MOVING TO FRONT–ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 30, 2016

What follows is my best judgment as to how the faculty changes in the interim should lead prospective PhD students to think about the relevant hierarchy of PhD programs in the U.S. and elsewhere compared to the 2014 survey results.  Rather than offer a guestimate about an ordinal rank, I put the PhD programs into "clusters" of what I think should reasonably be considered "peer" programs among which students should choose based on considerations other than "overall prestige."   But I generally think it's reasonable to choose between programs in adjacent peer groups based on other considerations (financial aid, location, particular faculty, specialty strength etc.).

An * indicates a program that arguably belongs in the next highest peer grouping.  There are one or two possible senior moves afoot that might affect some of these groupings, but my understanding is that the programs involved have been candid with prospectives.

Group 1 (1)                                                                 Anglophone Programs outside the U.S.

New York University                                            

Group 2 (2-7)

Princeton University                                                    *Oxford University

*Rutgers University, New Brunswick

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Pittsburgh

University of Southern California

Yale University

Group 3 (8-15)

Columbia University                                                University of Toronto                                            

Harvard University                                            

Massachussetts Institute of Technology

Stanford University

University of Arizona

*University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Los Angeles

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Group 4 (16-20)

Brown University                                                    Cambridge University                                                                                        

*City University of New York Graduate Center

University of Chicago

University of Notre Dame

University of Texas, Austin

Group 5 (21-27)

Cornell University                                                University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Joint Program

Duke University                                                    University of Edinburgh                                                                                                

Indiana University, Bloomington                            King's College, London

University of California, Irvine                               University College London

*University of California, San Diego                        *Australian National University

*University of Wisconsin, Madison

Washington University, St. Louis

Group 6 (28-36)

Northwestern University                                       University of Sydney

Ohio State University                                            London School of Economics                                                 

University of California, Riverside                        

University of Colorado, Boulder                          

University of Maryland, College Park                   

University of Massachussetts, Amherst         

University of Miami

University of Pennsylvania

University of Virginia 

Group 7 (37-48)

Carnegie-Mellon University                               *University of Leeds

Florida State University                                    University of Birmingham

Georgetown University                                     University of Bristol

Johns Hopkins University                                  University of Sheffield

Rice University                                                Birkbeck College, University of London

Syracuse University                                          University of Reading  

University of California, Davis                          University of York

University of California, Santa Barbara             University of British Columbia

University of Connecticut, Storrs                      *University of Western Ontario

University of Illinois, Chicago                           McGill University

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul   Monash University

University of Rochester                                   University of Melbourne

                                                                      University of Auckland

Group 8 (49-60)

Arizona State University                                University of Glasgow

Boston University                                          University of Manchester

Purdue University                                          University of Durham

Saint Louis University                                    University of Southampton

State University of New York, Buffalo            University of Alberta

Texas A&M University                                    Queen's University, Kingston

University of Cincinnati                                 University of Waterloo

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign        McMaster University

University of Missouri, Columbia                    York University, Toronto

University of Nebraska, Lincoln                     Simon Fraser University

University of Utah                                        University of Calgary             

University of Washington, Seattle                 University of Otago

                                                                   Victoria University, Wellington

                                                                   National University of Singapore