TheCenter The Top American Research Universities

• Robert Wood Johnson Policy Fellows, 2004-05• Searle Scholars, 2004• Sloan Research Fellows, 2004• US Secretary of Agriculture Honor Awards, 2004• Woodrow Wilson Fellows, 2004-05While the vast majority of these programs clearlyidentify a particular campus, in a few instances weused the institution’s web-based phone directory todetermine the correct campus.Doctorates AwardedSource: NCES IPEDS Completions Survey, doctoral degreesawarded between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004.Each year, universities report their degrees awardedto the NCES in the IPEDS Completions Survey.IPEDS provides straightforward instructions for reportingdoctoral degrees awarded, and we do not findany inconsistencies in reporting among the universitiesincluded in our rankings. IPEDS asks each institutionto identify the number of Doctor of Education,Doctor of Juridical Science, Doctor of Public Health,and Doctor of Philosophy degrees awarded betweenJuly 1 and June 30.Most institutions in our study submit degree databy campus or offer doctoral degrees solely or primarilyat the main campus.In addition to doctorate degrees, TheCenter presentsdegrees awarded at other levels—associate’s,bachelor’s, master’s, and professional degrees—inthe Student Characteristics table (see Data Tables,pp. 162).Postdoctoral AppointeesSource: NSF/Division of Science Resource Statistics (SRS)Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Scienceand Engineering, Fall 2003.Each year, NSF and NIH collect data from allinstitutions offering graduate programs in any science,engineering, or health field. The Survey of GraduateStudents and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering(also called the Graduate Student Survey orGSS) reflects graduate enrollment and postdoctoralemployment at the beginning of the academic year.Postdoctorates are defined in the GSS as “individualswith science and engineering PhD’s, MD’s, DDS’s orDVM’s and foreign degrees equivalent to U.S. doctorateswho devote their primary effort to their ownresearch training through research activities or studyin the department under temporary appointmentscarrying no academic rank.” The definition excludesclinical fellows and those in medical residency trainingprograms unless the primary purpose of their appointmentis for research training under a senior mentor.In the methodological notes for this survey, 5 NSFindicates that it verifies the data with the institutionalcoordinator when dramatic year-to-year fluctuationsare noted. In addition, in this data set, it is unclearwhether an institution has actually reported zeropostdocs or NSF has simply assigned a zero for nonresponse(rather than imputing by using prior-year orpeer data, as described in NSF methodological notes).This year, in cases where we suspect it is not a truezero, we left the field blank.Although each doctorate-granting campus submitsdata separately, NSF often aggregates them in itspublished reports. In all cases, we obtain the singlecampusdata for these schools directly from NSF.SAT ScoresSource: The Annual Survey of Colleges of the College Boardand Data Base, 2004-2005. Copyright © 2004 College EntranceExamination Board. All rights reserved.The College Board reports the 25 th and 75 th percentilesfor verbal and quantitative SAT I scores for mostinstitutions in our study. The institutions submit thesedata to The College Board each spring through its AnnualSurvey of Colleges. For our measure, we calculatedthe median of that range. Some institutions reportthe ACT instead of the SAT to The College Board. Inthose cases, we use a conversion table provided by TheCollege Board to generate a comparable SAT equivalentscore. 6 When an institution submits neither anSAT nor ACT score, we substitute data from the prioryear reported.5. Survey Methodology: Survey of Graduate Studentsand Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (Online:http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvygradpostdoc/)6. Concordance Between SAT I and ACT Scores for IndividualStudents, Research Notes 07, June 1999 (Online:http://www.collegeboard.org/research/html/rn_indx.html)Page 232Total Research Expenditures