Penn State’s Political Science department earned a place among the top political science departments in the National Research Council’s nation-wide review of graduate programs published on September 28, 2010. According to the NRC and www.phds.org, out of 105 graduate programs in political science, Penn State ranked #5 using the NRC’s “S” scale. On the alternative “R” scale, the program was ranked #22. The NRC’s S index applied survey-based weights to 20 program characteristics measuring accomplishments in faculty research and student training, while the R ranking incorporated reputational data into a regression-based ranking model.
Joining Penn State in the top five programs on the “S” scale were Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and New York University. Penn State’s political science department also scored in the top 10% of the 105 Political Science programs on faculty publication rate, citation counts, and median time to degree, reflecting the department’s accomplishments in these key areas. The full NRC report is available at http://www.nap.edu/rdp and details on rankings can be found at http://graduate-school.phds.org/.