St. Olaf ranks high among liberal arts colleges in the number of its graduates who earn doctoral degrees. The data below is based on the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates and compares St. Olaf College to the other Baccalaureate-Arts & Sciences Colleges in the Carnegie 2021 classification.
Total Number of Doctorates Earned in Different Periods
| rank* | Institution | 2020- 2024 | 2014- 2023 | 2004- 2013 | 1994- 2003 | 1984- 1993 |
| 1 | Oberlin College | 402 | 848 | 883 | 1,107 | 955 |
| 2 | Carleton College | 375 | 844 | 836 | 766 | 578 |
| 3 | Swarthmore College | 365 | 805 | 732 | 770 | 548 |
| 4 | Wesleyan University | 348 | 785 | 770 | 780 | 492 |
| 5 | Williams College | 336 | 718 | 668 | 644 | 357 |
| 6 | St. Olaf College | 314 | 630 (8th) | 533 (10th) | 599 (8th) | 454 (8th) |
| 7 | Vassar College | 310 | 682 | 595 | 503 | 406 |
| 8 | Wellesley College | 302 | 656 | 603 | 608 | 544 |
| 9 | Pomona College | 299 | 549 | 499 | 493 | 412 |
| 10 | Smith College | 297 | 628 | 640 | 634 | 526 |
* rank in most recent five years
St. Olaf Graduates, Degrees Earned by Discipline
Looking at specific disciplines, the following table shows the number of Ph.D.s awarded to St. Olaf graduates during the period 2015-2024 and the rank of St. Olaf among Bac-A&S colleges as a source of Ph.D.s in those disciplines.
Discipline – Broad Field |
Number |
Rank |
Discipline – Major |
||
| Agricultural sciences and natural resources | 17 | 4 |
| Agricultural sciences | 10 | 1 |
| Biological and biomedical sciences | 169 | 2 |
| Biochemistry and biophysics | 13 | 5 |
| Bioinformatics, biostatistics, and computational biology | 19 | 1 |
| Biology and biomedical sciences, other | 8 | 10 |
| Cellular and developmental biology, and anatomy | 8 | 2 |
| Ecology, evolutionary biology, and epidemiology | 38 | 3 |
| Microbiology and immunology | 22 | 1 |
| Neurobiology and neurosciences | 24 | 6 |
| Physiology, pathology, and cancer biology | 11 | 3 |
| Education | 36 | 13 |
| Teacher education and teaching fields | 12 | 4 |
| Geosciences, atmospheric, and ocean sciences | ||
| Ocean, marine, and atmospheric sciences | 12 | 8 |
| Health sciences | 24 | 4 |
| Health sciences, other | 13 | 1 |
| Pharmaceutical sciences | 3 | 2 |
| Humanities and arts | ||
| Music and performing arts | 21 | 2 |
| Philosophy and religious studies | 22 | 5 |
| Mathematics and Statistics | 45 | 3 |
| Applied mathematics | 9 | 3 |
| Mathematics | 8 | 6 |
| Mathematics and statistics, other | 15 | 7 |
| Statistics | 13 | 2 |
| Other non-science and engineering | ||
| Public administration and social services | 11 | 1 |
| Physical sciences | 80 | 5 |
| Chemistry | 59 | 3 |
| Psychology | ||
| Counseling and applied psychology | 15 | 4 |
| Psychology, other | 9 | 7 |
Note: We have selected disciplines or groups of disciplines where St. Olaf ranks among the top 10; please contact the IE&A Office for other disciplines. Not all detailed disciplines are available in the NCSES Interactive Data Tool
Sources:
Classification of Institutions: The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education
Doctorates earned: Data compiled from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Survey of Earned Doctorates. Note that professional degrees, including Psy.D., D.Min., Pharm.D., M.D., etc. are not included.
Definition of rankings:
Rank assigned by total sum of doctorates earned by institutions’ alumni during each time period noted. Ranked positions of ties were skipped in order to reflect the total number of institutions with valid values for the given time period in the ranks.
2020-2024 and 2014-2023 data accessed May 2026, earlier data accessed via former WebCaspar database 1/6/2017 and 6/9/2017