<p>This is a ranking of the top 20 baccalaureate schools of PhDs in social sciences. Social sciences include psychology, economics, anthropology, political science, international relations, sociology, area/ethnic studies, gender studies.</p>
<p>This information is from the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates 1995-2006 and from IPEDS. I divided the number of PhDs from a particular baccalaureate school by the number of bachelors degrees awarded by that school in the same fields (social sciences). I think this is a more valid way to "normalize" PhD production.</p>
<p>The number of bachelors degrees is the total over three years 2002-2004 in social sciences. These were the earliest available from the IPEDS website. I thought a three-year total would be more reliable than a one-year snapshot.</p>
<p>Other methods divide by total undergraduate enrollment. When you divide by total undergraduate enrollment schools are penalized if they have large numbers of undergrads in other fields.</p>
<p>I limited the schools to roughly the top 100 US News universities and top 100 LACs plus the SUNY schools, some additional tech schools, and a few schools that are not top 100 in US News but which produce large numbers of PhDs.</p>
<p>school, PhDs produced in social sciences 1995-2006, bachelors degrees granted 2002-2004 in same fields, ratio</p>
<pre><code> 1 CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 33 21 1.571
2 MASSACHUSETTS INST. OF TECHNOLOGY 156 205 0.761
3 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE 233 370 0.630
4 OBERLIN COLLEGE 277 498 0.556
5 GRINNELL COLLEGE 152 297 0.512
6 RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 25 51 0.490
7 REED COLLEGE 110 255 0.431
8 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 650 1577 0.412
9 BRYN MAWR COLLEGE 145 354 0.410
10 POMONA COLLEGE 168 414 0.406
11 CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 98 249 0.394
12 HAVERFORD COLLEGE 114 294 0.388
13 BIRMINGHAM SOUTHERN COLLEGE 43 115 0.374
14 BENNINGTON COLLEGE 20 54 0.370
15 CARLETON COLLEGE 170 488 0.348
16 BROWN UNIVERSITY 450 1428 0.315
17 YALE UNIVERSITY 458 1477 0.310
18 WILLIAMS COLLEGE 180 606 0.297
19 AMHERST COLLEGE 130 446 0.291
20 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 321 1107 0.290
</code></pre>
<pre><code> 21 WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 289 1024 0.282
22 SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 64 228 0.281
23 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 635 2284 0.278
24 STANFORD UNIVERSITY 469 1706 0.275
25 WHEATON COLLEGE - ILLINOIS 110 402 0.274
26 RICE UNIVERSITY 139 525 0.265
27 FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE 112 446 0.251
28 VASSAR COLLEGE 197 788 0.250
29 MACALESTER COLLEGE 121 489 0.247
30 KENYON COLLEGE 85 350 0.243
31 MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY 129 533 0.242
32 ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 7 29 0.241
33 EARLHAM COLLEGE 53 221 0.240
34 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 344 1436 0.240
35 WELLESLEY COLLEGE 200 864 0.231
36 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY 76 331 0.230
37 CLARK UNIVERSITY 139 628 0.221
38 SMITH COLLEGE 218 991 0.220
39 HOPE COLLEGE 62 282 0.220
40 DUKE UNIVERSITY 392 1830 0.214
</code></pre>
<pre><code> 41 HENDRIX COLLEGE 46 215 0.214
42 ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 17 80 0.213
43 BARNARD COLLEGE 189 895 0.211
44 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 464 2208 0.210
45 BELOIT COLLEGE 65 319 0.204
46 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 323 1652 0.196
47 GEORGIA INST OF TECHNOLOGY-MAIN CAMP 47 242 0.194
48 KALAMAZOO COLLEGE 67 347 0.193
49 UNIVERSITY OF DENVER 75 399 0.188
50 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR 895 4831 0.185
51 WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY 155 839 0.185
52 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 235 1274 0.184
53 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN NEW YORK 286 1551 0.184
54 LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY 39 215 0.181
55 DAVIDSON COLLEGE 85 471 0.180
56 FURMAN UNIVERSITY 81 449 0.180
57 INDIANA UNIVERSITY-BLOOMINGTON 370 2086 0.177
58 SAINT OLAF COLLEGE 101 575 0.176
59 DREW UNIVERSITY 83 474 0.175
60 UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER 202 1164 0.174
</code></pre>
<p>^ It's not widely appreciated but MIT has outstanding faculties in many social sciences (poli sci, econ, psych) and humanities (philosophy, linguistics). It's really a much more well-rounded university than many people give it credit for. Plus it has really smart, highly motivated, academically oriented students who, if they become interested in one of these disciplines, are likely to do really well and carry it very far, in many cases all the way to a Ph.D.</p>
<p>In Caltech's case I assume it's mostly a small numbers phenomenon.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In Caltech's case I assume it's mostly a small numbers phenomenon.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In part, but the tech schools in particular train people who are quantitatively facile and the social sciences tend to appreciate people who bring these skills to their disciplines.</p>
<p>I also suspect Caltech's students are less inclined to take their social science majors (those few that get them) to law school than those at some of the other schools.</p>
<p>I don't really understand the intention of forming these kind of lists. People rarely attend the same grad school that they went to as an undergrad. In fact that phenomenon is known as academic inbreeding (at least in the sciences). Grad schools go out of their way to develop geographical diversity within their departments. Furthermore, I don't really understand why the ratio of PhDs awarded to BSs awarded is relevant.</p>
<p>This is an index constructed by comparing the number of undergraduate majors at the school cited to the number of Ph.D.'s in the same area that school's graduates earn at any school. It isn't really a ratio because the years from which the population totals are derived are not the same. However, collegehelp is making the tacit assumption the number of undergraduate majors at a school sampled over three fairly recent years will be constant enough to be representative of the output of the school through a longer (and earlier) time period.</p>
<p>I find it useful because (a) the fact that the students at a school frequently go on to get doctorates in their field of study reveals the commitment level one is likely to find among students at the school in that discipline, (b) the fact that the students at a school are accepted into other schools' graduate programs reflects on the reputation the baccalaureate school has within a discipline, and (c) the fact that a school's graduates complete their Ph.D.'s reflects on the level of preparation their undergraduate education provided them.</p>
<p>There are inaccuracies to be sure (some equally well-prepared students at other schools might prefer other disciplines or other professions at a higher rate, for example), but I still think there is utility in the analysis.</p>
<pre><code> 61 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS 232 1340 0.173
62 WELLS COLLEGE 19 111 0.171
63 BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY 117 700 0.167
64 OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 59 354 0.167
65 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY-MAIN CAMPUS 97 583 0.166
66 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 260 1564 0.166
67 ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 48 290 0.166
68 BAYLOR UNIVERSITY 137 832 0.165
69 BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY 206 1258 0.164
70 RHODES COLLEGE 62 380 0.163
71 PITZER COLLEGE 48 296 0.162
72 BARD COLLEGE 51 315 0.162
73 JUNIATA COLLEGE 25 156 0.160
74 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 588 3673 0.160
75 COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY 237 1488 0.159
76 MIAMI UNIVERSITY-OXFORD 255 1606 0.159
77 SKIDMORE COLLEGE 74 467 0.158
78 TUFTS UNIVERSITY 265 1708 0.155
79 BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY 533 3455 0.154
80 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 135 886 0.152
</code></pre>
<p>Call me "elitist," but I disagree with each of these assumptions. </p>
<p>(a) I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "commitment level" but in my experience there are an awful lot of deeply committed students of social science disciplines at the undergrad level at top schools who elect to take their commitment elsewhere rather than pursuing Ph.D.s---economics majors who go to top business schools, poli sci majors who go to top law schools or into the foreign service, psych majors who go to top med schools with the intention of becoming psychiatrists, and so on. A high percentage of students pursing Ph.D.s, especially in a very tough academic job market, could simply reflect a herd mentality of following the academic ladder to its ultimate conclusion, or perhaps a lack of solid career counseling to get undergrads to consider the full range of alternative careers open to them. I especially worry about this with respect to graduates of less highly regarded undergraduate schools, some significant fraction of whom may end up in second- or third-tier graduate programs which are not likely to prepare them for the relatively small number of tenure-track academic jobs that are open at any given time. "Underemployment" of Ph.D.s--including "involuntary out-of-field employment," outright unemployment, and (involuntary) employment in part-time, adjunct, or non-tenure track positions--is especially high in the social sciences.</p>
<p>(b) For similar reasons, whether a high rate of placement into graduate programs is a positive reflection on the undergraduate institution's reputation depends on which graduate programs their graduates are getting into. Any old mediocre state U will grant Ph.D.s in the social sciences by the dozens, and will gladly accept into its graduate programs students of middling caliber. That doesn't mean those people will get good academic jobs. Nor do those grad school acceptances necessarily signal anything very positive about the undergrad institutions that are producing the fodder for mediocre grad programs.</p>
<p>(c) Basically the same argument as for (b): Getting a Ph.D. even in a mediocre program requires a certain level of stick-to-itiveness, and I suppose certain minimal research and writing abilities. But just how well graduate school placement reflects on the level of preparation provided by the undergraduate institution is a function of the quality of the graduate programs into which the undergrad institution is placing its students---NOT the sheer number of graduate school placements.</p>
<p>I think we fundamentally disagree about the significance of a Ph.D. IMO, a doctorate earned from even a "mediocre" program establishes academic/intellectual credentials that I think you undervalue. In my experience, and herein you might call me "elitist", such students tend to be qualitatively different from those who are in the field for utilitarian reasons. The fact that many Ph.D.'s are "underemployed" supports my contention that their conferees are more committed to their fields, because they know the prospects associated with the advanced degree they are pursuing and still many of them pursue the work as an end in itself and not a means to an end.</p>
<p>If I were interested in economics, for example, I would prefer to go to a program which turns out future Ph.D.'s over one that turns out future financiers. It is for this reason that I find these kinds of analyses interesting. Others with a more pragmatic view of education are likely to see this differently, even oppositely.</p>
<p>I would also add that most grad programs that I know of are quite selective of students even at lower ranked departments.</p>
<p>Finally, as you rightfully point out, other tracks besides the purely academic are available to excellent students in at least some fields. These students, too, are likely to be of high caliber and ought to be included for a complete picture of academic productivity. However data which connects graduate degree recipients in medicine, law, business, etc. with baccalaureate origins is simply not publicly available (although I know it is privately compiled). I wish it were: it could be most illuminating. Until then, the NSF data is the best we have for measuring this kind of thing.</p>
<p>The main answer for tech school dominance is that for many social sciences - especially econ and some polisci -- a background in math/physics is considered better prep for the PhD than an undergrad degree in soc sci. As I have said many times, PhD programs in econ will care much more about how much high level math you took than how well known your econ program is. A math/phys major with math grad classes and A's from small college X often trumps an elite school econ grad who hasn't taken real analysis or other proof-based courses in the admissions game.</p>
<p>Admissions for MBA or law school are very, very different from the PhD.</p>