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Ranking of Political Science Graduate Schools

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The rankings below have been generated using the priorities you set. You can change your priorities or get rankings for a different field.

About the rankings »

The box plots in the "Rank" column show the uncertainty in each program's ranking. Learn more.
Hover over table headers to see more details.
Data sources and weights for each item are listed at the bottom of the page.
Better values are shown in green. Worse values are shown in red.
Learn more about the ranking algorithm.

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Your Ranking of Political Science PhD Programs

Programs 1–30

Rank	Program	Regres Quality	Survey Quality	Student Outcomes	Jobs at Grad	Diversity	Tuition Remis	1st Yr Support
1-2	Stanford University Political Science	2-5	1-1	1-11	76%	43-69	83%	92%
1-3	Harvard University Government	1-3	2-3	3-34	80%	59-81	83%	100%
2-3	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Political Science	1-4	2-3	33-66	71%	15-38	83%	100%
4-10	Princeton University Politics	8-16	6-14	2-26	87%	41-70	83%	100%
4-13	New York University Politics	6-12	4-9	17-57	66%	9-30	83%	100%
4-14	Rice University Political Science	21-45	4-13	2-33	92%	10-30	83%	100%
4-14	Columbia University in the City of New York Political Science	3-6	4-14	58-84	72%	26-50	83%	95%
4-14	Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Political Science	16-34	4-11	3-30	81%	7-27	83%	94%
6-19	Yale University Political Science	5-9	5-15	17-54	60%	21-43	83%	100%
6-22	University of California-San Diego Political Science	6-14	5-16	17-53	71%	84-98	83%	95%
6-22	University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Political Science	18-42	8-24	6-40	80%	3-12	83%	100%
7-23	Duke University Political Science	9-21	10-26	7-44	81%	74-90	83%	100%
6-21	University of Chicago Political Science	6-11	7-21	51-79	64%	11-34	83%	100%
7-23	Cornell University Government	14-28	25-38	6-42	87%	7-25	83%	100%
8-23	University of California-Berkeley Political Science	1-5	14-31	58-80	82%	86-99	83%	71%
Rank	Program	Regres Quality	Survey Quality	Student Outcomes	Jobs at Grad	Diversity	Tuition Remis	1st Yr Support
10-26	University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science	11-21	22-36	7-40	83%	70-92	83%	100%
9-26	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Political Science	8-16	13-29	6-47	75%	80-96	83%	93%
9-29	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Political Science	10-22	4-19	49-76	65%	49-74	83%	100%
10-27	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Political Science	20-39	14-32	14-54	80%	20-42	83%	100%
10-28	University of Washington-Seattle Campus Political Science	13-26	13-30	14-50	76%	42-69	83%	100%
13-30	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Political Science	17-32	28-42	20-60	86%	22-48	83%	100%
11-30	University of Rochester Political Science	36-68	13-31	1-24	75%	13-34	83%	100%
13-32	Stony Brook University Political Science	24-47	14-39	1-22	84%	50-79	83%	100%
16-33	Emory University Political Science	21-43	16-39	10-57	83%	56-83	83%	100%
15-33	Indiana University-Bloomington Political Science	19-45	13-31	2-35	75%	42-66	83%	75%
16-32	Ohio State University-Main Campus Political Science	9-22	22-39	7-43	69%	48-74	83%	100%
16-33	SUNY at Binghamton Political Science	23-50	5-22	3-40	73%	18-40	83%	63%
16-33	Washington University in St Louis Political Science	18-39	10-27	11-56	68%	58-81	83%	100%
19-34	University of California-Davis Political Science	20-38	9-30	4-34	88%	88-100	50%	100%
21-34	Michigan State University Political Science	27-45	18-34	5-33	72%	50-74	83%	92%

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Item Descriptions

Rank: A range indicating how this program ranked in 500 simulated rankings based on your priorities. Programs are sorted by their median rank. Learn more.
NRC regression-based quality measure (Regres Quality): The NRC's measurements of overall program quality are based on 20 key variables (19 in the humanities) such as GRE scores, student support and faculty publications. To calculate the regression-based quality measure, the relative importance, or weight, of a variable was set by the extent that it correlated with programs viewed most favorably by evaluators in each field. Learn more. Your weight = 3. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
NRC survey-based quality measure (Survey Quality): The NRC's measurements of overall program quality are based on 20 key variables (19 in the humanities) such as GRE scores, student support and faculty publications. To calculate the survey-based quality measure, evaluators in each field identified the variables that they considered to be the most important indicators of program quality. Learn more. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Student support and outcomes (Student Outcomes): This variable is a composite of other measures of student support and outcomes, including 6-year or 8-year graduation rates (for non-humanities programs and humanities programs, respectively), time to degree, job placement within academia, percentage of first-year students with full financial support, and whether a program collects data about the employment outcomes of its graduates. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Placement Rate (Jobs at Grad): This variable shows the percentage of students with definite plans at graduation (either a job or a postdoctoral position), based on data from the student questionnaire. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: SED, 2000–2004)
Diversity in the academic environment (Diversity): This variable shows a composite measure of diversity generated by the National Research Council. It includes data on percent of faculty and students from underrepresented minorities, percent of female faculty and students, and percent of international faculty and students. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 1. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Tuition Remission (Tuition Remis): This variable shows the median percentage of tuition remission reported by program graduates over the period 2000-2004. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: SED, 2000–2004)
First Year Support (1st Yr Support): This variable shows the percentage of first-year full-time doctoral students who were given full financial support. In a 2006 questionnaire, programs reported the type of support received by all full-time graduate students in fall 2005. Data for students in each year of enrollment were reported separately. The reported value was calculated as the number of first-year students who received full support (from any source), divided by the total number of first-year students. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)

Data Sources

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System: IPEDS is an annual, comprehensive set of surveys of all colleges and universities in the United States. The surveys are conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Learn more
National Research Council: The National Research Council conducts periodic assessments of doctoral programs in the United States. Our data comes from the most recent assessment in 2010. Learn more
Survey of Earned Doctorates: The NSF/NIH/NEH/USED/USDA/NASA Survey of Earned Doctorates is an annual survey of all new recipients of doctorates from US universities at graduation. The average of the response rates for the 2000–2004 surveys was 92%. Learn more
Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: The Survey is an annual assessment of the number and characteristics of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in science, engineering, and health-related fields It is conducted by the National Science Foundation. Learn more

* Value is missing. The value shown is based on the average for other programs in the same field. Learn more.

The graduate school rankings on PhDs.org have been made possible by grants from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
The National Postdoctoral Association and The Center for Science and the Media have served as the project's fiscal sponsors.