<p>For the English departments in the LAC group listed earlier, I looked up the rank of PhDs in English awarded to bachelors graduates in English at these colleges. My source was “Postbaccalaureate Origins of Doctoral Recipients 1986-1995”. This publication does not attempt to adjust for the size of the college when ranking PhD production. </p>
<p>Again, I calculated relative size “quality scores” by dividing the number of English bachelors degrees awarded by the total enrollment and then multiplying by the SAT 75th percentile.</p>
<p>The rank in English PhD production was closely related to the “quality score” (correlation = .68, statistically significant at the .01 level). This further validates the idea that the size of a department, relative to the total enrollment, adjusted for selectivity, is a good indication of departmental quality.</p>
<p>What’s more, within this group of LACs that were similar in selectivity, the best predictor of PhD production in English was simply the number of students who graduated with bachelors degrees in English. (correlation = -.86, statistically significant at the .001 level) In other words, when you control for SAT scores, English PhD production seems to be very closely related to the number of bachelors degrees awarded in English. So, if PhD production is an indicator of quality, then so is departmental size, because PhD production mirrors size. </p>
<p>qualityrank collegename qualityscore enrollment englishbachelors SAT75th EnglishPhDsrank EnglishPhDsnmbr</p>
<p>1 Kenyon 66 1634 76 1420 17 21
2 Davidson 55 1714 66 1440 20 18
3 Haverford 51 1172 41 1460 22 16
4 Colby 47 1821 60 1430 24 14
5 Middlebury 42 2357 66 1500 12 23
6 Barnard 41 2287 66 1430 15 22
7 Oberlin 40 2357 80 1440 1 52
8 Vassar 36 2475 61 1460 5 28
9 Colgate 34 2831 68 1430 18 20
10 Wellesley 33 2289 52 1460 2 45
11 Bowdoin 33 1677 38 1460 47 8
12 Whitman 24 1481 25 1440 47 8
13 WashingtonandLee 19 2174 29 1450 72 6
14 Macalaster 15 1900 20 1450 47 8
15 ClaremontMcKenna 13 1124 10 1460 83 5</p>