Best Linguistics schools?

kyledavid80
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:55:42 +0000

Very interesting – I’m majoring in linguistics + computer science to go into computational linguistics, too. =)



I already know MIT is pretty much the top



For grad, yes. But for undergrad, no. It’s a tiny, tiny program – only graduates about 3 people in linguistics each year. The worst part of the program, though, is its course selection. It has a very good theoretical program, but its applied just plain sucks. Of course, you’re allowed to take courses at Harvard (with limitations), but overall, MIT’s undergrad isn’t as strong as its grad for ling. Its program grew mainly because it had Chomsky, but Chomsky has long retired (not to mention a lot of students disliked him for his infusion of political debate to his ling lectures).

Penn has an excellent program. I remember its computational linguistics course offering was one of the best, if not the best.

If you search the forums, you’ll find that this has been asked more than a few times. But I think the past discussions were misleading.

Stanford is very good, though its strength lies more in its grad program, which also leaks into its undergrad. The facilities available for linguistics are awesome – everything from a computational semantics lab to a phonology lab.

UCLA and Berkeley both have very strong ling programs, contrary to popular belief. They have renowned professors, top students, awesome course selection (excellent theoretical and applied), and great research opportunities. I would give the edge to Berkeley for research; its library holdings in languages/linguistics are some of the best. UCLA has a slightly better theoretical, and Berkeley a slightly better applied. Either way, their departments are easily top-10. You could make the case for them in the top 5.

Cornell is also very good, though many of its courses aren’t offered for periods of time.

Chicago has a great ling program, but I think it’s better for grad also, probably because much of your undergrad education at Chicago is taken up by the core. The course offering for grads is better.

Yale has a good undergrad program, though its grad doesn’t seem as strong. It has ties to a phonology/phonetics lab nearby, which is a plus. And of course, Yale’s language/linguistics library holdings are very strong.

UCSD has a growing linguistics program, too. It has a very good course offering, though I suspect (not completely sure) that its library holdings aren’t as strong as the others.

UC Santa Cruz is an excellent school for ling, though its course offerings seemed rather dry to me. Good theoretical, at any rate.

Other great ling programs are Ohio State and UMass-Amherst, though I have a feeling their strength is more in grad than undergrad, but I can’t really substantiate this. Some think UIUC and Michigan have great ling programs, though I haven’t looked extensively into them. I’ve tried to find out about Michigan, but not even Michigan students seem to know much about it (doesn’t seem to stand out, clearly).

Overall, I’d say the best publics for linguistics are:
UCLA
Berkeley
UCSD
UCSC
UMass-Amherst
Ohio State

Best privates:
Stanford
Penn
MIT
Cornell
Chicago
Yale

Here’s the old NRC grad ranking:

[NRC Rankings in Each of 41 Areas](NRC Rankings in Each of 41 Areas)

And the Gourman undergrad ranking:

UCLA
U Chicago
UC Berkeley
U Penn
Cornell
UC San Diego
Yale
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Stanford
MIT
U Michigan Ann Arbor
Indiana U Bloomington
U Wisconsin Madison
U Washington
NYU
Ohio State
U Rochester
Harvard
U Hawaii Manoa
U Kansas
Rice
U Texas Austin
U Pittsburgh
U Arizona
U Minnesota
UC Irvine
U Florida
U Iowa
U Mass Amherst
UC Santa Barbara

McGill also has a strong program (supposedly in acquisition, though I haven’t looked much into it), though you won’t see it in rankings.

I’ve also done rankings based on course selection in the various areas of linguistics (from syntax to sociolinguistics), so if you’d like to see them, PM me.