MIT has once again earned top honors in U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of American graduate school programs, with the School of Engineering, the Department of Economics and more than a dozen MIT departments or programs ranked No. 1 nationwide.
U.S. News & World Report magazine has published its well-regarded graduate school rankings for 17 years. The 2006 edition of its book, "America's Best Graduate Schools," hit the newsstands April 1.
MIT's School of Engineering was ranked No. 1 among U.S. graduate engineering schools, with Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology taking 2nd, 3rd and 4th place, respectively.
MIT also placed first in seven of 12 engineering specialties--aeronautics and astronautics, chemical, computer, electrical, materials, mechanical and nuclear engineering--fifth in civil engineering and seventh in biomedical engineering.
The magazine's criteria for determining overall engineering rankings include peer assessment, recruiter assessment, research activity, student selectivity and doctoral student-to-faculty ratio. MIT scored 100--the top--overall.
MIT's Economics Department was ranked No. 1 overall among doctoral programs in economics. The Institute's programs in econometrics, macroeconomics and public finance also took No. 1 rankings, with programs in development economics, industrial organization, international economics and labor economics all ranking among the top five.
MIT's Political Science Department was ranked 10th in the nation, along with Columbia University and UCLA. The Institute's program in psychology ranked 12th, along with Stanford University and the University of Texas-Austin. The Institute's programs in behavioral neuroscience and cognitive psychology ranked fourth and sixth, respectively.
Department chairs and senior faculty ranked doctoral programs in social science and humanities based on academic excellence. MIT's Sloan School of Management tied for fourth place overall with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.
Business school deans and MBA program directors ranked business specialty programs on academic quality and placement success, among other categories. MIT's Sloan School's programs in information systems, production/operations and supply chain/logistics were ranked No. 1.
The magazine's ranking of American undergraduate programs appears in August.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 6, 2005 (download PDF).
