Published online 4 February 2009 | Nature 457, 642-643 (2009)
The lure of the lab (Excerpts only, not full article)
The University of California, Berkeley, told Nature that its applications for doctoral programmes in those fields climbed by almost 7% from last year, with 11,242 people applying for programmes starting this year.
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the second-largest awarder of US science and engineering doctorates, saw overall application numbers climb by 16%. Engineering applications leapt by 21%, whereas those for physics actually declined slightly. Janet Weiss, dean of Michigan's graduate school, says that applications from domestic students increased more than those from students abroad.
The trend in domestic students this year was also apparent at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, another top-five school for science and engineering doctorates. Domestic applications rose by 25%, whereas foreign ones rose by 13%.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the third-largest awarder of science and engineering doctorates, received 9,475 doctoral applications this year, a 6% increase. During the previous four years, the growth in applications had held steady at about 4% a year.
Other universities, such as the University of Toronto in Canada, the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, have also reported large rises in graduate applications, says Stewart.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!
