Research Strength › English

Best Colleges for English Research

9 colleges ranked by the research strength of their English faculty — a 0–100 blend of bibliometric quality, top-decile stars, federal R&D funding, and academic notability. Research output, not teaching quality. Reference corpus: 288 faculty. Data as of 2026-07-02.

9colleges ranked

288faculty in corpus

Bard College#1 in English

#	College	Research Strength	Coverage	Median h	FY24 R&D
1	Bard College Top LAC · #88 28 matched faculty; median h-index 4; led by Elizabeth M. Holt (h-index 24).	52	C	4	—
2	College of the Holy Cross Top LAC · #30 12 matched faculty; median h-index 2; led by Patricia Bizzell (h-index 23).	36	A	2.5	—
3	Colorado College Top LAC · #27 5 matched faculty; median h-index 2; $0m FY24 R&D; led by Genevieve Love (h-index 2).	30	C	2	$0m
4	Hamilton College Elite Private · #37 8 matched faculty; median h-index 5; $0m FY24 R&D; led by Steven Yao (h-index 10).	29	B	5	$0m
5	Wesleyan University Selective Private · #39 12 matched faculty; median h-index 3; $1m FY24 R&D; led by Sean McCann (h-index 10).	28	B	3.5	$1m
6	Sewanee: The University of the South Top LAC · #43 6 matched faculty; median h-index 3; led by William E. Engel (h-index 8).	24	C	3.5	—
7	Lafayette College Top LAC · #38 8 matched faculty; median h-index 5; $0m FY24 R&D; led by June Schlueter (h-index 9).	23	C	5.5	$0m
8	Skidmore College Top LAC · #37 10 matched faculty; median h-index 1; led by Catherine Golden (h-index 10).	21	C	1.5	—
9	Kenyon College Top LAC · #32 6 matched faculty; median h-index 2; $0m FY24 R&D; led by Jesse Matz (h-index 10).	21	C	2	$0m

Colleges with too little data to rank in English

Amherst College — only 0 enriched faculty (need 4)
Bryn Mawr College — coverage 0.21 below 0.25 (4 enriched of 19 named)
Haverford College — only 0 enriched faculty (need 4)
Oberlin College — only 3 enriched faculty (need 4)
Reed College — only 3 enriched faculty (need 4)
Wheaton College — only 0 enriched faculty (need 4)

How this ranking is built

Research Strength (0–100) blends four components, re-normalized over whichever are available for each college: Quality 45%, Stars 25%, Funding 20%, Notability 10%. Each college's faculty in English are matched to OpenAlex research records; scores use field-relative percentiles across these 192 colleges, not all US institutions. A college needs at least four matched faculty to be ranked.

Caveats

Faculty-to-OpenAlex match coverage is ~71%; unmatched faculty do not contribute to a department score.
Percentiles are relative to these 192 colleges, not all US institutions.
Research strength is not teaching quality — a top research department is not necessarily a better place to be an undergraduate.
R&D funding is NSF HERD campus expenditures; federally funded R&D centers (JPL, Lincoln Lab, APL is included for JHU) can shift totals vs public perception.

Research Strength Rankings v1.0 · as of 2026-07-02.

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