<p>A serious flaw with the NSF Baccalaureate Origins of S&E PhD recipents is that it uses the wrong denominator to control for the size of the school. It divides by bachelors awarded in ALL fields instead of just science and engineering fields. This places universities at a disadvantage because they offer programs in which a bachelors or masters is a highly marketable degree. In fields like education, business, nursing, and engineering there is less incentive to seek a PhD. It would be better to divide by the number of bachelors grads in S&E.</p>
<p>A second flaw is that it fails to control for overall student ability at the baccalaureate school. Is the PhD production due to the school’s ability to educate or to the student’s ability to learn? Public schools may be at a disadvantage because of their mission to educate a more diverse cross-section of students, especially in their home state.</p>
<p>I have tried to correct the flaws in the NSF study. I divided the 1997-2206 science and engineering PhDs by the sum of: (1) the number of S&E bachelors granted in 2002 and (2) the school’s SAT midpoint. </p>
<p>It isn’t perfect, but it is an improvement.</p>
<p>school, PhD production index controlling for field of study and student ability</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology Private 0.519
Harvard University Private 0.486
University of Arizona Public 0.480
University of Massachusetts at Amherst Public 0.477
Cornell University, all campuses Public/private 0.410
SUNY at Buffalo Public 0.407
Princeton University Private 0.391
Stanford University Private 0.372
Yale University Private 0.357
California Institute of Technology Private 0.355
Brown University Private 0.337
University of Chicago Private 0.332
University of California-Berkeley Public 0.330
Duke University Private 0.320
Rice University Private 0.286
Oberlin College Private 0.275
Carleton College Private 0.273
North Carolina State University at Raleigh Public 0.269
Swarthmore College Private 0.255
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Public 0.250
College of William and Mary Public 0.240
University of Rochester Private 0.229
University of Pennsylvania Private 0.229
Dartmouth College Private 0.229
University of Virginia, main campus Public 0.228
Wesleyan University Private 0.227
Johns Hopkins University Private 0.221
Carnegie Mellon University Private 0.215
Williams College Private 0.211
University of California-San Diego Public 0.209
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Public 0.207
Northwestern University Private 0.205
Reed College Private 0.203
Case Western Reserve University Private 0.201
Trinity University Private 0.199
Columbia University in the City of New York Private 0.199
University of California-Santa Cruz Public 0.196
Grinnell College Private 0.194
University of Wisconsin-Madison Public 0.194
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Private 0.193
Harvey Mudd College Private 0.192
University of California-Davis Public 0.190
Wellesley College Private 0.186
University of Notre Dame Private 0.181
Pomona College Private 0.172
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Public 0.172
University of California-Los Angeles Public 0.171
Brandeis University Private 0.170
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Public 0.163
Bryn Mawr College Private 0.161
Vassar College Private 0.159
Haverford College Private 0.156
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Public 0.153
Pennsylvania State University, main campus Public 0.151
Amherst College Private 0.151
University of Texas at Austin Public 0.150
Brigham Young University, main campus Private 0.150
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Public 0.149
Franklin and Marshall College Private 0.148
Macalester College Private 0.147
Georgia Institute of Technology, main campus Public 0.146
University of Colorado at Boulder Public 0.143
Purdue University, main campus Public 0.141
Boston University Private 0.140
University of Maryland at College Park Public 0.136
University of Florida Public 0.131
University of California-Santa Barbara Public 0.128
Bowdoin College Private 0.127
University of California-Irvine Public 0.126
Occidental College Private 0.126
Bates College Private 0.120
Texas A&M University, main campus Public 0.118
University of Washington-Seattle Public 0.118
Kalamazoo College Private 0.117
Michigan State University Public 0.116
Iowa State University Public 0.113
Ohio State University, main campus Public 0.109
Indiana University at Bloomington Public 0.102
Earlham College Private 0.100
Lawrence University Private 0.096
Beloit College Private 0.094
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Public 0.089
Whitman College Private 0.085
Hendrix College Private 0.077
St John’s College (Annapolis, MD) Private 0.029</p>