The rankings of doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline. U.S. News conducted the surveys in psychology and economics in fall 2021 and early 2022. U.S. News conducted the survey of doctoral programs in English, history, political science, sociology, and criminology and criminal justice in fall 2020 and early 2021.
For surveys conducted in fall 2021 and early 2022, U.S. News sent each school offering a doctoral program two surveys per discipline. Questionnaires were sent to department heads and directors of graduate studies in economics and psychology – or, alternatively, to a senior faculty member who teaches graduate students. The doctoral programs considered in this survey were based on programs that granted five or more doctoral degrees in the five academic years from 2015-2016 through 2019-2020 in each field surveyed, according to the U.S. Department of Education's annual IPEDS Completions survey of degrees awarded.
U.S. News collected the names of those surveyed in fall 2021 and early 2022 from each school in summer 2021. These two rankings were published in 2022.
For surveys conducted in fall 2020 and early 2021, U.S. News sent each school offering a doctoral program two surveys per discipline. Questionnaires were sent to department heads and directors of graduate studies in English, history, political science and sociology – or, alternatively, to a senior faculty member who teaches graduate students. The doctoral programs considered in this survey were based on programs that granted five or more doctoral degrees in the five academic years from 2014-2015 through 2018-2019 in each field surveyed, according to the U.S. Department of Education's annual IPEDS Completions survey of degrees awarded.
U.S. News collected the names of those surveyed in fall 2020 and early 2021 from each school in summer 2020. All these rankings were published in 2021.
For the fall 2020 and early 2021 survey of doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice, U.S. News sent each school three surveys. The Association of Doctoral Programs in Criminology and Criminal Justice provided U.S. News with all the names of doctoral programs to survey and the names of all survey respondents, consisting of top academics at each of those programs. This ranking was published in 2021.
The questionnaires asked respondents to rate the academic quality of the programs at other institutions on a 5-point scale: 5 (outstanding), 4 (strong), 3 (good), 2 (adequate) or 1 (marginal). Individuals who were unfamiliar with a particular school's programs were asked to select "don't know."
Scores for each school were determined by computing a trimmed mean – eliminating the two highest and two lowest responses – of the ratings of all respondents who rated that school; average scores were then sorted in descending order.
A school’s rank should be one consideration – not the lone determinant – in where a student applies. The rankings reflect the peer assessments of academic quality, but other considerations involving location, environment, strength of different fields, cost after tuition and financial aid, and job placement are also very important.
Here is the number of schools surveyed in each discipline: 42 in criminology and criminal justice; 157 in English; 146 in history; 120 in political science; and 117 in sociology. Response rates were: criminology and criminal justice, 96%; English, 34%; history, 32%; political science, 46%; and sociology, 46%.
In psychology, a school was listed once on the survey even if it grants a doctoral degree in psychology in multiple departments. Programs in clinical psychology are ranked separately in the health section of the Best Graduate Schools rankings.
There were 331 psychology programs surveyed, with a response rate of 21.3%. There were 139 economics programs surveyed, with a response rate of 46.4%.
Schools with social sciences and humanities doctoral programs whose overall rankings are based solely on a 5-point peer assessment score are ranked from highest to lowest based on that peer assessment score.
