Grad Schools Top U.S. News Study

Two Harvard graduate schools-the Graduate Schools of Education and the Medical School-will be named today as the best in the country by U.S News & World Report's annual study of graduate schools.

The magazine released on Friday a list of the top five schools in five different fields of graduate education-placing Harvard Medical School (HMS) first in the medical research category and the Graduate School of Education first in schools of education for research.

But Harvard's results were slightly less stellar than last year's rankings. Last year Harvard Business School also received the magazine's top ranking, which it shared with Stanford, but this year Stanford took sole possession of the number one spot and Harvard fell to number two.

Harvard Law School (HLS) also placed high in the ranking, finishing third behind Yale and Stanford. For the first 10 years that U.S. News released rankings, HLS finished second, falling to third only last year, in part because of its high student-faculty ratio.

In last year's ranking HLS was ranked 116 in the faculty to student ratio-with a ratio over double that of Yale Law School. This fall, HLS committed to adding 15 new faculty positions within the next ten years.

Several Harvard schools have previously said they pay little heed to the rankings and the changes in rankings from year-to-year.

"We don't run a law school based on a magazine," said former HLS spokesperson Michael J. Chmura last year. "We think we're the best law school in the country."

HMS has also stressed the incomplete picture given by the magazine's ranking.

"The U.S. News rankings are a quantitative survey and it is not possible to capture the many facets of the medical school experience in it," said former HMS spokesperson Peta Gillyatt after last year's rankings were released.

Harvard failed to make the top five among engineering graduate programs-the only one of the five areas of graduate education released on Friday in which Harvard was not honored. Last year Harvard was rated 25th among engineering programs. MIT's engineering program was ranked first this year.

The full rankings will be available today on U.S. News' website and in its special edition, "Best Graduate Schools." The rankings will also appear in next week's edition of the magazine. The full report will include rankings for Harvard's doctorate programs contained within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The rankings are determined by a number of quantitative factors, usually including the school's reputation among other academics, selectivity in admission, the resources available to faculty, and the success of graduates in finding jobs after graduating.

Slightly different formulas are used for each type of graduate school. The magazine typically will makes changes from year to year in the criteria it uses to rank schools, leading it to caution using year-to-year variations in school's ranking.

In addition to graduate school rankings, U.S. News also publishes a ranking of undergraduate education, a ranking that traditionally ranks Harvard among the top schools. Harvard was second to Princeton in last year's ranking; a new set of rankings will be released in September.