Our graduate students have been very successful in securing positions at leading universities such as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc. and research organizations. The Placement History list indicates the current and original placements of students that obtained a PhD in political science from UCSD. View Placement History (PDF). Updated placement history coming soon.
UC San Diego has ranked 24th out of 438 institutions in Washington Monthly's 2024 national university college rankings.
UCSD Graduate School (Political Science) ranked 8th in 2025.
UCSD ranked 21st out of 2,250 universities around the world.
Our Ph.D. program in Political Science is designed to break down barriers and build bridges across the subfields and give all of our students a broad command of the discipline as a whole, regardless of their area of specialization.
Director of Graduate Studies
Seth Hill
dgs-poli@ucsd.edu
SSB 394
Placement Director
Amna Salam
asalam@ucsd.edu
SSB 348
Student Affairs Manager
Ethel Lu
erlu@ucsd.edu
Graduate Coordinator
Joana Halnez
jhalnez@ucsd.edu