<p>Of course, the relative importance of these factors depends on the individual. For the small minority of high school seniors who are absolutely certain about their majors and career paths, and who are right that they will not change their minds, then the quality and depth of program is more important. For the far more common case of students who have some ideas, but really don’t know, then departmental quality differences are of little importance unless the differences are huge. For most students the overal student experience, the physcial location, and the extracurricular scene are more important.</p>
<p>By the way, of course the number of grads with a degree in a field predicts the number of PhD’s with a degree in the field. If you use this as a quality measure, then use the PhD’s per undergrad degree rate. This would tell you what proportion of English majors end up with doctoral degrees, a far more meaningful indicator of the intellectual environment than the raw number. You can get the doctoral degree production and the undergrad degree production from WebCASPAR. The tricky part is dealing with people who move from one field to another- comp lit majors who get doctoral degrees in English, and vice versa. Liberal arts collegs, esp those with lots of distribution requirements turn out people who major in history but go on to doctoral degrees in science, physics majors who become philosophers, etc. </p>
<p>It is safer to limit the analysis to fields in which a very strong undergrad background is required for doctoral studies. Thus, there are not many English majors who get doctoral degrees in engineering, simply because of the course volume required as an undergrad to be ready to enter an engineering grad program. But there are math, chem, physics, and other non engineering majors in engineering grad schools.</p>
<p>But back to the main point. A high PhD production, even per captia, does not mean a great department. It might mean a good department for someone who wants a PhD, but it might not mean a great department for someone who wants to end education at the BA level. Or who wants to devote most of their time to the orchestra, while getting a solid education.</p>