Maybe too late to see this now but to answer your Q I'm at Edinburgh; IMO an ok university but not prestigious. Most EU PhDs are 3.5-4 years, I have a friend wi

Maybe too late to see this now but to answer your Q I'm at Edinburgh; IMO an ok university but not prestigious. Most EU PhDs are 3.5-4 years, I have a friend with dual US-UK citizenship that chose to do his PhD over here for this reason. I agree wrt differences between similarly ranked institutions. I'd say similarly that the variance within groups at a top 5 school is greater than the variance between groups when compared with slightly lower ranking institutes.