R1, R2, R Who?

[someone somewhere]

What determines what makes a school an R1 or an R2 or below? I know what these mean, generally, but I feel like there's an amorphous middle that most schools fall into, so pegging where a school actually falls is tough. Asking a department's R-status is like asking about class status - only those on the extreme ends seem to have any sense of distinction.

When you want to know where a school falls, what do you do - search PhD program rankings? Or is there some magical list that shows the schools by research tier?

[anonomouse]

the terms R1 and R2 come from an old ranking system done by the Carnegie Foundation. They no longer use the distinction R1 vs. R2, so that's why no one knows where they fall anymore.

Here's the schools listed as R1s in 1994:
www.washington.edu/tools/universities94.html

I think the way it worked was that if they offered a phd in 1994 and were not on this list then they were an R2 (I think they had to offer a certain number of phd programs to qualify).

Keep in mind these are not up to date because they no longer classify schools this way.

[gugol]

As anonomouse has mentioned, r1, r2, etc. refer to the old classification system that carnegie used. It doesn't use that system anymore.


Carnegie uses a new classification system:

classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/descriptions/grad_program.php



When people talk about r1 universities nowadays, they are referring to universities who are classified as comprehensive doctoral institutions. The difference is that there are different types of comprehensive doctoral institutions now, but people will still group them and refer them as r1. To be classified as a comprehensive doctoral institution, the university must have doctoral programs in a range of disciplines.
R2 is used to refer to places classified as being in one of the several postbac or S-doc categories. I.e., places with a range of master programs but just one or no doctoral program.

Beyond that, you have the Baccalaureate Colleges and so on.

[r1r2]

classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/standard.php

Look at "Basic classification."

Carnegie classifications are changed, but basically Research Universities (very high research activity) can be said to be R1 and Research Universities (high research activity) to be R2.

According to this classification, there are currently 96 R1 schools and 103 R2 schools.

[anonomouse]

gugol- are you sure about that? I thought places with no or only 1 or 2 doctoral programs but some grad programs were classified as masters institutions and that R2s had doctoral programs but not as many or didn't grant a minimum number of degrees each year. My undergrad institution had a range of masters programs and only 1 doctoral program and I do not think they would be counted as an R2.

looking at that new list the person before me posted for instance, CUNY graduate center seems to be an R2- and they have tons of doctoral programs.

[correction]

Nov 4, 2009 17:09:34 GMT -5 @gugol said:

When people talk about r1 universities nowadays, they are referring to universities who are classified as comprehensive doctoral institutions. The difference is that there are different types of comprehensive doctoral institutions now, but people will still group them and refer them as r1. To be classified as a comprehensive doctoral institution, the university must have doctoral programs in a range of disciplines.
R2 is used to refer to places classified as being in one of the several postbac or S-doc categories. I.e., places with a range of master programs but just one or no doctoral program.

Beyond that, you have the Baccalaureate Colleges and so on.

Ummm, no, not quite.

The closest thing to "R1" universities now are comprehensive doctoral institutions qualified as "very high research activity."

"R2" universities would be comprehensive doctoral institutions with "high research activity."

Then there were "Doctoral" universities that would be comprehensive doctoral institutions without notably high research activity.

"Master's level" universities would be those with postbac & S-Doc programs.

and so on.

[gugol]

I am sorry. You are right, anonomouse.

Old fellow that I am, I was thinking of the doctoral 1 and doctoral 2 distinctions that existed before the r1 and r2 distinctions were included in 1994.

r1r2 is right, and if we were to translate the old categories into the new ones we would have:

r1- very high research classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2215%22%7D&start_page=standard.php&backurl=standard.php&limit=0,50

r2- high research classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2216%22%7D&start_page=standard.php&backurl=standard.php&limit=0,50

doctoral 1 and doctoral 2- classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2217%22%7D&start_page=standard.php&backurl=standard.php&limit=0,50


masters 1 - classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2218%22%7D&start_page=standard.php&backurl=standard.php&limit=0,50


masters 2 - classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2219%22%7D&start_page=standard.php&backurl=standard.php&limit=0,50