The Incoherent Ponderer does a quick'n'dirty analysis of physics department rankings and how their graduates place.
Shit scary stuff.
Don't just look at the absolute numbers, look at the percentages...
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Ugh.
Very scary.
Also scary how well it correlates with the US News rankings. A case can be made here for closed-loop nepotism....
I'd be interested to see how the numbers stack up for "all credible Physics programs," University and SLA alike.
I think Vandy didn't make it into the top fifty 15 years ago when the National Academy last did their rankings. However, places like here have "more than their share" of people who got degrees from Berkeley, Caltech, etc. I have this impression that the story at all colleges and universities would be similar. Not *quite* as top-heavy as the story for the top 50 universities, but still top heavy.
Ultimately, we produce too many graduate students. There's an oversupply of people to fill faculty positions, so there are plenty of "top 10 school" alums to go around.
-Rob