American university professors consistently rate the quality of graduate faculties at Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley as the highest in the nation, according to a survey released by the American Council of Education.

The survey, which rates graduate school faculties and programs in 36 academic fields, is a follow-up to a controversial study completed by the council in 1966 which rated Berkeley over Harvard as the nation's "best balanced, most distinguished university."

The new report seeks to avoid "invidious comparisons of institutions," according to Logan Wilson, president of the American Council on Education. The following schools, however, appear most often among the top five in the ratings: Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Yale, M. I. T., Michigan, Cal Tech, Wisconsin, Illinois, Columbia, and Rockefeller University.

The ratings were compiled on the basis of 6000 questionnaires distributed to selected scholars at 130 schools which asked the professors to rate the graduate programs and faculties at universities that offer doctorates in their disciplines. The survey did not include graduate programs in law, medicine, education, business, or architecture. It also did not rate master's programs in any field of study.

"It's all no more than high-level academic gossip," said one Harvard administrative source. "For people involved in higher education these things are already known but they are quite impressive to the legislative committees with which many hard-pressed state schools must contend."

In the wake of the report, administrators at schools across the country rushed to bolster or refute the report's findings on the prestige of their programs.

At Berkeley, which has been plagued by severe cutbacks in legislative support, Roger W. Heyns, the outgoing chancellor, declared that "the outstanding ratings given to Berkeley should please the citizens of California."

"But it is my duty to warn that this achievement is jeopardized by diminishing funds," he added.

At Columbia University, which declined in status in nearly every field from the previous survey, officials blamed unfavorable publicity stemming from recent student unrest. George K. Fraenkel, dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said that the quality of Columbia's faculty had improved since early in 1969, when the survey was completed. "If a survey were taken now, you would see quite a difference," he said.

"Although it is easy to pay too much attention to such ratings, they do afford a confirmation of our strengths and help to locate our weaknesses," said John T. Dunlop, dean of the Harvard Faculty.

Berkeley appears among the top five in 32 graduate fields and is first in eight fields. Harvard appears among the top five in 27 fields but is first in 14 of them. Most universities which received high ratings were large and comparatively well-endowed schools.

The study found that the overall quality of doctoral programs had improved since the last survey. In the previous study, nearly 70 per cent of the faculties received a score of "adequate-plus." The current report gave that grade to 80 per cent of the graduate faculties.

The number of graduate programs in all geographical regions has increased significantly, the report said. The South showed the highest increase, adding 191 new programs. The Nrotheast, however, had the greatest percentage of programs with high scores.

Concerning the glut in the Ph. D. market, the report questioned "the addition of more quality faculties and programs in areas of relatively abundant production of traditional Ph. D. degrees." Citing the lower quality of new programs in comparison with established programs, the report frowned upon further expansion at many aspiring universities.

"A more than sufficient supply of Ph. D.'s for most traditional uses can be trained in the graduate programs of, say, 50 or so top-rated institutions," the report said.