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·¢ÐÅÕ¾: BBS ˮľÇ廪վ (Sat Mar 20 17:05:38 1999)
Frequently asked questions
1.Why does U.S. News rank graduate schools?
2.How do you rank schools?
3.Do you rank all schools in a discipline?
4.How do you select the schools or programs you rank?
5.Why does U.S. News rank certain disciplines and not
others?
6.How do you rank specialties within various
disciplines?
7.Are rankings from previous years still valid?
8.What are tiers and why are law schools listed in tiers
while other disciplines are not?
9.How do the U.S. News rankings compare with other
graduate school rankings?
10.How is academic "reputation" measured?
11.What are "input" measures of academic quality?
12.What are "output" measures of academic quality?
13.What does it mean when schools are tied?
14.Did U.S. News make any changes in its methods this
year?
15.Where do the data on quality measures come from?
Why does U.S. News rank graduate schools?
The reason is simple. We want to help applicants
choose the right school by giving them an independent
assessment of the academic quality of various
programs. By collecting data on the programs each
year, we offer the most up-to-date figures on
enrollment, job placement, and student-faculty ratios,
and we provide prospective graduate students with
data to help them make informed decisions.
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How do you rank schools?
We rank graduate programs in two different ways. For
the five graduate programs with the largest
enrollments–business, education, engineering, law, and
medicine–we use a combination of statistical data and
reputation data. The statistical data we collect include
input measures and output measures. Input measures
reflect the quality of students, faculty, and other
resources used in education. Output measures signal
how well the institution educates its student body. The
reputation data come from a survey of knowledgeable
individuals in academia and each particular profession.
We also rank a variety of programs–including Ph.D.
programs in the sciences and humanities and master's
programs in health care and the arts–by using
reputation surveys.
For a more general explanation, please read "How we
rank graduate schools." For specific information about
how we rank each discipline, review the following
methodologies: business, law, medicine and primary
care, engineering, education, Ph.D.'s and the arts,
health, and public affairs.
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Do you rank all schools in a discipline?
We rank 175 accredited law schools, including all those
located in the 50 states that have been accredited for at
least three years (and therefore can provide placement
data for graduates). This year, we rank the top 50
medical schools and the top 50 medical schools in
primary care in addition to the top 50 schools for
M.B.A.'s, engineering, and education.
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How do you select the schools or programs you rank?
Our list of law schools contains virtually all those
accredited by the American Bar Association in the 50
states. The American Medical Association and the
American Osteopathic Organization provide us with
lists of accredited medical schools. Our list of business
schools is provided by the International Association
for Management Education (AACSB). The engineering
and education schools we rank are those that offer
Ph.D.'s in engineering and Ph.D. and Ed.D. degrees in
education.
The following list contains the total number of schools
that we assess in each discipline.
Art
185
Architecture
59
Audiology
118
Biology
239
Business
317
Chemistry
189
Computer Science
133
Creative Writing
190
Drama
102
Economics
122
Education
188
Engineering
221
English
134
Film
39
Geology
102
Health Services Administration
60
History
122
Law
175
Library Science
48
Math
155
Medicine
124
Primary Care
87
Music
205
Nursing
237
Osteopathy
19
Occupational Therapy
56
Pharmacy
65
Physical Therapy
106
Physician Assistant
29
Physics
162
Political Science
108
Psychology
215
Public Affairs
248
Public Health
26
Rehabilitation Counseling
84
Social Work
117
Sociology
105
Speech Pathology
225
Veterinary Medicine
27
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Why does U.S. News rank certain disciplines and not
others?
The disciplines we've chosen tend to be the ones with
the largest enrollments. We resurvey the big five–law,
business, medicine, engineering, and education–every
year. The others, ranked by reputation only, we rotate
on a three-year cycle.
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How do you rank specialties within various
disciplines?
For each discipline, we identify the largest specialties
in that field. These specialties are chosen based on the
courses or areas where there is a large number of
students in a discipline, a large number of faculty
teaching in a particular area, or a large number of
courses offered at a school in that discipline. Graduate
school deans, program directors, and senior faculty
rank each school's reputation. Respondents are asked
to identify 10 schools that offer the best programs in
each area. The 10 schools receiving the highest number
of nominations appear in the tables. In law, faculty
members with expertise in each area identified the 15
schools that offer the best programs in that area.
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Are rankings from previous years still valid?
Yes, because they are based on programs' reputations
for academic excellence and those reputations don't
change much on a yearly basis.
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What are tiers and why are law schools listed in tiers
while other disciplines are not?
A tier is a group of schools that score relatively close
together. For law, unlike the other disciplines, U.S.
News publishes rankings for virtually all accredited
schools. We rank each of the top 50 schools and put
the rest in tiers because we believe the distinctions
among the top schools are the clearest. Note that the
schools within a tier are listed alphabetically.
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How do the U.S. News rankings compare with other
graduate school rankings?
There aren't a lot of graduate school rankings. The
National Research Council (NRC) conducts a large
study every 10 years that focuses on Ph.D. programs.
An article published in the American Association of
Higher Education Bulletin showed that there is a
strong, positive correlation between the U.S. News
Ph.D. rankings and those of the National Research
Council.
Some other organizations compile business school
rankings. The most notable are those done by Business
Week, which are repeated every two years. Although
our methods for determining the top schools are
different, the schools that we identify are always similar
to the top schools named by Business Week.
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How is academic "reputation" measured?
Reputation for academic quality is measured through
two surveys conducted in the fall of 1998.
For all of the disciplines, deans in the graduate
programs were asked to rate the reputation of all the
schools in their respective disciplines from "marginal"
(1) to "distinguished" (5). Respondents were also
given the option of indicating "don't know."
In addition, a second survey was sent out to
practitioners in each field. For education, a nationwide
sample of school superintendents in districts with at
least 5,000 students was asked to select the 25 best
graduate education programs. For medical school,
residency program directors were asked to select either
the nation's 25 best medical schools or the 25 best
primary-care schools. For business, corporate
recruiters who hire from U.S. News's top-ranked M.B.A.
programs were asked to select the top 25 graduate
business programs. For engineering, practicing
engineers who are members of the National Academy
of Engineering and corporate recruiters who hire from
U.S. News's top-ranked schools were asked to select
the 25 best graduate engineering programs. For law,
practicing lawyers, hiring partners, and senior judges
were asked to rate each school from marginal to
distinguished.
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What are "input" measures of academic quality?
Input measures of academic quality are measures which
reflect the quality of students, faculty, and other
resources used in education. Examples of input
measures include an admission test score and
undergraduate GPA.
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What are "output" measures of academic quality?
Output measures of academic quality are measures
which signal how well the institution educates its
student body. Examples of output measures include
placement rates, starting salaries for M.B.A. program
graduates, and bar passage rates for law graduates.
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What does it mean when schools are tied?
Schools that are tied are very comparable on the
measures of academic quality we use to judge them.
Because we round the final score to the nearest whole
number, there are numerous ties in the rankings.
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Did U.S. News make any changes in its methods this
year?
This year, U.S. News made a number of changes to our
method of ranking schools. First, we adjusted our
measure of instructional expenditures (used in the law
rankings) to account for regional differences in cost of
living. We also expanded the number of medical
schools eligible for our primary-care rankings to reflect
the increased emphasis these schools now place on
training primary-care providers. In the M.B.A. rankings
this year, signing bonuses were added to base salary
as a measure of total pay. In addition, we dropped the
measure of corporate recruiters to graduates as a
variable. This change reflects the reduced role that
corporate recruiting is playing in job placement in
today's job market, where more M.B.A.'s are going to
smaller start-up companies or doing their own job
search.
Finally, this year in the business, law, engineering,
education, and medicine rankings, scores for indicators
were standardized before applying the weights. This
accepted statistical adjustment, which recognizes that
some indicators vary more around their average value
than others, ensures that the formula weights are
applied without distortion.
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Where do the data on quality measures come from?
Most of the information is reported to us by the
schools. Each year, U.S. News sends an extensive
questionnaire to each school. When the surveys are
returned, the data are assessed by U.S. News staff for
obvious errors, large changes, or inconsistencies and
then corrected and verified by the school. Where
possible, we cross-check the data with other sources.
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