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Engineering ranks #1 for grad schools

For the 14th consecutive year, the School of Engineering graduate program is ranked first in the nation by USNews & World Report .

According to the rankings , MIT has the #1 mathematics graduate program in the country. In physics, MIT shares the top slot with the California Institute of Technology. MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley tied for first in the computer science rankings.

The 2003 edition of the magazine's newsstand book, "Best Graduate Schools," went on sale and was available online at usnews.com Monday. Many of the rankings will appear in the April 15 issue of USNews & World Report, which also went on sale April 8.

MIT President Charles M. Vest said, "Credit for this remarkable showing goes largely to our faculty, whose teaching and research led to the rankings, and also to our students, who constantly challenge us to be at our best.

"The obvious excellence of our best research universities--the differences among the top few, even in the USNews & World Report criteria, are small--reminds us that we must remain vigilant in ensuring the continued well-being of America's research universities."

Although the rankings for business, education, engineering, law and medicine are new, most other categories are not ranked each year. Those that are freshly ranked this year are applied mathematics, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics. Others, such as economics, have not been surveyed this year and rankings from previous years are being reprinted.

PROGRAMS RANKED

Among the specialty engineering graduate programs ranked best by engineering school deans, MIT was first in the aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical area, in chemical engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, and in materials science, mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering. MIT was ranked second in biomedical/bioengineering, third in civil engineering and ninth in environmental engineering.

Dean of Engineering Thomas Magnanti said, "The School of Engineering is, of course, delighted to see that both our academic peers and external constituents continue to value our contributions. By attracting the very best faculty, students and staff, charting vibrant new vectors of research, and invigorating the educational enterprise, we aspire to sustain the excitement and excellence that has always characterized MIT engineering and, by doing so, contribute effectively to the engineering profession."

MIT #1 IN APPLIED MATH

Among newly ranked categories, MIT shares first place in applied mathematics with New York University.

MIT shares second place in the biological sciences with Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley. In specialties within that discipline, MIT is seventh in biochemistry, tied with the University of California at San Francisco and Yale University for third place in cell biology, and third in molecular biology.
In chemistry, MIT is ranked second, tied with the Caltech and Harvard. Among the specialties, MIT's graduate program is first in inorganic chemistry and third in physical chemistry.

In the computer science specialties, MIT is #1 in theory and artificial intelligence and shares second place with Carnegie Mellon University in systems.

Among the physics Ph.D. specialties, MIT is first in the atomic/molecular/optical/plasma area; second in condensed matter/low temperature physics and in elementary particle/nuclear physics.

ECONOMICS EXCELS

In the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (SHASS), the Department of Economics (ranked last year) was placed first, after years of tying for #1 with Harvard and Stanford. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and the University of Chicago's economics departments are tied for second place.

In economics specialties, MIT is ranked first in microeconomics and industrial organization graduate programs, second in public finance and third in macroeconomics and international economics.

In other SHASS departments, MIT shares 11th place in political science Ph.D. programs with Columbia University, the University of Rochester and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences shares 11th place with psychology graduate programs at Columbia University, Princeton and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. With Princeton, MIT is ranked ninth in cognitive psychology.

As ranked in 1999, MIT is in second place in geology Ph.D. programs. Among the geology specialties, MIT is first in tectonics, second in geophysics, fourth in geochemistry and sixth, with the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in sedimentology.

SLOAN MOVES UP TO #4

The Sloan School of Management was ranked fourth nationally in business school rankings, following Stanford, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Last year, Sloan was fifth nationally.

Sloan's programs in management information systems, production/operations management and quantitative analysis were ranked #1 in the country. Its finance program came in fifth and its entrepreneurship program was #6, up from #8 last year.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 10, 2002.

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