Ranking of English Language and Literature Graduate Schools

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Your Ranking of English Language and Literature PhD Programs

Programs 1–30
RankProgramRegres QualitySurvey QualityResearch ProductFaculty GrantsFaculty AwardsStudent OutcomesProfes DevelStats InstructOrientIntl Orient
1-2Harvard University English and American Literature and Languages1-121-31-2 14%6.54-3616NoYesYes
1-5Princeton University English2-141-31-3 4%6.73-5116NoYesYes
2-6Stanford University English1-82-42-4 6%6.43-3316NoYesYes
2-7Columbia University in the City of New York English and Comparative Literature1-55-175-16 12%7.558-10316NoYesYes
2-7Yale University English1-106-236-21 12%6.711-5118YesYesYes
4-9University of Chicago English Language and Literature7-295-196-21 16%4.941-9417YesYesYes
5-10University of Michigan-Ann Arbor English Language and Literature9-363-75-20 12%4.15-4917YesYesYes
6-16CUNY Graduate School and University Center English2-1720-507-22 15%4.4105-11218YesYesYes
7-29Claremont Graduate University English50-9633-747-24 34%3.5112-11817YesYesYes
7-26Johns Hopkins University English30-756-284-13 20%2.84-4415NoYesYes
7-23Northwestern University English8-349-2822-42 15%5.027-7615NoYesYes
8-22University of Pennsylvania English9-315-194-16 3%3.18-5718YesYesYes
8-24Vanderbilt University English8-355-1831-61 18%2.72-2917NoYesYes
9-29Duke University English9-365-2215-33 11%3.63-5616NoYesYes
8-30Indiana University-Bloomington English18-4915-4311-27 16%4.456-10015NoYesYes
RankProgramRegres QualitySurvey QualityResearch ProductFaculty GrantsFaculty AwardsStudent OutcomesProfes DevelStats InstructOrientIntl Orient
10-31University of California-Berkeley English1-923-5437-67 2%4.065-9818YesYesYes
11-40University of Rochester English32-7112-426-23 17%2.815-8816NoYesYes
10-40University of California-Santa Barbara English26-6323-5617-39 24%1.6100-11018YesYesYes
11-38University of California-Irvine English6-2522-5631-60 4%3.412-6818YesYesYes
12-39University of Illinois at Chicago English19-539-306-24 15%1.812-5417NoYesYes
11-42Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus English12-444-1812-32 11%0.92-7218YesYesYes
13-40Cornell University English Language and Literature4-206-2244-77 4%1.91-2717YesYesYes
11-41University of South Carolina-Columbia English24-6324-5819-42 16%1.87-5118YesYesYes
13-48University of California-Riverside English29-6819-5026-54 23%2.114-6415NoYesYes
14-47Arizona State University English35-865-213-13 11%0.618-7918YesYesYes
15-43University of Wisconsin-Madison English8-309-3110-29 10%1.426-7017NoYesYes
15-45University of California-Los Angeles English7-3419-5142-72 4%3.454-10118YesYesYes
15-47University of Georgia English8-3527-6253-84 14%0.94-4318YesYesYes
16-47University of Notre Dame English12-4111-3335-69 15%1.42-3516NoYesYes
16-50Brandeis University English and American Literature21-5720-5523-47 8%3.77-6517NoYesYes

Item Descriptions

Rank
A range indicating how this program ranked in 500 simulated rankings based on your priorities. Programs are sorted by their median rank. Learn more.
NRC regression-based quality measure (Regres Quality)
The NRC's measurements of overall program quality are based on 20 key variables (19 in the humanities) such as GRE scores, student support and faculty publications. To calculate the regression-based quality measure, the relative importance, or weight, of a variable was set by the extent that it correlated with programs viewed most favorably by evaluators in each field. Learn more. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
NRC survey-based quality measure (Survey Quality)
The NRC's measurements of overall program quality are based on 20 key variables (19 in the humanities) such as GRE scores, student support and faculty publications. To calculate the survey-based quality measure, evaluators in each field identified the variables that they considered to be the most important indicators of program quality. Learn more. Your weight = 4. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Overall research productivity (Research Product)
This variable shows a composite measure of research productivity, based on publications per faculty member, citations per publication, percent of faculty holding grants, and awards per faculty member. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 4. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
% faculty with grants (Faculty Grants)
This variable shows the percentage of faculty members in the program whose work was supported by external grants or contracts in 2006, based on data from a faculty questionnaire. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Faculty awards (Faculty Awards)
This variable shows the average number of awards per faculty member in the program, based on data from a review of 1,393 awards and honors given by various scholarly organizations. The committee identified awards as "Highly Prestigious" or "Prestigious", with the former given a weight of 5. Award recipients were matched to the faculty in all programs. For each program, the number of awards for an individual faculty member was the sum of the weighted awards times the faculty member's allocation to that program. The variable shown here equals the sum of these individual values divided by the number of faculty allocated to the program. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Student support and outcomes (Student Outcomes)
This variable is a composite of other measures of student support and outcomes, including 6-year or 8-year graduation rates (for non-humanities programs and humanities programs, respectively), time to degree, job placement within academia, percentage of first-year students with full financial support, and whether a program collects data about the employment outcomes of its graduates. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 3. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Professional development (Profes Devel)
This measure indicates the number of professional-development opportunities and oversight mechanisms for graduate students. In a 2006 questionnaire, programs indicated how many, out of a possible 18, resources existed for the support of doctoral students or doctoral education. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Instruction in statistics (Stats Instruct)
The program or institution provides instruction in statistics to graduate students (2006). Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Orientation for new graduate students (Orient)
The program or institution provides an orientation program for new graduate students (2006). Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Orientation for new international graduate students (Intl Orient)
The program or institution provides an orientation for new international graduate students (2006). Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)

Data Sources

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
IPEDS is an annual, comprehensive set of surveys of all colleges and universities in the United States. The surveys are conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics.   Learn more
National Research Council
The National Research Council conducts periodic assessments of doctoral programs in the United States. Our data comes from the most recent assessment in 2010.   Learn more
Survey of Earned Doctorates
The NSF/NIH/NEH/USED/USDA/NASA Survey of Earned Doctorates is an annual survey of all new recipients of doctorates from US universities at graduation. The average of the response rates for the 2000–2004 surveys was 92%.   Learn more
Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering
The Survey is an annual assessment of the number and characteristics of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in science, engineering, and health-related fields It is conducted by the National Science Foundation.   Learn more
* Value is missing. The value shown is based on the average for other programs in the same field. Learn more.

The graduate school rankings on PhDs.org have been made possible by grants from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
The National Postdoctoral Association and The Center for Science and the Media have served as the project's fiscal sponsors.