Graduate school may be a critical step in your higher education, whether you are interested in expanding your knowledge, learning a specialization, or earning advanced credentials required by your profession. The best graduate schools in DC offer advanced degrees, such as master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as opportunities for independent research, mentorships, and professional networking.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence in their fields of study.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.
There are 7 doctorate-granting graduate schools in DC. Our ranking of the best graduate schools in the DC is composed of both private and public schools. To be included, schools must be fully accredited non-profit institutions, and must offer doctoral degrees and a broad array of graduate degrees.
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
94%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1465/33
Georgetown University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
43%
Graduation
85%
Student body
21K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/31
George Washington University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
79%
Student body
12K
Median SAT/ACT
1300/29
American University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
64%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1205/24
Howard University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
74%
Student body
5K
The Catholic University of America’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$18K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
44%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
915/16
Gallaudet University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
23%
Student body
3K
University of the District of Columbia’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utiulized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.
Want to be an Academic Influence Insider?
Sign up to get the latest news, information, and rankings in our upcoming newsletter.