The National Research Council recently announced the results of its extensive Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs . The NRC study data were collected in 2006 and concerned with the period of several years prior to 2006.

 

Concerning our Ph.D. program here at Rutgers: the NRC study recognizes the general excellence of our program. Among 127 mathematics PhD programs nationwide, our overall rankings based on two different methods are:

• Regression based, 12-36;

• Survey based, 14-41.

The study also provided separate rankings for the following sub-categories:

• Research, 10-30;

• Student Outcomes, 36-96; Important: read more on student outcomes

• Diversity, 55-89. 

As is evident this NRC study does not produce a single, linear ranking of program qualities. It uses a sophisticated, statistics based methodology. Here is a brief explanation of the NRC ranking methodology, and here contains a detailed description by NRC of the NRC ranking methodology. The numbers provided in each rating reflects the range between the 5th and the 95th percentile of our rankings. 

 

One way to extract linear orderings of all programs from the NRC data would be to compare their rankings at the 5th and 95th percentile. For the Regression-based Overall Ranking the data in the NRC Study shows that there are 17 programs ranked above Rutgers at the 5th percentile and 15 programs ranked above Rutgers at the 95th percentile. For the Survey-based Overall Ranking there are 24 programs ranked above at both percentiles.

 

The NRC data give our program high marks for

• Percent Faculty with Grants;
• Citations per Publication;
• Publications per Allocated Faculty;
• Percent 1st yr Student w/ Full Support (100%);
• Percent Non-Asian Minority Faculty;
• Percent International Students.

More on our Student Outcomes data

Our lower rankings on Student Outcomes are based on below average scores in the NRC study on Percent Completing within 6 Years and on Percent Students in Academic Positions . We are proud of our record in both of these areas, and believe the statistics reported in the NRC study do not provide an accurate picture of our program.

Here is a link that discusses the graduation rate within our Ph.D. program

Here is a link that discusses the success of our graduates in finding academic employment.