<p>I know Yale is a great school (arguably the best) but after talking to some students, and reading some articles, it seems like its Philosophy Department is seriously lacking - as in Yale is not a good place to go if you want to major in philosophy. Anyone want to verify this or prove me wrong?</p>
<h1>58 in the country, according to the last NRC rankings. behind such powerhouses as cal riverside, loyola chicago, two SUNYs:</h1>
<p><a href=“NRC Rankings in Each of 41 Areas”>NRC Rankings in Each of 41 Areas;
<p>i guess that kinda makes me right. I mean, you’d think a school like yale, with one of the largest endowments out of all the universities in the country, would put more money, time, and effort into their Philosophy department, wouldn’t you? Especially when all their other departments are at the top.</p>
<p>If you major in philosophy, you’ll have more problems than the quality of the department.</p>
<p>what are you talking about? Career options? I wanted it to be my second major - I would major in someting practical like econ with philosophy - so that’s not really an issue. But even though it’ll only be a second major, I don’t want to go to a school where I’ll be unsatisfied with the department</p>
<p>“practical” like econ and philosophy?</p>
<p>The NRC rankings are based on a survey conducted in 1993. The most widely recognized current (2004-2006) philosophy dept. rankings are those at the [Philosophical</a> Gourmet](<a href=“http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.htm]Philosophical”>http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.htm), which rank Yale at #24 or #25 in the US.</p>
<p>Both the NRC and PG rankings are based on departmental reputations for graduate study, not undergraduate study. There is not necessarily any connection between research reputation and undergraduate teaching quality. The [url=<a href=“http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/undergrad.htm]PG[/url”>http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/undergrad.htm]PG[/url</a>] offers the following advice for undergraduates:</p>
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<p>LOL, get accepted to Yale first, then nitpick over the rankings afterwards. ;)</p>
<p>Caltech is up there, eh? <em>surprised</em></p>
<p>Yale’s worse thing is probably engineering and maybe the hard sciences.</p>
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Frankly I’m embarrassed - philosophy has no place at Caltech. Feynman’s probably rolling over in his grave.</p>
<p>Seriously though, everyone underestimates our humanities, which is partly deserved as they are of limited breadth and scope, but the faculty are truly excellent nevertheless - especially in things like history and philosophy of science.</p>
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<p>Yale kicks Harvard’s and Princeton’s behinds in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. At the graduate level, the biophysics departments at Harvard and Yale are about the same. Granted, the Yale physics department is smaller than at Harvard and Princeton, but it’s not as if the quality of education is worse, considering the teachers who teach science at Yale are top-notch. Chemistry across HYP is pretty much the same in terms of quality, as well.</p>
<p>Hey, don’t knock Yale’s hard sciences. Their astro ain’t too bad ;)</p>
<p>Not sure if you would consider math a “hard science”, but Yale’s math program is pretty decent too. It’s not HPM, but definitely a solid top 10 nonetheless.</p>
<p>Really, it’s what you make out of your education. If you proactively seek out both knowledge and guidance (philosophy or any other subject), the differences between the top schools are minute across departments. If you find that the undergrad courses are not rigorous enough for you, by all means try out the grad courses! Yale has provisions for that. :)</p>
<p>The onus is on the individual.</p>
<p>Unless you really want to have a career in philosophy, the rankings really don’t matter, and even if you do, I’m sure the resources at Yale are generous enough that you’ll be able to do whatever you want with a bit of initiative. Yale is Yale…Future employers aren’t going to look at your resume and say “hmm, I see you went to Yale. Clearly, you received a sub-par education because their philosophy department is only ranked 25th in the nation” And this is coming from a Princeton '10er so I’m not one of those people blindly defending my school.</p>
<p>At the undergraduate level, Yale is more than just good at everything. It is the gold standard for having the best liberal arts education in the country. David Brooks, a UChicago grad and world-famous NY Times columnist, wrote exactly that and explained why in a Weekly Standard article.</p>
<p>In the sciences, Yale is up there with MIT and Caltech in terms of having the greatest amount of research expenditures on the central campus per undergraduate of any university in the world. Yale receives over $400 million per year from the federal government to conduct scientific research. By comparison, research powerhouses like Princeton receive less than a third of that.</p>
<p>The USNews ranking of undergraduate programs has Yale ranked #3, behind Harvard and Princeton, which are ranked #1.</p>
<p>A number of the figures that U.S. News uses to derive its annual “ranking” are blatantly incorrect. Also, the editors have connections with Princeton, which probably explains why that school is often rated #1.</p>
<p>Four good measures of undergraduate program quality are the # of Rhodes and Marshall scholars, the acceptance rate, % of National Merit Scholars among the entering students, and the number of applicants per spot. Yale leads in all of these areas. Yale recevied 4 Marshall and 3 Rhodes scholarships this year, while no other Ivy League school received more than 2 Marshalls or more than 1 Rhodes (despite the fact that Yale is one of the smallest Ivies). Yale has the lowest acceptance rate and the highest # of applicants per spot of any university. And the % of National Merit Scholars in Yale’s entering class is also the highest.</p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of common admits pick Harvard over Yale, and have done so for many years.</p>
<p>That is no longer true, and would not be statistically meaningful anyways given that the overlap between the two applicant pools is so small. The only relevant figure is that there are more Yale rejects at Harvard than vice versa. </p>
<p>Yale has been more selective than Harvard for 2 of the past 3 years now, and all trends indicate that will continue.</p>