Wellesley Students Are Among the Tops in Earning a Doctorate

For immediate release:
January 19, 2005
CONTACT:
Arlie Corday
781-283-3321


WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Wellesley College takes a top spot on an elite list of colleges and universities whose graduates go on to earn a Ph.D. The annual survey, “Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: Summary Report 2003,” sponsored by the National Science Foundation and several federal agencies, polled hundreds of colleges and universities on their students who became 1999–2003 doctorate recipients.

Among the 217 liberal arts colleges surveyed, Wellesley College ranked seventh in sending the most undergraduates—329—on to doctoral study. The top three institutions in that category were Oberlin College, Wesleyan University and Carleton College. Other survey categories include doctoral/research-extensive universities, in which University of California, Berkeley topped the list.

Women received 45 percent of all doctorates granted in 2003, the same percentage as in 2002. Thirty-two percent of doctorate recipients who declared their citizenship came from outside the United States. The largest number of foreign doctorate recipients came from China, Korea and India, respectively.

For the second year in a row, American women topped their male counterparts with 51 percent of doctorates earned by U.S. citizens. A women’s college since its founding in 1870, Wellesley College has an enrollment of 2,300 undergraduates from 49 states and 64 countries.

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