By Jane R. Elgass
The School of Social Work has been named tops in the nation in the fifth annual “America’s Best Graduate Schools” rankings by U.S. News & World Report. The School of Public Health’s master’s degree program is ranked fifth, and the School of Music fourth. This is the first time the magazine has ranked social work, public health and music programs.
The rankings appear in the March 14 issue, on newsstands today.
School of Social Work Dean Paula Allen-Meares says the ranking “confirms what we know—that based on the excellence of our faculty and our students, we truly are a top program. In addition, we are a very productive unit in scholarly and research activities.”
School of Public Health Interim Dean Richard G. Cornell notes that “the ratings reflect the overall reputations of the schools and not just master’s degree programs. The other public health programs are well-recognized and more research-intensive than we are. We’re pleased to be grouped with them.”
School of Music Dean Paul C. Boylan said he is “gratified that we have been included among the leading music schools, as measured by this particular survey.”
In general, to arrive at the rankings, U.S. News sent questionnaires to deans, top administrators and senior faculty of the accredited schools in each discipline. Respondents rated only the institutions in their own disciplines. They were asked to rank the reputations of schools by placing them into tiers of academic quality, taking into account a school’s scholarship, curriculum, and the quality of its faculty and graduate students. In several schools, individuals from outside the academic community also ranked programs.
“As always, I caution that these polls are not definitive by any means,” says Walter Harrison, vice president for university relations. “It is, however, a wonderful tribute to the University that so many of its graduate and professional programs are so highly ranked. You can’t find a greater breadth of excellence anywhere in the country.”
Other units receiving rankings:
—College of Engineering, seventh overall (from sixth in 1993). It is sixth in reputation by academics and fifth by practicing engineers. Criteria for the rankings included student selectivity, faculty resources, research activity and reputation.
Within engineering specialties, several U-M programs were ranked in the top five: fourth in aerospace, fifth in electrical/electronic, tied for first with Stanford University in environmental, third in industrial/manufacturing and fourth in nuclear.
Based on suggestions from medical educators, U.S. News this year placed the 60 schools receiving the most research money from the National Institutes of Health in one category and the rest in a category titled comprehensive schools. All the schools were ranked by student selectivity, faculty resources, reputation and research activity.
Details on the
U.S. News rankings
Social Work
1 University of Michigan
2 University of California, Berkeley
2 University of Chicago
2 Washington University (Mo.)
5 Columbia University
Public Health
1 Johns Hopkins University
2 Harvard University
3 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
4 University of Washington
5 University of Michigan
Music
1 Indiana University, Bloomington
1 Juilliard School
1 University of Rochester-Eastman
4 University of Michigan
5 Curtis Institute of Music
Medical (research-oriented)
1 Harvard University
2 Johns Hopkins University
3 Yale University
4 University of California, San Francisco
5 Washington University (Mo.)
6 Duke University
7 University of Pennsylvania
8 Columbia University
9 Stanford University
9 University of Washington
11 University of Michigan
Engineering
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2 Stanford University
3 Purdue University
4 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
5 University of California, Berkeley
6 California Institute of Technology
7 University of Michigan
8 Cornell University
9 University of Texas at Austin
10 Carnegie Mellon University
10 Georgia Institute of Technology
Law
1 Yale University
2 Harvard University
3 Stanford University
4 University of Chicago
5 Columbia University
6 New York University
7 Duke University
8 University of Michigan
9 University of Pennsylvania
10 University of California, Berkeley
Business
1 Stanford University
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3 Harvard University
4 University of Pennsylvania
5 Northwestern University
6 University of Chicago
7 Dartmouth College
8 University of Michigan
9 Duke University
10 University of California, Los Angeles
