Achievement

TOP RANKING IN NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ASSESSMENT OF Ph.D. PROGRAMS. The Harvard Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy, created in 1999 as an IGERT degree program (grant no. 9870661) that combines traditional disciplinary training in political science or sociology with a multidisciplinary program of study in social policy, recently emerged as the leading program in its disciplinary category (sociology for survey purposes) on both the "regression-based" and "survey-based" rankings in the NRC Assessment of Ph.D. Programs 2010. While conclusions based on ranking schemes of this sort should not be overdrawn, the results nonetheless do convey an encouraging note of recognition for the value of the multidisciplinary IGERT model of graduate education. The program rated particularly high on student quality indicators, including GRE Q scores, % of 1st year students with external funding (non-IGERT); completion rate within 6 years, and % minority, as well as faculty awards and citations.