UC Berkeley Press Release
UC Berkeley, leads nation in prepping students for doctorates
BERKELEY – University of California, Berkeley, is the top-ranked university in preparing students who go on to earn their doctorates in the United States, according to a recent survey.
UC Berkeley awarded 2,175 undergraduate degrees to people who received Ph.D.s between 1999 and 2003, according to the 2003 Survey of Doctorate Recipients conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. A total of 203,929 U.S. doctorates were awarded during that period.
"It is not surprising that UC Berkeley produces the most Ph.D.s since they have wonderful role models. Our faculty is outstanding and so are our graduate students," said Mary Ann Mason, dean of UC Berkeley's Graduate Division. "Our undergraduates like what they see and are eager to pursue a life of research."
The annual survey, released Dec. 1, 2004, reports on the total number of doctorates awarded by field, and includes details about the recipients' sex, race, citizenship, parental education, financial resources and future plans. The 2003 report, the 37th of its kind, includes a special section on the undergraduate backgrounds of those who received Ph.D.s, information that had not been reviewed since 1996.
It found that, after UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan awarded the second highest number of undergraduate degrees -- 1,537 -- among U.S. schools. Internationally, the second-highest was Seoul National University in Korea, which awarded 1,655 undergraduate degrees to future Ph.D. recipients.
UC Berkeley was also the top-ranked school in awarding doctorates in 2003, according to the report. UC Berkeley awarded 767 doctorates, or 2 percent of all U.S. doctorates awarded. UC Berkeley had a high profile in several areas in the survey's section on the Ph.D. recipients' undergraduate backgrounds:
* UC Berkeley was among the top 10 schools for providing undergraduate degrees to people of ethnic background who then went on to earn doctorates. It was No. 1 for Asians -- 501 undergraduate degrees; No. 1 in the U.S. and third overall for Hispanics -- 134 degrees; No. 5 for American Indians -- 10 degrees; and No. 10 for blacks -- 66 degrees.
* UC Berkeley excelled in providing undergraduate degrees to students in the sciences and in the humanities.It awarded the most undergraduate degrees to those who received doctorates in life sciences and social sciences, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had the most undergraduate degrees in the physical sciences and engineering. UC Berkeley awarded the most undergraduate degrees for those in the humanities, while Pennsylvania State University led the education doctorates.
The biggest change in undergraduate backgrounds between 1996 and 2003, the authors said, was the growth of foreign undergraduate degrees and the large number of students coming from a few "powerhouse" institutions in Korea, Taiwan and China.
"These baccalaureate-origin institutions can now claim a presence in U.S. doctoral education that compares closely with the top U.S. baccalaureate-origin institutions," the report's authors wrote.
The annual survey is conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago under a contract with the National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resources Statistics. Additional funding came from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA,) the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Department of Agriculture.