<p>If you think that the quality of undergrad education has an influence on admission to and success in grad school, then this might be of interest (especially since the OP says that academics are her concern).</p>
<p>Percentage of graduates getting a PhD
Academic field: ALL</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period. Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law. </p>
<p>1 35.8% California Institute of Technology
…
35 8.7% Johns Hopkins University
…
91 5.7% Tufts University
…
100 5.3% Southwestern University</p>
<p>??? ?.?% George Washington University
??? ?.?% University of Wisconsin - Madison</p>
<p>I left 1 and 100 in to show the wide range (mostly at the top).</p>
<p>% finishing PhDs is more about “PERSONALITY” of the student body. Don’t confuse it with achievement. In generally, I am more impressed with a person with a BA moving up his/her rank within a company than a person just finishing up a PhD (depends on what school…lol). There’s a shortage of Americans wanting to do PhDs these days and if you want to do one, you can get in if you aren’t aiming just the top-ranked programs. I am not saying finishing it is easy but how many people PhD candidates you know actually coldn’t finish? Most can and it’s just a matter of time.</p>
<p>Tufts has better student body. But Wisconsin is significantly higher ranked in just about every department ranking. You can’t ignore the caliber of student body but by the same token, you can’t ignore the significant difference in department rankings. If the difference in department rankings is smaller, then overall, maybe one can give Tufts the benefit (not really sure how one can do in practice) but to me, the difference is just too large in this case.</p>
<p>All college rankings are subjective and flawed to a degree. The recent Forbes ranking challenged the USNWR rankings with criteria focussed on undergraduate education. Notice the change in the top 15 research universities: </p>
<p>"…among the national research universities, six of the top 15 schools in the U.S. News rankings did not make the Forbes top 15 – University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Dartmouth College, Washington University in St. Louis, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins. Forbes’s top 15, however, includes Brown, Rice, Brandeis, Boston College, Tufts and the University of Virginia. Northwestern and Washington University in St. Louis are tied for 12th in U.S. News, but Forbes ranks Northwestern much higher (6th vs. 33rd) than Wash U among national research universities. "</p>