The good news is that it's clear more philosophers who actually have some idea what's going on are filling out the surveys (even I'm a participant now!), so the results in Philosophy are less totally worthless than before, though the halo effect looms large. (Bear in mind that the way their survey works is you are asked to name 10-15 schools that you consider good in the field--that's it!) But there's also data on citations and h-indices that are interesting (or simply curious)--unfortunately, QS still does not disclose the details of the faculty lists they use.
The overall "rank" factors in an employer score for the university, so that will obviously not have much if anything to do with the caliber of the philosophy faculty. I break out below the scores in some of the sub-areas that might have some relationship to faculty quality (I've done this only for the US schools, if someone wants to break it out for Canadian, British etc., I'll add a link):
Academic reputation according to the QS surveys
Remember that we have no idea who is completing these surveys, and, in the past, they had some rather dubious methods for soliciting participants. They also simply ask for lists of 10-15 leading departments, and that's it--so the least informed participants (e.g., the person who doesn't put NYU or Princeton on his/her list of the top 10) is the one who determines the outcome! Still, this starts off OK--though some of the surprisingly strong showings like Pitt and BU suggest to me that there are a lot of German respondents in the pool--but gets progressively weirder as one gets outside the top 10.
1. University of Pittsburgh (100.0)
2. New York University (93.9)
3. Rutgers University, New Brunswick (92.6)
4. Harvard University (86.7)
5. Princeton University (83.0)
6. University of California, Berkeley (82.4)
7. Stanford University (79.6)
8. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (79.2)
9. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (78.0)
10. University of Notre Dame (74.5)
10. Yale University (74.5)
12. Columbia University (73.5)
13. University of California, Los Angeles (73.1)
14. University of Chicago (72.8)
15. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (68.2)
16. Boston University (67.4)
17. University of Arizona (65.2)
18. Cornell University (63.5)
19. City University of New York (61.0)
20. Duke University (60.6)
Runners-up: Ohio State University (60.5) and Brown University (59.1)
Citations per paper
We don't know, unfortunately, what faculty lists were used for this exercise, but it tells a different story from reputation. I assume the Miami result includes Colin McGinn (but not Brit Brogaard).
1. Rutgers University, New Brunswick (97.4)
2. Stanford University (96.2)
3. New York University (92.3)
3. Princeton University (92.3)
5. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (90.7)
6. University of California, Riverside (90.0)
7. Yale University (89.5)
8. University of Arizona (88.7)
9. University of Notre Dame (85.9)
10. University of California, Berkeley (84.9)
11. Harvard University (84.7)
12. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (84.1)
13. University of Pittsburgh (83.1)
14. University of Massachussetts, Amherst (82.4)
15. Northwestern University (80.1)
15. University of Texas, Austin (80.1)
17. City University of New York Graduate Center (77.7)
18. University of California, San Diego (77.1)
19. University of Miami (76.3)
20. Duke University (75.6)
Runners-up: Penn State (75.2) and Brown University (73.9).
H-Index citations
1. New York University (90.7)
2. Harvard University (87.2)
2. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (87.2)
2. Princeton University (87.2)
2. Rutgers University, New Brunswick (87.2)
2. University of Arizona (87.2)
2. University of California, Berkeley (87.2)
8. Stanford University (79.4)
9. Northwestern University (75.1)
9. Syracuse University (75.1)
9. University of California, Riverside (75.1)
9. University of California, San Diego (75.1)
9. University of Massachussetts, Amherst (75.1)
9. University of Miami (75.1)
9. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (75.1)
9. University of Notre Dame (75.1)
9. University of Pittsburgh (75.1)
9. Yale University (75.1)
19. University of Texas, Austin (65.2)
20. Boston University (59.5)
20. Brown University (59.5)
20. City University of New York (59.5)
20. Columbia University (59.5)
20. Cornell University (59.5)
20. Dartmouth College (59.5)
20. Duke University (59.5)
20. Georgetown University (59.5)
20. Indiana University, Bloomington (59.5)
20. Ohio State University (59.5)
20. Pennsylvania State University (59.5)
20. Purdue University (59.5)
20. State University of New York, Buffalo (59.5)
20. University of California, Irvine (59.5)
20. University of California, Los Angeles (59.5)
20. University of Chicago (59.5)
20. University of Maryland, College Park (59.5)
20. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (59.5)
20. University of Pennsylvania (59.5)
20. Washington University, St. Louis (59.5)
Recent Comments