that time and also to secure divisional and over-all rankings. These are presented here for the purpose of showing what changes have taken place in the course of a generation.
The limitations of such a study are obvious; the ranks reported do not reveal the actual merit of the individual departments. They depend on highly subjective impressions; they reflect old and new loyalties; they are subject to lag, and the halo of past prestige. But they do report the judgment of the men whose opinion is most likely to have weight. For chairmen, by virtue of their office, are the men who must know what is going on at other institutions. They are called upon to recommend schools where students in their field may profitably study; they must seek new appointments from the staff and graduates of other schools; their own graduates tum to them for advice in choosing between alternative possibilities for appointment. The sum of their opinions is, therefore, a fairly close approximation to what informed people think about the standing of the departments in each of the fields.
OVER-ALL STANDING
(Total Scores)
1925 |
1957 |
||||
|
1. |
Chicago |
1543 |
1. |
Harvard |
5403 |
|
2. |
Harvard |
1535 |
2. |
California |
4750 |
|
3. |
Columbia | 1316 | 3. | Columbia | 4183 |
| 4. | Wisconsin | 886 | 4. | Yale |
4094 |
|
5. |
Yale | 885 | 5. | Michigan | 3603 |
| 6. | Princeton | 805 | 5. | Chicago |
3495 |
|
7. |
Johns Hopkins | 746 | 7. | Princeton | 2770 |
| 8. | Michigan | 720 | 8. | Wisconsin |
2453 |
|
9. |
California | 712 | 9. | Cornell | 2239 |
| 10. | Cornell | 694 | 10. | Illinois |
1934 |
|
11. |
Illinois | 561 | 11. | Pennsylvania | 1784 |
| 12. | Pennsylvania | 459 | 12. | Minnesota |
1442 |
|
13. |
Minnesota | 430 | 13. | Stanford | 1439 |
| 14. | Stanford | 365 | 14. | U.C.L.A. |
1366 |
|
15. |
Ohio State | 294 | 15. | Indiana | 1329 |
| 16. | Iowa | 215 | 16. | Johns Hopkins |
1249 |
|
17. |
Northwestern | 143 | 17. | Northwestern | 934 |
| 18. | North Carolina | 57 | 18. | Ohio State |
874 |
|
19. |
Indiana | 45 | 19. | N.Y.U. | 801 |
| 20. | Washington |
759 |
|||
ECONOMICS
1925 |
1957 |
||||
| 1. | Harvard | 92 | 1. | Harvard |
298 |
|
2. |
Columbia | 75 | 2. | Chicago | 262 |
| 3. | Chicago | 65 | 3. | Yale |
241 |
|
4. |
Wisconsin | 63 | 4. | Columbia | 210 |
| 5. | Yale | 42 | 5. | California |
196 |
|
6. |
Johns Hopkins | 39 | 5. | Stanford | 196 |
| 7. | Michigan | 31 | 7. | Princeton |
184 |
|
8. |
Pennsylvania | 29 | 8. | Johns Hopkins | 178 |
| 9. | Illinois | 27 | 9. | Michigan |
174 |
|
10. |
Cornell | 25 | 10. | Minnesota | 96 |
| 11. | Princeton | 23 | 11. | Northwestern |
70 |
|
12. |
California | 22 | 12. | Duke | 69 |
| 13. | Minnesota | 20 | 13. | Wisconsin |
66 |
|
14. |
Northwestern | 18 | 14. | Pennsylvania | 45 |
| 15. | Stanford | 17 | 15. | Cornell |
32 |
|
16. |
Ohio State | 15 | 16. | U.C.L.A. |
31 |
According to some of the chairmen there are strong departments at Carnegie Tech. and M.I.T.; also at Vanderbilt.
Source: Hayward Keniston. Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (January 1959), pp. 115-119,129.