<p>I’d say the list is measuring selectiveness and school size more than PhD preparation. If you’re mainly taking in the best, and most highly motivated students who are planning on pursuing a PhD, you’d have to suck pretty hard as a school to not have them make it to the next level. They’d get a PhD no matter where they went, but that doesn’t mean the school did particularly much to prepare them.</p>
<p>You stress how important it is to have a large amount of alumni connections, but the list talks about percentages, not numbers. It’s very likely you’ll be able to have more connections at a larger institution, even if these people don’t make up as large of a percentage of the student body. I don’t see how you’d be better off connections-wise at a place that sends 4/10 students in your field to get a PhD each year, as opposed to a larger school that sends maybe 20/100. The percentage is twice as high, but you’re 5 times behind in connections.</p>