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March 20, 2014

U.S. News ups most Pitt rankings

us newsWith few exceptions, Pitt’s graduate programs rose in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings. The publication ranks the five main disciplines of business, education, engineering, law and medicine each year. Other disciplines are ranked on a rotating basis.

In its Best Graduate Schools 2015 guide, released March 11, U.S. News also ranked graduate programs in seven science areas: biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, mathematics, physics and statistics. These areas were last ranked in the publication’s 2011 Best Graduate Schools (see April 29, 2010, University Times).

The ranking methodology varies by discipline, but all are based in part on expert opinions of each program’s quality, students’ standardized test scores and schools’ selectivity.

The complete rankings can be found at usnews.com/best-graduate-schools.

Business

Pitt’s Katz Graduate School of Business ranked No. 52 among 127 schools that provided sufficient data, up from No. 61 last year.

Harvard, Stanford and Penn tied for No. 1 in business school rankings, followed by the University of Chicago and MIT.

Business schools were ranked based on assessments by peers and recruiters; placement success; mean starting salary and bonus; employment rates for full-time master’s program in business graduates, and student selectivity.

MBA specialty rankings

Among a dozen MBA specialties, Pitt’s part-time MBA program was ranked No. 53, up from No. 64 a year ago.

Specialty rankings were based on ratings by business school deans and directors of accredited master’s programs from among the schools surveyed. They could nominate up to 10 programs in each specialty area.

Education

Pitt’s graduate education programs rose to No. 22 (up from No. 32 a year ago), among 245 schools that provided sufficient data.

Education programs were ranked based on peer and superintendent assessments; student selectivity; faculty resources; student-faculty ratio; percentage of faculty with awards or selected education journal editorships; ratio of doctoral degrees granted per full-time faculty member, and research activity (including research expenditures and expenditures per faculty member).

Education specialties

Pitt was included in rankings for one of 10 education program specialties. The University’s educational psychology program was listed at No. 14. It ranked No. 13 a year ago.

Specialty ratings were based on nominations by education school deans and education school deans of graduate studies from the list of schools surveyed. They could nominate up to 10 top programs in each area.

Engineering

Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering ranked No. 43 (up from No. 45) of 193 schools that provided the necessary data.

U.S. News ranked MIT, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon as its top five.

Engineering programs were ranked on peer and recruiter assessments; student selectivity; faculty resources; student-faculty ratio; percentage of full-time faculty in the National Academy of Engineering; total number of doctoral degrees granted, and research activity (including total externally funded research expenditures and average expenditure per faculty member).

Engineering specialties

Pitt graduate engineering programs were included in nine of a dozen engineering specialties; the Swanson school’s ranking fell in eight of the nine specialties:

  • Biomedical engineering: No. 15 among 107 schools, up from No. 16;
  • Industrial/manufacturing/systems engineering: No. 23 among 87 schools, down from No. 21;
  • Chemical engineering: No. 39 among 126 schools, down from No. 38;
  • Mechanical engineering: No. 52 among 170 schools, down from No. 49;
  • Environmental/environmental health engineering: No. 55 among 100 schools, down from No. 53;
  • Materials engineering: No. 56 among 95 schools, down from No. 47;
  • Computer engineering: No. 58 among 143 schools, down from No. 50;
  • Electrical/electronic/communications engineering: No. 58 among 177 schools, down from No. 55, and
  • Civil engineering: No. 61 among 145 schools, down from No. 56.

Specialty rankings were based on peer assessments by department heads in each specialty area.

Law

Pitt’s law school ranked No. 81 of 194 schools, tied with Rutgers. Last year, Pitt ranked No. 91.

Named as this year’s top five law schools were Yale, Harvard, Stanford and, tied for No. 4, University of Chicago and New York.

Law schools were ranked based on assessments by peers and lawyers/judges; selectivity; placement success; bar passage rate; faculty resources; per-student expenditures; student-faculty ratio, and library resources. Only schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association were ranked.

Law specialties

A Pitt program was ranked in one of 10 law specialty areas. Pitt’s health care law program ranked No. 14.  It ranked No. 13 last year. Specialty rankings were based on nominations by legal educators, who could name as many as 15 schools per field.

Medicine

Among 114 schools ranked, Pitt’s medical school ranked No. 17 in research, down from No. 16 in last year’s ranking, and No. 18 in primary care (tied with Dartmouth and Indiana), up from No. 24 last year.

At the top of the research program rankings were Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins and, tied for No. 4, University of California-San Francisco and Penn.

Leading the primary care program rankings were Washington, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Oregon Health and Science University, University of California-San Francisco and University of Massachusetts-Worcester.

Medical school ranking methodology

Research school rankings were based on a weighted average of eight indicators; primary care rankings were based on seven.

Both areas included selectivity statistics (MCAT, GPA and acceptance rate); faculty-to-student ratio; assessments by peers and residency directors, and faculty resources.

Research activity (in the amount of National Institutes of Health grants to the school and its affiliated hospitals and average NIH grants per full-time faculty member) was factored into the research school rankings; the proportion of graduates entering primary care specialties was factored into primary care rankings.

Medical specialties

Pitt programs were ranked in five of eight specialty areas:

  • Women’s health: No. 4, the same as a year ago;
  • Pediatrics: No. 7, down from No. 6;
  • Drug and alcohol abuse: No. 9  (tied with New York University, University of Washington and Washington University in St. Louis), up from No. 10 last year;
  • Geriatrics: No. 9, up from No. 10;
  • Internal medicine: No. 16 (tied with Cornell), falling from No. 15.

Specialty rankings were based on ratings by medical school deans and senior faculty; each could name 10 schools in each area.

Sciences

Rankings of doctoral programs in the sciences were based on surveys sent to academics in biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, mathematics, physics and statistics.

Specialty rankings in the PhD sciences were based on nominations by department heads and directors of graduate studies at peer schools, who could rank up to 10 programs in each area.

Biological sciences

Among 261 schools surveyed, Pitt tied for No. 42 with Carnegie Mellon, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Ohio State, Penn State, Rice, University of Alabama-Birmingham and University of Georgia.

Tying for first place were Harvard, MIT and Stanford, with the University of California-Berkeley and California Institute of Technology rounding out the top five.

Pitt’s biological sciences graduate program was No. 46 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

Pitt’s programs were not ranked in any of the eight biological science specialty areas.

Chemistry

Among 205 schools surveyed, Pitt tied for No. 35 with Emory, University of California-Davis, Florida, Utah and Washington University in St. Louis.

Top schools in the chemistry category were California Institute of Technology, MIT and the University of California-Berkeley tying for No. 1 and Harvard and Stanford tying for No. 4 to round out the top five.

Pitt’s chemistry graduate program was No. 38 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

Pitt’s programs were not ranked in any of the six chemistry specialty areas.

Computer science

Pitt tied for No. 52 with Indiana University-Bloomington, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and University of Rochester, among 177 schools surveyed.

In a four-way tie, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford and University of California-Berkeley ranked No. 1 with the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign ranking No. 5.

Pitt’s computer science graduate program was No. 53 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

Pitt’s programs were not ranked in any of the four computer science specialty areas.

Earth sciences

Among 123 schools surveyed, Pitt’s Department of Geology and Planetary Science tied for No. 88 with Boise State, Michigan Technological University, St. Louis, Texas Tech, SUNY-Buffalo, Cincinnati, Georgia, Maine, Missouri, Montana, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Notre Dame and University of Texas-El Paso.

California Institute of Technology was No. 1 in the category, followed by MIT at No. 2, Stanford and University of California-Berkeley tied for No. 3, and Columbia.

Pitt’s earth sciences graduate program was No. 81 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

Pitt’s programs were not ranked in any of the five earth sciences specialty areas.

Mathematics

Pitt tied for No. 60 with Arizona State, Northeastern, University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Virginia Tech, of 174 schools surveyed.

MIT and Princeton tied for No. 1; Harvard and University of California-Berkeley tied for No. 3, and Stanford and Chicago tied for No. 5.

Pitt’s mathematics graduate program ranked No. 59 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

Pitt’s programs were not ranked in any of the seven mathematics specialty areas.

Physics

Among 178 schools surveyed, Pitt tied for No. 50 with Arizona State, Iowa State and University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

The top five schools were: MIT at No. 1, followed by California Institute of Technology, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley sharing the No. 2 rank.

Pitt’s physics graduate program ranked No. 52 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

Pitt’s programs were not ranked in any of the seven physics specialty areas.

Statistics

Pitt’s Department of Biostatistics tied for No. 47 with Michigan State and Pitt’s Department of Statistics tied for No. 49 with Boston, New York and Northwestern, of 87 schools surveyed.

Ranked in the top five statistics programs were Stanford at No. 1, followed by University of California-Berkeley at No. 2, Harvard and Washington tied for No. 3 and Johns Hopkins and Chicago tied for No. 5.

Pitt’s statistics graduate program ranked No. 45 in the U.S. News 2011 ranking.

—Kimberly K. Barlow