<p>Here’s a situation for you scholars out there - I have an offer to teach at a college in the UK and part of my package is funding for a PhD. This is a 5 year commitment and my field is in theolgy and ethics. </p>
<p>Here are my questions:</p>
<li><p>Other than Oxford/Cambridge what other schools have overall good reputations? </p></li>
<li><p>How do American and British PhDs compare? (Are they comparable?) </p></li>
<li><p>What about finding a teaching position upon completion? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you, I look forward to hearing your thoughts?</p>
<p>1)Imperial College London (often times dubbed the "MIT of the UK"). The London School of Economics (2nd largest overall research university in the UK behind Cambridge, an impressive feat when you consider that LSE basically doesn't teach physical sciences or engineering). University College London. University of Edinburgh. University of Glasgow. University of Nottingham. King's College. University of Leeds. University of Birmingham. University of Manchester. University of Bristol. University of Warwick. University of Southampton. </p>
<p>That's not a comprehensive list, that's just what comes to mind right now. I'm sure there are many others.</p>
<p>2) Semi-comparable. Both involve heavy research. However, the structure is different between the 2 nations</p>
<p>3) The competition for academic positions is intense over there as it is here.</p>
<p>There is a PhD forum that is ALL UK based. They will be able to answer your question. The forum requires no registration, so you can post the actual college without being afraid of being identified.<br>
it's called findaPhD.com or something similar. </p>
<p>I imagine you would get great answers to your questions there.</p>
<p>The main difference is that in general UK PhDs do not involve 2 years of classes as USA ones do before you start researching. It is prety Thesis intensive the moment you arrive. Most of the good Uk universities are mentioned above so I will not repeat them. Missing form the list are University of Durham and Oxford.</p>
<p>LSE, Oxford and Cambridge are really hard to get into but it also depends on the field you want to research. I'm guessing there would be more competition for PHD in Economics at LSE than a PHD in geography.</p>
<p>Basically my PhD has no taught classes. I have been doing research for my thesis since the day I started. Hence a PhD here only lasts 3-4 years.</p>
<p>As far as I'm aware British PhDs are treated as the same as PhDs anywhere. My supervisor has an Oxford PhD and he used to lecture at WashU before he became a prof here. </p>
<p>There are billions of US graduate students at Oxford (well about 700 anyway).</p>
<p>If you google "The Guardian" or "The Times" you will see that both these newspapers produce rankings of UK universities.</p>