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 graduate programs (48) considered to be among the top 10 in their fields. Of these, 22 programs were in the College of Letters & Science. See NRC rankings.
A 2017 listing of top graduate schools conducted by U.S. News & World Report ranks many of Berkeley's doctoral programs in the top five.
US News & World Report Rankings of Graduate Programs, 2017
| Ph.D. Institution: | UC Berkeley | Stanford | MIT | Harvard | Princeton |
| Biological Sciences | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| Chemistry | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 15 |
| Computer Science | 1 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 8 |
| Economics | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Engineering | 3 | 2 | 1 | 24 | 18 |
| English | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| History | 1 | 4 | 27 | 4 | 1 |
| Mathematics | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Physics | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Psychology | 2 | 1 | 9 | 4 | 7 |
| Sociology | 1 | 4 | 6 | 1 |
NRC Rankings of L&S Graduate Programs, by Department*
| Anthropology | 3rd |
| Art History | 1st |
| Astronomy & Astrophysics | 1st |
| Biochemistry & Molecular Biology | 1st |
| Classics | 2nd |
| Comparative Literature | 2nd |
| Earth & Planetary Science | 2nd |
| Ecology & Evolutionary Biology | 2nd |
| Economics | 3rd |
| English | 1st |
| French | 6th |
| Genetics | 1st |
| Geography | 3rd |
| German | 1st |
| History | 4th |
| Linguistics | 2nd |
| Mathematics | 1st |
| Music | 8th |
| Neuroscience | 5th |
| Philosophy | 2nd |
| Physics | 1st |
| Political Science | 1st |
| Psychology | 21st |
| Sociology | 2nd |
| Spanish & Portuguese | 3rd |
| Statistics | 2nd |
Top universities by number of graduate programs in the top 10 in their fields (NRC rankings).
Rank
- University of California, Berkeley [48]
- Michigan [40]
- Wisconsin [36]
- Yale [32]
- Cornell [31]
- Princeton [29]
- Harvard [28]
- MIT [27]
- Pennsylvania [27]
- Columbia [26]
- Chicago [24]
- Stanford [23]
- College of Letters & Science [22] (for comparison only)
- UC San Diego [13]
* Source: National Research Council 2011 (R rankings, 5th percentile; in some cases, the rankings are tied). The National Research Council performs this assessment approximately once every 10 years.