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How we rank grad schools

Choosing the right grad school requires serious introspection, since the best program for you will be the one—large or small, urban or rural, intensely competitive or more collegial, highly social or not—that provides the coursework and the intellectual challenge you need to thrive. As you research course offerings and schools' intangible attributes, the U.S. News rankings can help you compare programs' academic excellence. It's important that you use the rankings as a supplement to careful thought and other research.

Each year, U.S. News re-evaluates graduate programs in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine. Our rankings are based on two broad types of data—expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that describe the strength of a school's faculty, its research, and the performance of students both as they enter and leave. U.S. News gathered the statistical and reputational data by surveying more than 1,000 programs and 12,000 academics and professionals in the fall of 2000. Educational excellence is difficult to define, much less measure directly, but the indicators we use are widely recognized as proxies for quality, much as blood pressure and cholesterol levels are indicators of health. Experts in higher education have long considered reputation a valid measure of quality, and a diploma from an institution known for excellence offers graduates a powerful edge in the competition for good jobs. While we think it would be a service to prospective students to add indicators assessing the experience and success of alumni, schools don't consistently gather that information.

Reputable measure. To gauge a school's reputation, we ask deans, program directors, and senior faculty to judge the overall academic quality of programs in their field on a scale of 1 ("marginal") to 5 ("distinguished"). Nonacademics are asked to submit a list of up to 25 schools that they consider to be tops in their field. In medicine, we survey residency program directors; in law, hiring partners at law firms as well as professionals in public service. Corporate recruiters are canvassed for their knowledge of business and engineering programs.

The statistical measures that account for the greatest proportion of each school's ranking fall into two categories: inputs, or the qualities that students and schools bring to the educational experience, and outputs, measures of how well the program prepares students for success. The caliber of student that a program attracts—which influences the academic climate—is measured by the mean undergraduate grade point average and admissions test scores of the entering class. Other input measures are outlays that affect the quality of education. For example, engineering and education schools report their total research expenditures, as well as the number of faculty members engaged in research. Law schools are asked how much they spend on faculty salaries, libraries, and student support services.

To judge how capably a program develops its students, U.S. News factors in such output measures as the rates at which law school graduates pass the bar exam and the mean starting pay package garnered by new M.B.A.'s. When possible, data are gathered following norms established by standards-setting bodies in the discipline. Thus, our survey uses the format mandated by the MBA Career Services Council as the standard for reporting salary data. Similarly, we use questions in our law survey modeled on ones the American Bar Association uses in its annual survey of law schools to gather figures on enrollment and bar passage rates.

To arrive at a school's rank, we first standardized the value of each quality indicator about its mean. The distribution of data for each indicator was then examined for significant outliers. Where an outlier would have a distorting effect in our model, we used a standard statistical technique to adjust the indicators. Because Harvard Medical School enjoys the unique position of having 17 affiliated hospitals and research institutes, for example, the $677 million in NIH research grants it reports to us is more than twice the next highest amount reported. By transforming the dollar figures to damp down this difference, we close the gap between top schools on this indicator but don't change their order. The weights applied in each ranking model reflect U.S. News's judgement—after digesting the many suggestions made by academics in each field—about the relative importance of various indicators. (Detailed information about the indicators and weights appears with the tables.)

The final scores were rescaled; the highest-scoring school was assigned 100, and the other schools' scores were calculated as a percentage of that top score. The scores were then placed in descending order. A school's rank reflects the number of schools that sit above it; thus, if three schools are tied at 1, the next school will be numbered 4, not 2. Schools that are tied are listed in alphabetical order.

More on education. For several years U.S. News has published two rankings of medical schools—one emphasizing research activity and the other the school's successes in preparing primary-care physicians. Since graduate schools of education, too, have distinct missions, we have taken to heart the comments of a group of their deans and replaced our old education ranking with the first part of what we hope will be a similar two-part ranking. The top schools table is intended to show how well schools perform as centers of research and preparers of educational leaders and policymakers. Our goal is to add a ranking of education schools based on how well they prepare teachers. As is spelled out in the education methodology, this year's model is focused more on doctoral programs and research expenditures than was the old model—and this ranking should not be compared with previous lists.

Beyond identifying the best overall programs in a discipline, U.S. News ranks the top schools in some of the larger specialties, based solely on peer opinion. A law applicant who hopes to practice dispute resolution, for example, can find the top-ranked programs in that specialty. Master's and doctoral programs in all other disciplines—the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and the allied health fields—are ranked only by reputation as well. These disciplines are generally evaluated every third year; this year, we reassessed programs in public affairs, occupational therapy, and the humanities and social sciences. A new ranking of clinical psychology programs is included in the section on health professions. Data for the sciences were gathered in 1998.

The value of rankings will always be a topic for lively debate. While our data can never substitute for an in-depth examination of the scope and breadth of a program—and its fit with your own unique talents and goals—we trust you will find the rankings to be one efficient means of comparing schools' strengths and weaknesses.

Updated 4/02/01

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