US News has just published its latest American graduate school rankings. As usual, they have attracted a lot of attention from potential graduate students and the general public.

It should be noted that these are rankings of programmes, not institutions, and they are based on indicators that attempt to measure research, resources, graduate outcomes, student quality, diversity and social impact with different weightings for each discipline.

This year’s rankings feature a number of significant changes. For example, the nursing ranking now has a survey of health professionals. There are also a number of separate medical school rankings: most graduates practicing in primary care fields, most diverse medical schools, medical schools with most graduates in rural areas, medical schools with most graduates in underserved areas.

The law school rankings now include indebtedness as an indicator and there are several new library resources indicators. As a result, the weighting for some indicators has been reduced: spending on instruction, library and supporting services and other items, student faculty ratio, LSAT/GRE score, undergraduate GPA, and acceptance rate.

In business, education, and engineering there are revised thresholds for GMAT and GRE scores.

The best schools in selected subjects are:
Business; Stanford University
Law; Yale University
Medical research; Harvard University
Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Nursing master’s; Johns Hopkins University
Education; Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Source
US News