Ranked #11 in popularity, chemistry is one of the most sought-after doctor's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 9 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Chemistry Doctor's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 417 doctor's degrees in chemistry during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Chemistry School for Your Doctor's Degree
Your choice of chemistry for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality chemistry program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on chemistry students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of chemistry students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt chemistry students go into to obtain their doctor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized chemistry related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for chemistry students working on their doctor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Chemistry Doctor's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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It is difficult to beat University of California - Berkeley if you wish to pursue a doctor's degree in chemistry. UC Berkeley is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Berkeley.
Chemistry doctor's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley get an earnings boost of around $19,769 above the typical earnings of chemistry graduates.
It's difficult to beat University of California - Davis if you wish to pursue a doctor's degree in chemistry. Located in the suburb of Davis, UC Davis is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their doctorate from the chemistry program state that they receive average early career earnings of $71,322.
It's hard to beat University of California - Irvine if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in chemistry. UC Irvine is a very large public university located in the city of Irvine.
Students who graduate with their doctorate from the chemistry program state that they receive average early career income of $83,436.
UCSD is a fairly large public university located in the large city of La Jolla.
Those chemistry students who get their doctor's degree from University of California - San Diego receive $4,763 more than the typical chemistry student.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Your choice of chemistry for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality chemistry program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
