10 Colleges That Lead to Graduate School
The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College and The Short List: Grad School to find data that matters to you in your college or grad school search.
For some college students, pursuing an advanced degree after graduation is inevitable. (Premed students, for instance, know they'll need to go to medical school to become doctors.) Others may immediately pursue a graduate education, at a law school, perhaps, to follow a lifelong passion. Still other students may look to graduate school as a safe haven from a stagnant job market.
[See what Americans think about the value of a graduate degree.]
Whatever the reason, many students enroll in graduate school shortly after completing their college degree. In fact, colleges across the country send, on average, about 26 percent of their alumni to graduate school within one year of graduation, according to school-reported data to U.S. News.
[See how some schools are forging direct paths from B.A.s to M.B.A.s.]
Each year, U.S. News surveys colleges nationwide for a myriad of data, including graduate placement information. In 2011, 648 colleges reported how many of their graduating seniors typically pursue graduate studies within the next year. From that data, the following list was compiled.
Schools that were designated by U.S. News as Unranked were not considered for this report. U.S. News did not calculate numerical rankings for Unranked programs because the schools did not supply U.S. News with enough key statistical data to be eligible.
With 89 percent of its graduates attending graduate school the following year, Yeshiva University far outpaces any other institution in the country in this metric, but some other institutions post high percentages as well. These are the top 10 colleges that sent the highest percentages of their graduating seniors to graduate school within a year:
School name (State) | Graduates pursuing advanced degree | U.S. News rank & category |
|---|---|---|
89% | 45, National Universities | |
79% | RNP*, National Liberal Arts Colleges | |
75% | RNP, Regional Colleges (Midwest) | |
75% | 87, Regional Universities (West) | |
75% | 41, Regional Colleges (North) | |
70% | 150, National Universities | |
66% | RNP, Regional Colleges (Midwest) | |
65% | 151, National Liberal Arts Colleges | |
64% | 7, Regional Colleges (North) | |
63% | 52, Regional Colleges (South) |
Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find placement data, complete rankings, and much more.
*RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one fourth of its rankings category. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.
U.S. News surveyed more than 1,800 colleges and universities for our 2011 survey of undergraduate programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While the data comes from the schools themselves, these lists have no influence over U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools.
