The 47 subject fields used in the analysis came from subject schemas in Clarivate, which use the content and citation indicators from the Web of Science. Publications are limited to those published between 2016 and 2020. However, the citations to those papers come from all publications, including the most recent data available. The total number of universities ranked was based on the number of papers published in that subject a school needed to have to be included in the ranking pool. U.S. News, working with Clarivate, established those paper thresholds for each subject for the 2016 to 2020 time period - 15 subjects had a 200-paper threshold, and 32 subjects had a 250-paper threshold, both during the 2016 to 2020 time period.

US News subject rankings use 13 indicators  - various bibliometric measures, including publications and citations, as well as indicators for global and regional reputation in each specific subject are considered. The weights and factors used to compute the 47 subject rankings are:

Global research reputation (weights: 12.5%-20.0% or N/A)

Regional research reputation (weights: 12.5%-15.0% or N/A)

Publications (weights: 10.0%-17.5%)

Books (weights: 15.0% or N/A)

Conferences (weights: 2.5%-10% or N/A)

Normalized citation impact (weights: 7.5%-12.5%)

Total citations (weights: 7.5%-17.5%)

Number of publications that are among the 10 percent most cited (weights: 7.5%-15.0%)

Percentage of total publications that are among the 10 percent most cited (weights: 5.0%-7.5%)

Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1 percent most cited in their respective field (weights: 5.0%-7.5% or N/A)

Percentage of total publications that are among the top 1 percent most highly cited papers (weights: 5.0%-7.5% or N/A)

International collaboration – relative to country (weights: 2.5%-7.5%)

Percentage of total publications with international collaboration (weights: 2.5%-7.5%)