The US News and World Report Best Grad Schools Rankings are among the most well-known university rankings in the United States. They are published annually by US News and World Report. This is done online and in a print edition. The Best Grad Schools Rankings offer various subject-specific rankings for US universities. They concentrate exclusively on the postgraduate area. As an example, we present the Best Business Schools Rankings, which evaluate the MBA programs at universities in the USA. Learn more about USA and North America on businesscarriers.
Methodology of the Best Business Schools Rankings
The main ranking of the Best Business Schools evaluates the full-time MBA programs of the business schools. For this purpose, 3 categories with a total of 7 indicators are used.
- Evaluation of the quality (weighting: 0.40)
- Professional Rating: Based on a survey of deans of business schools and directors of accredited master’s programs in economics (0.25)
- Employer rating: Based on employer survey (0.15)
- Success in starting your career (weighting: 0.35)
- Average Graduate Salary and Bonuses (0.14)
- Graduate employment rate: Based on the employment rate at graduation (0.07) and three months after graduation (0.14)
- Selectivity in the selection of applicants (weighting: 0.25)
- Average scores in GMAT and GRE (areas of verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning) (0.1625)
- Average GPA that the master’s students previously achieved in the undergraduate area (0.075)
- Admission rate: proportion of accepted applicants (0.0125)
Based on this data, an overall ranking of the business schools is created. In order to break down the ranking list according to individual indicators, you need paid access to the Business School Compass.
Extract from the current Best Business Schools Ranking
The top 10
- 1st place: University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
- 2nd place: Stanford University
- 3rd place: Harvard University
- 3rd place: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
- 3rd place: University of Chicago (Booth)
- 6th place: Columbia University
- 6th place: Northwestern University (Kellogg)
- 6th place: University of California Berkeley (Haas)
- 9th place: Yale University
- 10th place: Duke University
Our partner universities in the top 50
- 16th place: University of California Los Angeles (Anderson)
- 35th place: University of Minnesota (Carlson)
- 35th place: University of Wisconsin-Madison
- 38th place: Michigan State University (Broad)
- 43rd place: University of California Irvine (Merage)
- 47th place: University of California Davis
- 50th place: Boston University (Questrom)
Partial rankings of the Best Business Schools Rankings
In addition to the ranking for the full-time MBA programs, US News and World Report publishes other rankings as part of the Best Business Schools Rankings, but with a different methodology. Among other things, there is a ranking for the Executive MBA (EMBA) and for MBA programs that students complete part-time (Part-time MBA). There are also various specialized rankings, such as for management, marketing, accounting (Accounting) or Finance (Finance) and rankings of the best online degree programs.
Further rankings in the US News and World Report Best Grad Schools Rankings
In addition to the ranking of business schools, the US News and World Report Best Grad Schools Rankings also offer rankings for other departments in the postgraduate area. The methodology used differs from department to department in order to be able to do justice to the relevant aspects of each department. Partial rankings also belong to these rankings. As part of the Best Grad Schools Rankings, in addition to the business schools, the grad schools of the following departments are ranked annually:
- Engineering (Engineering)
- Medicine (Medicine)
- Law (Law)
- Pedagogy and Teaching Degree (Education)
In addition, there is an annual ranking of so-called nursing schools within the US News and World Report Best Grad Schools Rankings, at which nurses can receive further training.
Also for other departments appear as part of the US News and World Report Best Grade Schools Rankings Rankings not, however, every year. Those interested can online rankings of departments science (Science), art and design (Fine Arts), health (Health), social – and Humanities (Social Sciences and Humanities), Library and Information Science (Library and Information Studies) and Public Affairs (Public Affairs). These rankings were created and based on surveys.
Rating of the US News and World Report Best Grad Schools Rankings
Since the various rankings are created on the basis of very different indicators, a general assessment of the methodology is difficult at this point.
In the case of the Best Business Schools Rankings, however, one can see that with categories such as success in starting a career, the focus is on criteria that are practical for students. Thus, a look at the ranking can be helpful for students who are interested in studying for an MBA in the USA. However, it is not advisable to choose a university based on university rankings alone. These can only serve as a guide.
The broad range of the US News and World Report Best Grad Schools Rankings should be positively emphasized. However, since a new ranking does not appear annually for every department, the rankings for some departments are not always up-to-date. Another point of criticism is that some content is chargeable. Interested parties cannot easily obtain full information about the results of the Best Grad Schools rankings.
