There are some 4200 physicists listed in the 1949 edition of American Men of Science. Roughly three-fourths have a doctoral degree; only about eight percent have no graduate degree. The number of graduate degrees granted to this group by each of the major American graduate schools has been tabulated. More than 1800 of the 3000 doctoral degrees were awarded by thirteen leading institutions, each-of which granted over one hundred Ph.D. degrees. The University of Chicago has awarded the largest number, 230. After Chicago come Cornell, California (Berkeley), Michigan, California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia, Yale, Wisconsin, Princeton, and Illinois. Over sixty other North American schools and fifty European institutions have granted one or more of the Ph.D. degrees.
A survey of the doctorates awarded during successive five-year periods reveals significant changes in the order of productivity of institutions. Within the past decade many schools have expanded their graduate programs to the point at which they are making significant contributions in training at the doctoral level.
