Berkeley and L&S Graduate Programs Ranked at the Top
Berkeley’s graduate programs have been consistently ranked at or near the top in the nation for their academic excellence. According to the last study of American universities conducted by the National Research Council, UC Berkeley ranks first in the number of research programs considered "distinguished" for the scholarship of their faculty (32) and first in the number of graduate programs (35) considered to be among the top 10 in their fields. Of these, 26 programs were in the College of Letters and Science — a number equal to those such ranked at Harvard. See NRC rankings.
A 2006 listing of top graduate schools conducted by U.S. News & World Report ranks Cal’s doctoral programs in the top five in all 15 categories considered by the magazine — an accomplishment attained in that survey by no other university. See U.S. News rankings.
US News & Worlds Report Rankings of Graduate Programs, 2006
| Ph.D Institution: | UC Berkeley | Stanford | MIT | Harvard | Princeton |
| Biological Sciences | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| Chemistry | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 14 |
| Computer Science | 1 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 9 |
| Economics | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Education | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Engineering | 3 | 2 | 1 | 20 | 11 |
| English | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | |
| History | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | |
| Geology | 3 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 11 |
| Mathematics | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Applied Math | 5 | 4 | 1 | 21 | 5 |
| Physics | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Political Science | 5 | 2 | 10 | 1 | 4 |
| Psychology | 2 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 5 |
| Sociology | 2 | 6 | 8 | 6 | |
| Percent of programs in top 5 | 100% | 93% | 82% | 67% | 57% |
