<p>Let’s consider the total number of Nobel Laureates per university (including only Nobel winners who were actually affiliated with the university when the prize was awarded):</p>
<p>That is a good point you bring up. However, I don’t think you should judge research intensity just by the amount of Nobel Prizes an institution receives. Also, Yale tends to be more humanities focused, and the Nobel Prizes math/science.</p>
<p>Bruno: What’s your conclusion? Are you just posting this to the Yale CC forum just to stir some thought or to slag Yale? Do you have a magic formula for “Great research university = Nobel laureates”? Just wondering. Are you planning on attending Yale or one of the others “higher up” on your Nobel list? Pls inform us.</p>
<p>As an international living outside the US, my impression has always been that Yale’s strength is mostly in the fields of arts and humanities and in its professional schools like law and medicine, which are definitely among the best in North America. Yale has never struck me though as a particularly outstanding institution for advanced research in the “hard sciences” (physics, chemistry, etc.) or engineering, at least not in relative terms when compared to Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, or even Cornell. </p>
<p>In fact, nowadays, beyond the hard sciences, even in certain applied social sciences like economics, Yale no longer seems to match Princeton’s, Harvard’s or MIT’s reputation. Yet, in most American Internet forums like CC, Yale is often referred to as a major “research university” on the same level as other institutions such as Harvard or MIT which are actually far more prestigious in academic circles. I was curious why, and that’s the reason why I started this thread.</p>
<p>Bruno, what do you know about “academic circles”? I know a lot of academics (both my parents are professors) and it is clear that academics consider Yale a major research university. To be frank, you are right that it is not at the same level as Harvard in this regard, but then again, only Stanford and Berkeley could really be considered to be at that level. Nobel Prize accumulation is a remarkably poor way to measure strength of a research university, since they are only awarded in a few fields (leaving out all the humanities - since literature is for authors not professors-, all the social sciences except for economics, the biological sciences, mathematics, and engineering). Research, in case you are not aware, includes fields other than physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics - in fact all academic disciplines are considered when talking about “research universities.” Yale is one of the top 10-15 universities worldwide in every major area of study except engineering, and one of the top 5 in the humanities and social sciences. I would say that makes it a “major research university.”</p>
<p>Moreover, if all that interests you are the sciences, you should note that the National Research Council, in its latest rankings (1994- but look for new ones soon), ranked Yale:</p>
<p>(Biological Fields)
1st in Physiology
1st in Pharmacology
2nd in Neurosciences
6th in Biochemistry and molecular biology
8th in Molecular biology and genetics
10th in Cell and developmental biology
17th in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior</p>
<p>(Physical Sciences and Mathematics)
7th in Mathematics
12th in Chemistry
13th in Physics
14th in Computer Science
15th in Astronomy and Astrophysics
20th in Statistics</p>
<p>Thus, though certainly stronger in the humanities and social sciences, Yale holds its own in the sciences (top 5-10 in biological sciences, top 10-15 in physical sciences) well enough to make it a top research university by almost any standard.</p>
<p>edit: And since you seemed interested in economics, I should mention that Yale was ranked 6th.</p>
<p>Yale is heavily dominated by the humanities as ppl have stated before. And quite frankly, New Haven isn’t a draw for top scientists around the world. Schools like Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Berkelely, Stanford are all located in places that are much more conducive raising a family. Columbia has take quite a few top scientists and economists from HYPetc. because NYC is such a draw (i,e. Princeton’s Woodward, Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs). </p>
<p>Columbia is 6th in econ btw and has won 4 Nobel Prizes in Economics in the past 10 years. Recently hired in a splurge a BUNCH of top economists so I think Columbia’s econ will break the top 5 soon.</p>
<p>The OP is a moron. Nobel prizes are typically awarded for research done decades before. Nobel laureates such as Edmund Phelps did his research at Yale, taught at Yale, but now teaches at Columbia. What bearing does that have on Yale’s research vs Columbia’s? </p>
<p>Granted Yale’s science and economics departments in the 1960’s (for which many nobel prizes are now being awarded) fell behind similar institutions, that has no bearing on Yale’s research today.</p>
<p>Haha the data is even more worthless than I previously thought. Half the awards you’re citing were awarded in the 1960s-1970s, indicative of WWII era research. Yale missed out on the brain drain from europe due to anti-semitic policies while similar institutions benefited from the windfall.</p>
<p>'Cause economics is the most respected social science, after all. Also, it’s the only one with a Nobel associated with it, apropos of this posting.</p>
<p>Breaking into the top 7-8 is breaking into a very elite club already, since it goes pretty much:</p>
<p>Harvard
MIT
Stanford
tied at the top</p>
<p>Berkeley
Princeton
Yale
tied next (who am I forgetting? – there is one other)</p>
<p>MIT has a top economics program? Do their undergraduates receive lucrative job offers in Wall Street? Is the job placement comparable to Wharton or Harvard grads?</p>
<p>Hahaha anyone that thinks there’s a significant difference in undergrad econ programs is delusional. And if you know anything about econ, MIT and Chicago are far more respectable than Harvard and Wharton.</p>
<p>MIT’s economics department is ranked about #3 in the world, after Harvard and Chicago. Why are you even mentioning Wharton and job-hunting? You have created the embarassing impression that you do not know the difference between an economics department and a business school. There is more to econ than finding “lucrative jobs in wall street.”</p>
<p>Again, I will insist on the point I was trying to make as I may have been misinterpreted. I obviously don’t think Yale’s science programs are weak in ** absolute ** terms, but they’re definitely weaker in relative terms compared to MIT’s or Harvard’s. I admit though that an exception is the biological sciences where Yale seems pretty strong. BTW, in that sense, using a UK comparison, Yale appears to be strikingly similar to Oxford, which is also particularly strong in arts/humanities and in biology/biochemistry/medicine, but fades in comparison to Cambridge in mathematics, physics, or engineering.</p>
<p>As for the Nobel discussion, I agree it is just a crude indicator of research output. The NRC rankings that someone posted seem to confirm though what the Nobels suggest, i.e, with the exception of the biological sciences, Yale seems to rank only top 10-20 in most hard sciences subjects, making it an ** important ** research university in those areas, but not a ** leading ** research university in those fields on the same level as its peer competitors. </p>
<p>Finally, for the person who raised the issue that Nobels are lagging indicators (because they’re awarded for research done many years ago), I agree that’s true. However, for current students entering graduate school today, the most relevant fact is that Phelps is teaching and advising students at Columbia, and not that he did his work on the Phillips curve at Yale back in the 70s. Robert Lucas did most of his Nobel work, guess what, at Carnegie Mellon (also in the 70s), but, nowadays, one has to go to Chicago to study under Lucas (assuming he’s still active as a professor, I don’t know). In any case, since Yale’s last Nobels were awarded in the 80s (versus the 90s and early 21st century for most of its peers), one wonders about Yale’s ability to recruit top faculty compared to its rivals. </p>
<p>BTW, I’m not interested in economics. I’m an engineer.</p>