What are the best U.S. schools to spend 4 to 7 years in a Ph.D. in International Relations?
In its Jan-Feb 2012 issue, Foreign Policy dared to offer a ranking, part of the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) survey, conducted by Paul C. Avey, Michael C. Desch, James D. Long, Daniel Maliniak, Susan Peterson, and Michael J. Tierney. All additional information provided was added by Foreign Policy and is not part of the survey results.
1. Harvard University
Admitted class size: 14-26
Average time to graduate: 5-6 years
Funding: All admitted students considered for fellowships, amounting to full/partial tuition and stipends
Star professors: Robert Bates, Jeffry Frieden, Stephen M. Walt
Website: http://www.gov.harvard.edu/graduate-program
2. Princeton University
Admitted class size: 40
Average time to graduate: 5 years, minimum
Funding: Full tuition funding for four years, including living stipends
Star professors: Robert Keohane, Uwe Reindhart, Anne-Marie Slaughter,
Website: http://wws.princeton.edu/
3. Stanford University
Admitted class size: 12
Average time to graduate: N/A
Funding: Full tuition and living stipend provided
Star professors: Francis Fukuyama, Stephen Krasner, Condoleezza Rice
Website: http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/
4. Columbia University
Admitted class size: 20
Average time to graduate: 5-7 years
Funding: Guaranteed five-year fellowship, including living stipends
Star professors: Jagdish Bhagwati, Robert Jervis, Jeffrey Sachs
Website: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/polisci/index.html
5. Yale University
Admitted class size: 23
Average time to graduate: 6.7
Funding: Guaranteed funding for five years. The first four years of tuition are guaranteed, followed by a university dissertation fellowship
Star professors: Bruce Ackerman, David Cameron, Bruce Russett
Website: http://www.yale.edu/polisci/index.html
6. University of Chicago
Admitted class size: 15-20
Average time to graduate: N/A
Funding: Full tuition, plus $21,000 for five years, including $3,000 summer funding
Star professors: John Mearsheimer, Robert Pape
7. University of California/San Diego
Admitted class size: 15-20
Average time to graduate: 5-6 years
Funding: Guaranteed for four years, followed by teaching assistantships
Star professors: Peter Gourevitch, Larry Krause, Susan Shirk
Website: http://irps.ucsd.edu/programs/phd-in-political-science-and-international-affairs-phd/
8. University of California/Berkeley
Admitted class size: 18-26
Average time to graduate: 5-6 years, including 1 year of field research
Funding: Five years of funding via fellowships, research, and teaching assistantships, (contingent on California residency)
Star professors: Barry Eichengreen
Website: http://polisci.berkeley.edu/
9. University of Michigan/Ann Arbor
Admitted class size: 12-17
Average time to graduate: 4-6 years
Funding: Five years of funding, including a fellowship for the first year
Star professors: Paul Courant, Kenneth Lieberthal Website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/polisci/
10. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Admitted Class Size: 7-11
Average Time to Graduate: 5-6 years
Funding: Five years of funding, including nine-month stipends
Star professors: Daron Acemoglu, Barry R. Posen, Daniel Posner
Website: http://web.mit.edu/polisci/academic-programs/graduate/phd.shtml
Methodology: The authors are researchers with the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project at the College of William and Mary. The fourth wave of the TRIP survey explores the views of international relations (IR) faculty from every four-year college and university in the United States, as identified by U.S. News & World Report, for their views on various international issues. The results include the responses of 1,582 faculty members, representing more than 40 percent of IR scholars in the United States, collected between August and November 2011. The parallel survey of practitioners surveyed 244 current and former policymakers who served from 1989 to 2008 in national security decision-making roles at the level of assistant secretary, director, and designated policymaking groups within several U.S. government agencies.You can find complete results from the survey of U.S. IR scholars here.