November 23rd, 2011
U.S. News & World Report currently has the corner on the market for grad school rankings. It covers most, if not all, fields of graduate study, using specific sets of data and criteria to arrive at the numbers. (Other graduate school ranking systems are designed exclusively for specific fields of study, such as biomedical sciences, communication, engineering, philosophy, or psychology.) Here’s a bit about U.S. News’ always-anticipated guide:
U.S. News & World Report: America’s Best Graduate Schools
What it ranks
Graduate school programs in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine (or the big five: the five areas with the largest enrollments). Programs in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and other areas, including selected health specialties, are also ranked.
How it ranks
The big-five grad school rankings are based on two types of survey data: expert opinion about program quality, and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research, and students. All other grad school rankings are based solely on expert opinion.
Understanding the data
The statistical indicators in this ranking system fall into two categories: inputs, or measures of the qualities that students and faculty bring to the education experience; and outputs, measures of graduates’ achievements linked to their degrees.
Real-world application
If you’re interested in law, for instance, U.S. News grad school rankings can help you examine how successful each law school is at preparing graduates for the bar. If you plan to earn your MBA, you can use the grad school rankings to see which school’s graduates have the greatest earning power. Or if you want to be an engineer, you can look at each school’s research expenditures to get a sense of how cutting-edge your experience there might be.
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