Top producers of PhDs in physical sciences, comp sci, math

College Search & Selection
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<p>In your example, the “kid” is asking a poorly phrased question. What the kid is really asking is "I’m kind of interested in political science, so what are several dozen colleges – of varying selectivities so I might be able to get into some of them – that I should put on an initial list for consideration.</p>

<p>What is so useful about the PhD productivity lists is that they, indeed, identify schools where political science departments stand out in some way (while perhaps or perhaps not standing out in other ways). The lists almost always include schools with a fairly wide range of selectivities, sizes, and geographic locations. In short, they produce a list of fifty or a hundred colleges that might well prove to be quite useful.</p>

<p>For example, suppose I’m a female, top 10% in my class, but not Williams, Duke, Dartmouth material from an admissions standpoint or, maybe I am, and I’m looking for a safe match. Suppose I’m interested in Anthropology. How many high school students (or their guidance counselors) would think Bryn Mawr? But, darn if Bryn Mawr doesn’t produce more Anthropology PhDs per graduate than any other college or university in the United States. Hmmm. Whether or not I plan to get a Ph.D. or run my daddy’s car dealersships after graduation, if I’m interested in studying Anthropology, I probably ought to check out Bryn Mawr. In point of fact, that student SHOULD consider Bryn Mawr to see if it meets her other criteria.</p>

<p>Nobody’s telling a student TO GO TO BRYN MAWR. It’s simply being highlighted as a college to put on the list for consideration, which is all anyone can expect from a “what colleges are good in…” question.</p>

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<p>You can play those “woulda, coulda, maybe” games about every piece of data in college admissions. For example, maybe MIT doesn’t really enroll smart students. Maybe it’s just that they get students who could afford the best SAT prep courses and they turn out to be really dumb when they get to college.</p>

<p>If something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck over a ten year period, it might not be a duck, but chances are it is.</p>

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<p>I dunno. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are usually in the top 10 per capita PhD producers in almost every field. So if that’s only because they lack academic diversity, then I would suggest that might be a lack of academic diversity to which many CC’ers aspire.</p>

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<p>I don’t care to dig these up, but you will find by this measure there multiple suggestions of schools with few resources and few course offerings appearing to be “better” than schools that actually offer potential PhD students much more, notwithstanding the fact that they have student bodies with more diverse interests.</p>

<p>Recently someone printed out the engineering % list, and showed Colorado College of Mining and Technology, by this measure, as far “superior” to Stanford. My guess: not many lawyers & I- bankers coming out of Colorado Institute of Mining & Technology.</p>

<p>A school is not “worse” at something simply because it is larger, or more diverse. If hundreds of its graduates are going on to doctorates, clearly someone with these interests can accomplish those goals there. Whether better or worse than the small school: who can say, we don’t have the right denominator. But one can certainly observe things like the breadth and depth of courses someone interested in studying there wil have available to them in their field of interest.</p>

<p>Maybe there are other schools that produce more total anthropology PhDs than Bryn Mawr, during the same time period, and offer their students with those interests more courses in the field and more resources than Bryn Mawr does. They might actually be better places than Bryn Mawr to study anthropology. I don’t know whether there are or not. But if there were, your methodology will disguise this fact by looking at percentages and not absolute numbers. You will highlight Bryn Mawr to this applicant, but not the other more diverse
school that actually has a better anthropology department, more resources and courses in anthropology, and admirably serves that portion of its student body that actually wants to pursue a PhD in the field. as indicated by the gross number of its graduates who have accomplished that goal.</p>

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<p>Here is the percentage of total degrees in physical sciences, comp sci, and math that are “second major”.</p>

<p>source: IPEDS 2007</p>

<p>percentage of second majors, school, first majors, second majors, total majors</p>

<p>49% Vanderbilt University 64 61 125
37% Marquette University 52 30 82
36% Williams College 74 42 116
35% Duke University 92 49 141
35% Kenyon College 17 9 26
34% Northwestern University 111 57 168
34% Brandeis University 41 21 62
31% Oberlin College 37 17 54
30% Emory University 78 34 112
30% Hamilton College 61 26 87
28% Boston College 84 32 116
28% Augustana College 29 11 40
27% Vassar College 37 14 51
27% University of Wisconsin-Madison 243 89 332
26% University of Chicago 154 55 209
26% Macalester College 45 16 61
26% Trinity College 23 8 31
26% University of Pennsylvania 72 25 97
26% Washington and Lee University 29 10 39
25% Mills College 3 1 4
24% Mount Holyoke College 34 11 45
24% University of Miami 60 19 79
24% Amherst College 52 16 68
23% Bates College 23 7 30
23% Knox College 20 6 26
23% University of Notre Dame 94 28 122
23% Wellesley College 37 11 48
23% Tufts University 68 20 88
22% Swarthmore College 42 12 54
21% Colby College 66 18 84
21% University of Virginia-Main Campus 191 51 242
21% Columbia University in the City of New York 143 38 181
21% St. Olaf College 102 27 129
21% Hope College 46 12 58
21% Dartmouth College 93 24 117
20% American University 32 8 40
20% Agnes Scott College 8 2 10
20% Wesleyan University 70 17 87
19% Colgate University 60 14 74
18% Bowdoin College 40 9 49
18% Washington University in St Louis 116 25 141
18% Auburn University Main Campus 56 12 68
17% Rice University 77 16 93
17% Lawrence University 29 6 35
17% Grinnell College 73 15 88
17% Bryn Mawr College 55 11 66
17% Kalamazoo College 40 8 48
17% Hanover College 30 6 36
16% Yale University 67 13 80
16% Smith College 52 10 62
16% Muhlenberg College 21 4 25
16% University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 276 52 328
16% Ohio Wesleyan University 16 3 19
15% Purdue University-Main Campus 371 67 438
15% DePauw University 39 7 46
15% Ursinus College 28 5 33
15% Wabash College 17 3 20
15% Johns Hopkins University 97 17 114
15% Carnegie Mellon University 260 45 305
15% Tulane University of Louisiana 87 15 102
15% Hobart William Smith Colleges 29 5 34
15% Illinois Wesleyan University 35 6 41
14% University of Puget Sound 59 10 69
14% Scripps College 12 2 14
14% Hollins University 6 1 7
14% University of Iowa 135 22 157
14% University of California-Berkeley 493 80 573
14% Gettysburg College 37 6 43
13% Dickinson College 39 6 45
13% Austin College 26 4 30
13% Sweet Briar College 13 2 15
13% Skidmore College 33 5 38
13% Rhodes College 20 3 23
13% Southern Methodist University 75 11 86
13% George Washington University 62 9 71
13% Claremont McKenna College 7 1 8
13% Middlebury College 35 5 40
13% Randolph-Macon College 21 3 24
12% University of California-Davis 204 29 233
12% New York University 143 20 163
12% Willamette University 36 5 41
12% Goucher College 15 2 17
12% Centre College 23 3 26
11% Denison University 32 4 36
11% Wake Forest University 58 7 65
11% Saint Louis University-Main Campus 59 7 66
10% Bucknell University 60 7 67
10% Lafayette College 43 5 48
10% Case Western Reserve University 97 11 108
10% Furman University 53 6 59
10% Harvard University 169 19 188
10% Occidental College 27 3 30
10% College of William and Mary 121 13 134
10% Connecticut College 28 3 31
10% Millsaps College 19 2 21
10% Clark University 19 2 21
9% University of Maryland-College Park 338 35 373
9% Beloit College 29 3 32
9% Saint Johns University 50 5 55
9% Southwestern University 30 3 33
9% The College of Wooster 41 4 45
9% Colorado College 42 4 46
9% Earlham College 21 2 23
9% Wheaton College 21 2 23
9% University of Richmond 42 4 46
8% College of the Holy Cross 67 6 73
8% University of Rochester 157 14 171
8% Franklin and Marshall College 35 3 38
8% Clemson University 106 9 115
8% Principia College 12 1 13
7% Haverford College 50 4 54
7% University of Delaware 101 8 109
7% Albion College 38 3 41
7% University of Florida 281 22 303
7% Presbyterian College 13 1 14
7% Whitman College 54 4 58
7% University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 410 29 439
7% Carleton College 85 6 91
7% The University of Tennessee 85 6 91
7% Lehigh University 85 6 91
7% Pomona College 57 4 61
6% St Lawrence University 58 4 62
6% University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 268 18 286
6% Barnard College 30 2 32
6% Brown University 124 8 132
6% Stanford University 189 11 200
5% Virginia Military Institute 18 1 19
5% University of California-San Diego 463 24 487
5% University of Georgia 117 6 123
5% Harvey Mudd College 80 4 84
5% University of Washington-Seattle Campus 503 25 528
4% Miami University-Oxford 107 5 112
4% Sewanee: The University of the South 22 1 23
4% Ohio State University-Main Campus 271 12 283
4% University of California-Santa Barbara 268 11 279
4% University of California-Riverside 172 7 179
4% Georgetown University 50 2 52
4% Iowa State University 129 5 134
4% Indiana University-Bloomington 237 9 246
3% Brigham Young University 249 9 258
3% Davidson College 28 1 29
3% Baylor University 58 2 60
3% University of California-Los Angeles 379 12 391
3% University of Connecticut 95 3 98
3% University of California-Santa Cruz 228 7 235
3% Wheaton College 38 1 39
2% Syracuse University 136 3 139
2% Texas A & M University 242 5 247
2% Worcester Polytechnic Institute 101 2 103
1% Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 272 3 275
1% University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 397 4 401
1% University of California-Irvine 401 3 404
0% California Institute of Technology 110 0 110
0% Pitzer College 4 0 4
0% Pepperdine University 5 0 5
0% University of Missouri-Columbia 138 0 138
0% Hendrix College 20 0 20
0% University of Denver 28 0 28
0% Michigan State University 235 0 235
0% Reed College 41 0 41
0% Birmingham Southern College 20 0 20
0% St Mary’s College of Maryland 43 0 43
0% Boston University 147 0 147
0% Spelman College 31 0 31
0% College of Saint Benedict 12 0 12
0% Yeshiva University 43 0 43
0% Princeton University 85 0 85
0% SUNY at Binghamton 167 0 167
0% Allegheny College 60 0 60
0% Rutgers University-New Brunswick 308 0 308
0% Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 780 0 780
0% Drew University 9 0 9
0% Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 276 0 276
0% Massachusetts Institute of Technology 401 0 401
0% University of Colorado at Boulder 233 0 233
0% Cornell University 216 0 216
0% Fordham University 66 0 66
0% The University of Texas at Austin 504 0 504
0% Wofford College 20 0 20
0% Gustavus Adolphus College 51 0 51
0% Wells College 9 0 9
0% Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 157 0 157
0% Juniata College 50 0 50
0% Stevens Institute of Technology 42 0 42
0% Union College 7 0 7
0% University of Southern California 113 0 113</p>

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<p>Not too many, as it turns out. Over the 10 year period, Bryn Mawr produced roughly the same number of anthro PhDs per year as Chicago, Penn, UCLA, Stanford, Colorado, Yale, and Texas-Austin. Bryn Mawr swamps everyone else in anthro PhDs per graduate.</p>

<p>


PhDs    per 1k  Total graduates   </p>

<p>119 2   56,363  University of California-Berkeley
79  4   17,855  Harvard University
66  1   53,612  University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
51  1   73,365  University of Texas at Austin
50  4   12,941  Yale University
50  1   41,410  University of Colorado at Boulder
48  3   16,662  Stanford University
48  1   54,970  University of California-Los Angeles
**47   16  2,879   Bryn Mawr College**
47  6   8,270   University of Chicago
47  2   25,853  University of Pennsylvania
42  1   29,049  University of Virginia, Main Campus
40  1   33,736  Cornell University, All Campuses
39  3   14,669  Brown University
38  1   45,998  University of Arizona
37  1   58,176  University of Wisconsin-Madison
37  1   61,290  University of Washington - Seattle
35  1   39,182  University of California-Santa Barbara
34  1   57,978  University of Florida
33  1   39,705  University of Massachusetts at Amherst
33  1   61,136  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
31  3   11,101  Princeton University
31  2   19,770  Northwestern Univ
31  1   21,761  University of California-Santa Cruz
31  1   30,099  New York University
27  4   7,081   Wesleyan University

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<p>If you just want to go by raw numbers, just pencil in UCBerkeley as the top school in the United States, due to its ridiculous size. Of course, the average Berkeley grad has about about as much chance of meeting a future Anthropology PhD on campus, even in one of those 1000+ seat lecture halls, as I do of seeing an armadillo cross my road here in New England.</p>

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<p>And, sorted by per capita Anthro PhDs.</p>

<p>


PhDs  per 1k  Total graduates </p>

<p>47  16  2,879   Bryn Mawr College
24  10  2,308   Beloit College
24  7   3,229   Grinnell College
17  7   2,599   Reed College
47  6   8,270   University of Chicago
19  5   3,578   Pomona College
5   5   1,004   Bennington College
79  4   17,855  Harvard University
24  4   5,702   Vassar College
9   4   2,300   Sarah Lawrence College
50  4   12,941  Yale University
27  4   7,081   Wesleyan University
9   4   2,361   Hampshire College
10  4   2,773   Haverford College
24  3   7,067   Oberlin College
15  3   4,561   Carleton College
18  3   5,536   Barnard College
12  3   3,740   Bowdoin College
18  3   5,840   Wellesley College
11  3   3,657   Swarthmore College
19  3   6,432   Rice University
48  3   16,662  Stanford University
11  3   3,827   Kenyon College
6   3   2,106   Bard College
31  3   11,101  Princeton University
39  3   14,669  Brown University
11  3   4,179   Amherst College
13  3   5,082   Williams College
27  3   10,684  Dartmouth College
18  3   7,162   Smith College
6   2   2,565   Kalamazoo College
16  2   6,987   Brandeis University
4   2   1,806   Goucher College
9   2   4,113   Bates College
119 2   56,363  University of California-Berkeley
25  2   12,784  College of William and Mary
7   2   3,581   Hamline University
8   2   4,199   Hamilton College
6   2   3,292   Drew University
7   2   3,845   Washington and Lee University
47  2   25,853  University of Pennsylvania
25  2   13,887  Washington University
12  2   6,751   Case Western Reserve University
7   2   3,945   Macalester College
2   2   1,134   Lake Erie College
12  2   6,810   Colgate University
2   2   1,167   Agnes Scott College
23  2   13,622  Columbia University in the City of New York
4   2   2,410   Earlham College
31  2   19,770  Northwestern Univ
24  2   15,531  Duke University
2   2   1,307   Maryville College

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<p>BTW, this accurately shows that Swarthmore is not a big Anthro school as it is one of the few fields where Swat is not top 10 in per capita PhDs. Swarthmore has a combined Sociology/Anthropology department that favors Sociology. It’s the #1 per graduate producer of Sociology PhDs in the country, but #20 on the list for Anthro.</p>

<p>BTW, I like that this list highlights Beloit College, an excellent small school outside of Chicago that might easily get overlooked. It would be a definitely worthy of adding to a preliminary list for consideration further down the selectivity pecking order. To me, highlighting these kinds of options is the real value of this kind of list. I mean, even the most brain dead college counselor can come up with UC Berkeley or Yale.</p>