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Undergraduate institutions of doctoral recipients

This post is popular every year, and I've just updated it with the most recent NSF data (you can find the link to create your own tables on the visualization if you want.)

It shows the undergraduate college of people who received doctorates in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022.  As you can see from the top-level view, UC Berkeley produces more graduates who go onto a doctorate than any other institution in the US. 

But maybe that's not what you need: You might be working with one of those special high school students who already knows they want to get a doctorate, or you might want to show which college from a group of peers sends the most people to a Ph.D. or Ed.D.  Or you might want bragging rights against your alma mater's bitter academic rival. This visualization, of course is interactive.

So use the controls at top to find colleges by region, by religious affiliation, or by broad Carnegie type.  And filter further to find, for instance, the liberal arts college in the Great Lakes states that sends the most students to Ph.Ds in Chemistry (Hope College).  Or, the institution in the Middle Atlantic states sending the most students to a doctorate in History (Columbia.)

One answer to that question you're wondering about: No, I cannot normalize this to show the percentage of graduates of any institution who go on to get a doctorate, because I'd have to guess about when the people in 2018, for instance, graduated from college.  For some, it could be 2014; for others, 2000.  If you want to take a stab at doing it, be my guest.

I always love to hear when people are surprised by what they find in these visualizations.  Let me know what you find.


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