U.S. News Starts Collecting Data for 2016 Best Graduate Schools Rankings
U.S. News opened statistical surveys for graduate schools earlier this month, kicking off data collection for the 2016 edition of the Best Graduate Schools rankings. The new rankings will be released in late winter or early spring of 2015.
This year, U.S. News is collecting statistical data on graduate nursing programs for the first time. U.S. News plans to use the information collected to rank graduate nursing programs as part of the Best Graduate Schools rankings.
The data will also be used to create directory pages devoted to graduate nursing programs on usnews.com, as well as in the Best Graduate Schools print guidebook, to create new rankings for graduate nursing programs to be published as part of the Best Graduate Schools rankings. U.S. News plans to rank graduate nursing programs annually.
U.S. News created an online statistical survey for graduate nursing programs, which was launched on Oct. 22. Graduate schools of nursing have until Dec. 1 to complete the survey.
Surveys for business, law, engineering, medicine and education programs opened on Oct. 17. Graduate schools have until Nov. 21 to complete them.
New rankings for business, education, engineering, law and medicine, the largest graduate school disciplines, will also be published. Rankings will be based on the statistical data we collect from each school along with expert opinions from academics and professionals in those fields on programs' quality, expressed in peer reputation surveys.
U.S. News is working with Ipsos Public Affairs, a Chicago-based market research firm, to administer the new graduate school peer assessment reputation surveys, which will be in the field for about eight weeks. They are currently being distributed, and those who do not respond the first time will receive a second mailing.
This year, U.S. News is conducting new peer-assessment-only rankings for selected graduate areas in health, last updated in 2011. The new areas being surveyed are health care administration, physician assistant, public health, rehabilitation counseling and veterinary medicine.
New, separate peer surveys will again be conducted for the law school rankings for programs in clinical training, dispute resolution, environmental law, health care law, intellectual property law, international law, legal writing, tax law and trial advocacy.
Separate surveys for both part-time MBA and part-time law programs will be distributed, as they have since the fall of 2009.
The 2016 rankings of graduate engineering programs will again include new specialty rankings in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering; biological and agricultural engineering; bioengineering and biomedical engineering; chemical engineering; civil engineering; computer engineering; electrical, electronic and communications engineering; environmental and environmental health engineering; industrial and manufacturing engineering; materials engineering; mechanical engineering; and nuclear engineering. These specialty rankings will be based solely on peer assessments.
The American Society for Engineering Education supplied U.S. News with the names of engineering schools with Ph.D. departments and the names of the department heads in each of those specialty areas that U.S. News is surveying for these engineering rankings.
Representatives of graduate schools that did not receive the data collection survey email should contact Diane Tolis, Director of Data Projects, at dtolis@usnews.com.
Graduate school representatives should contact Robert Morse, Chief Data Strategist, at rmorse@usnews.com with any questions about the rankings or their methodologies.
