In a recent tabulation of the relative standing of the many graduate schools throughout the country Harvard again asumes first place. In the most recent issue of the Alumni Bulletin the findings of Lawrence Foster are opitomised in a reprint article from "School And Society."
Numerous writers at different times have attempted to rank American graduate schools in order of their eminence, employing one set of criteria or another. No one, however, as far as the writer knows, has made such an extensive collection and presentation of possible criteria for such an evaluation as Laurence Foster in his recent volume, "The Functions of a Graduate School in a Democratic Society."
A total of 53 different institutions are found in one or more of these tables. Only sixteen institutions, however, are named in over half of them. These sixteen Mr. Foster has undertaken to rank according to a composite index based upon 26 of his 28 measures. In deriving this composite index, however, he has added together indiscriminately men points, and percentages and inadvertently has really assigned chance weights to the different components which seems hardly justified--certainly he does not attempt to justify them in his derivation of the final compostite table.
It seems worth while, therefore, to combine Mr. Foster's original data by another method to see what difference, if any, it would make in the final ranking of these sixteen outstanding graduate schools. t This has been done after conference with Mr. Foster and at his specific request. This article in The Alumni Bulletin is published with his approval.
The 28 criteria which were used were as follows:
1. Institutions at which Guggenheim fellows are located.
2. Institutions at which national research fellows are located.
3. Institutions at which national research fellows in the physical sciences are located.
4. Institutions at which national research fellows in the physical sciences are located.
5. Institutions at which members of the committees of the Social Research Council 1923-33 are located.
6. Institutions at which officers and members of committees of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are located.
7. Institutions at which members of the National Research Council 1931-32 are located.
8. Present or former location of delegates of the American Council of Learned Societies.
9. Institutions at which starred men from "American Men of Science" are located.
10. Institutions at which follows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences are located.
11. Institutions at which members of the American Philosophical Society are located.
12. Institutions at which members of the National Academy of Sciences are located.
13. Points based upon the percentage of distinguished departments in the report of the Committee on Graduate Instruction of the American Council of Education.
14. Combined weight rank, including both distinguished and adequate departments, in the report of the Committee on Graduate Instruction of the American Council on Education.
15. Institutions from widely starred men of science from "American Men of Science," received their baccalaureate degrees.
16. Distribution of holders of bachelors' degrees listed in "Who's Who in America," 1928-29.
17. Institutions from which Social Research Council fellows received their doctorates.
18. Institutions at which Common-wealth fellows studied.
19. Institutions from which national research follows in the biological sciences received their doctorates.
20. Institutions at which national research fellows in biology studied.
21. Institutions from which national research follows in the physical sciences received their doctorates.
22. Institutions at which national research fellows in the physical sciences studied.
23. Place of graduation of professors teaching in institutions which are members of the Association of American Universities.
24. Institutions from which starred men of science from "American Men of Science" have received their Ph.D. or M. D. degrees.
25. Institutions from which a sample of 266 educators listed in "Who's Who in America" received their Ph.D. degrees.
26. Institutions from which members of the American Philosophical Society received their Ph.D. or M.D. degrees.
27. Institutions from which members of the National Academy of Sciences received their Ph.D. or M.D. degrees.
28. Institutions from which fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences received Ph.D. or M.D. degrees.
Probably the best way to give this varied group of measures their optimum weights would be to ask a group of recognized leaders in the field of higher education to express their judgments at to their relative importance as crietria and then average the results of these judgments. No such attempt is here made. Instead, they have all been given equal weight in combining them into a single composite measure by the method of average ranks. Each of the institutions has been ranked in each of the 28 features according to the data given in Mr. Foster's tables, and the sum of these ranks computed for each institution.
If an institution ranked first in all the measures, obviously the sum of its ranks would be 28. The nearest approach to this unanimity of rank is found in the case of Harvard University, the sum of whose rank total 63. Harvard stood first in thirteen of the measures, Columbia in three, Chicago, California, Johns Hopkins, and Princeton in two each, and Yale, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, Institute of Technology in one each. A complete tabulation is shown in the accompanying table. A comparison with Mr. Foster's composite shows a change in rank of nine of the sixteen institutions, the greatest change being in the case of Michigan, which is raised from eleventh to ninth rank. The most notable change, perhaps, is in the case of Chicago, which is raised from third to second place. By either method Harvard easily stands at the top. Walter Crosby Eells. School of Education, Stanford University
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