Berkeley Graduate Profile: A Statistical Snapshot

Home » News & Announcements » Berkeley Graduate Profile

Among the 36,000 students at the University of California, Berkeley, nearly 30% are pursuing doctoral and master’s degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The Berkeley Graduate Profile, produced by the Institutional Research and External Relations units in the Graduate Division, offers a complete picture of doctoral and master’s student population, including enrollments in each broad discipline, information about graduate student funding, and some of the most important indicators of the exceptional quality of Berkeley’s graduate programs.

Graduate Student Enrollment

Originating location for the Fall 2012 incoming graduate class

Applications
Fall 2002	33,603
Fall 2012	40,081

Enrollment (Fall 2012)	Doctoral	Master’s	Total
Overall	5,804 (57%)	4,321 (43%)	10,125
Incoming class	993	1,994	2,987

Applicant Age
Average	28
Youngest	19
Oldest	72

Women	Underrepresented Minorities
46%	15%

Ethnic Diversity	Total
American Indian/Alaskan Native	116
Black/African-American	353
Chicano/Mexican-American	391
Chinese/Chinese-American	730
East Indian/Pakistani	387
International	2,064
Japanese/Japanese-American	110
Korean	163
Latino/Other Spanish-American	334
Other/Unknown	1,210
Pacific Islander	16
Pilipino/Filipino	122
Thai/Other Asian	158
Vietnamese	115
White/Caucasian	3,854

U.S. Graduate Students	Doctoral	Master’s	Total
California	1,781	2,370	4,151
New York	277	138	415
Massachusetts	221	69	290
Texas	161	72	233
Washington	120	99	219
Illinois	158	51	209
Pennsylvania	147	32	179
New Jersey	122	34	156
Maryland	103	36	139
Michigan	96	16	112
Florida	75	35	110
Virginia	80	26	106
Oregon	74	29	103
All other states	910	392	1,302
Total	4,325	3,399	7,724

International Graduate Students	Doctoral	Master’s	Total
China	304	141	445
India	121	163	284
Korea	120	53	173
Canada	90	30	120
Taiwan	76	25	101
France	29	44	73
Chile	32	34	66
Japan	22	39	61
Germany	36	17	53
Brazil	26	17	43
Israel	28	13	41
Turkey	25	16	41
Thailand	26	14	40
Mexico	15	23	38
Singapore	25	11	36
United Kingdom	20	10	30
Italy	27	3	30
Iran	21	2	23
Australia	13	8	21
Spain	10	11	21
Greece	13	6	19
Vietnam	15	4	19
70 other countries	172	114	286
Total	1,266	798	2,064

Graduate majors (Fall 2012 Enrollment)

101 graduate majors (master’s and doctoral), 93 of which grant doctoral degrees.

School/College	Doctoral	Master’s/ First Professional	Total
Business Administration	73	1,365.5	1,438.5
Chemistry	512	9	521
Education	260.5	103	363.5
Engineering	1,383.5	322.5	1,706
Environmental Design	106.5	272.5	379
Information	17	94.5	111.5
Journalism	–	95	95
Law	50	1,022.5	1,072.5
Letters & Science (all divisions)	2,804.50	71.5	2,876
Arts & Humanities	741.5	17	758.5
Biological Sciences	558	2	560
Mathematics & Physical Sciences	552.5	17	569.5
Social Sciences	952.5	35.5	988
Natural Resources	351.5	36.5	388
Optometry	36	271	307
Public Health	154	309.5	463.5
Public Policy	13.5	156.5	170
Social Welfare	41	191.5	232.5
Individualized Major	1	–	1
TOTAL	5,804	4,321	10,125

Degrees Granted

Degree Date	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Doctoral	803*	769*	770*	801*	753	895*	864*	863*	888*	906*	887**
Master’s/Professional	2,087	2,158	2,295	2,390	2,337	2,351	2,406	2,385	2,397	2,481	2,506

* The most doctoral degrees awarded in the nation.
** National data not yet available.

Job placement of doctoral degree recipients

Based on surveys of students graduating from 2007-08 to 2009-10, conducted 12-18 months after graduation.

	Count	Percent
Business (for profit)	542	21.3%
College or university*	1,441	56.5%	tenure-track faculty	501	34.8%
Government	94	3.7%	postdoctoral appointment	655	45.5%
K-12 school	22	0.9%	non-tenure track faculty	154	10.7%
National laboratory	115	4.5%	other	131	9%
Self-employed	18	.7%
Other	320	12.4%
Total	2,552	100%

*First positions taken by Berkeley Ph.D.s who went into academia

Graduate student funding

Costs of graduate education at Berkeley (for academic graduate students).

	2012-13
	CA resident	Nonresident
Educational fee	11,220	11,220
Registration fee	972	972
Campus fees and health insurance	2,988	2,988
Nonresident tuition (NRT)¹		15,102
Subtotal (all fees and NRT)²	15,180	30,282
Living expenses (academic year only)³	22,600	22,600
Summer (living expenses and fees)	5,000	5,000
Total	42,780	57,882

¹ NRST is $12,245 for majors with professional degree supplemental tuition
² Some majors have supplemental fees
³ See financial aid website for up-to-date living expenses

Sources of financial support for graduate students (2011-2012)

An array of funding programs

Campuswide multi-year fellowships:

Berkeley offers several prestigious multi-year awards for the most highly qualified entering doctoral students, including:

Berkeley Graduate Fellowships (all fields);
Chancellor’s Fellowships and Cota Robles Fellowships (all fields; for applicants who will enhance the diversity of the graduate student population at Berkeley);
Mellon Graduate Student Excellence Fellowships (humanities and history);
Regents’ Intern Fellowships (humanities and social sciences);
Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Fellowships (science and engineering).

Humanities/Social Sciences multi-year packages include:

2 years covered by Graduate Division (full fees plus stipend for the academic year and summer)
2 years covered by department through a combination of fellowships, GSI (teaching) or GSR (research) appointments, including fees and a salary
1 year of Doctoral Completion Fellowship from Graduate Division, including full fees plus stipend (contingent on timely advancement to candidacy)

Sciences/Engineering multi-year packages include:

2 years covered by Graduate Division (full fees plus stipend for the academic year and summer)
3 years covered by department through a combination of fellowships, GSI (teaching) or GSR (research) appointments, including fees and a salary

These awards are offered to doctoral students of outstanding achievement and potential through a highly competitive selection process conducted by a campuswide faculty committee. 15% of the 1,000 doctoral students who enroll in Berkeley’s graduate programs each year receive multi-year fellowships.

Fellowships funding chart: 15,000 doctoral applicants. 2,000 doctoral applicants offered admission. 400 doctoral admittees nominated for fellowships. 270 doctoral admittees offered fellowships. 150 fellowships accepted.

Other sources of graduate student support for entering and continuing students:

Departmental support packages:

First-year departmental fellowship (from Graduate Division’s block grant funds or private endowments)
Remaining years covered through a combination of departmental fellowships, GSI (teaching) and GSR (research) appointments

Continuing students may also apply for fellowship support from the Graduate Division, including: Mentored Research Awards, Summer Fellowships, Doctoral Completion Fellowships, UC Dissertation Awards, Conference Travel Grants, Research Travel Vouchers and Parent Grants, as well as several privately-sponsored fellowship program.

Competitive Pressures

From the 2010 UCOP Graduate Student Support Survey:

Berkeley’s top competitors:

Stanford
MIT
Harvard
Princeton
Cal Tech
University of Chicago
Cornell
Columbia
University of Washington, Seattle
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Deciding factors for students considering graduate offers of admission from several schools:

Academic reputation of each university
Research interests of faculty in their discipline
Amount of financial support
Type of financial support
Multi-year financial support

Rankings and other measures of excellence

The National Research Council (NRC) has found that Berkeley continues to be one of the nation’s most preeminent universities for doctoral studies. In the latest study, Berkeley had the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation, based on a regression analysis involving 20 criteria from more than 5,000 programs at 212 institutions. For more information see the article "National Research Council ranks UC Berkeley’s Ph.D. programs among nation’s best" and rankings graphic.

Number of programs ranked within a range that extends into the top ten:
1	University of California, Berkeley	48 of 52
2	Harvard	47 of 52
3	Stanford	40 of 47

Number of programs ranked within a range that extends into the top five:
2	University of California, Berkeley	43
2	Harvard	40
3	Stanford	30

Number of programs assigned an upper range of first place:
1	Harvard	19
2	University of California, Berkeley	16
3	Stanford	11

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (cumulative 2001-2011)
1	University of California, Berkeley	1,333
2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1,242
3	Stanford University	1,070
4	Harvard University	847
5	University of Michigan	399
6	University of Washington	369
7	Cornell University	342
8	Princeton University	314
9	Georgia Institute of Technology	286
10	California Institute of Technology	278

Counts represent the number of NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award offers to students who indicated each institution as their first choice for graduate school during the period 2001-2011, from the total 13,587 GRFP awards made during the 11-year period. The metric shows the choices of the nation's top science, engineering, and social science graduate students, reflecting which institutions they believe offer them the best graduate research opportunities.

Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships (cumulative 1986-2011)
University of California, Berkeley	105
University of California, Los Angeles	71
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	73
Harvard University	54
University of Texas, Austin	46
Yale University	41
Stanford University	40

Top Producers of U. S. Fulbright Students	Applicants	No. of Awards
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	141	40
Harvard University	132	31
Brown University	85	29
University of Chicago	102	24
University of California, Berkeley	97	23
Yale University	98	23

Rankings

The 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities, compiled by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, rates UC Berkeley number four in the world (after Harvard, Stanford, and MIT). Berkeley was the top-ranked public university. The ranking compared 500 higher education institutions worldwide, public and private. It used a variety of indicators of academic or research performance, including:

Nobel Prizes and other international awards won by alumni and faculty or staff.
Highly-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories.
Articles published in selected top journals and noted in major citation indexes.

According to the latest graduate school rankings by U.S. News & World Report Berkeley is ranked 3^rd in Engineering, 7^th in Business, 13^th in Education, 7^th in Law, 8^th in Public Health, and 6^th in Public Policy. In academic graduate programs, Berkeley came away with first place for its departments of Chemistry, Computer Sciences, English, History, Psychology, and Sociology.

Graduate Alumni

Awards
Nobel Prize winners	20
MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" recipients	39
National Medal of Science recipients	30

Additional Resources:

More News:

UC Berkeley is at or near the top in recent rankings of universities in the U.S. and the world

Last Updated: March 18, 2013 4:03 PM