Emory Report

Mar. 22, 1999

Volume 51, No. 24

Medical, business schools ranked in U.S. News' Top 25 Emory University's medical and business schools are the only Georgia schools ranked among the Top 25 such schools in America, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2000 "America's Best Graduate School" guide. These rankings will be reported in the issue of U.S. News due on the newsstands March 22. Emory's School of Medicine moved up to a 19th place ranking, from 21st last year, among research-oriented medical schools, and the Goizueta Business School's MBA program ranking remained unchanged at No. 21. Goizueta's Executive MBA program was ranked 12th. Emory's School of Law was ranked 28th this year, after being 25th last year, but its trial advocacy program was ranked third. The School of Medicine's 19th ranking among 124 U.S. medical schools was based on a rank of 23rd in student selectivity (up from 32); 22nd in reputation rank by academics (up from 25); and 15th in reputation rank by residency directors (up from 17). Thomas Lawley, dean of the School of Medicine, said, "It's particularly gratifying to see that Emory's reputation among academics and residency directors is beginning to catch up with reality. The credit for these overall rises in ranking must go to our outstanding faculty. Thanks to that faculty, the National Institutes of Health just ranked Emory the fastest rising medical school in the nation in terms of the amount of NIH funding, jumping six places to No. 24. We're also No. 19 in the nation in terms of total federal funding, the largest source of research grants." The Goizueta MBA program's 21st ranking among the nation's 317 accredited MBA programs was announced to the Goizueta community via e-mail March 18. "It's important to put their ranking of the full-time program in perspective," said Dean Thomas Robertson in his message. "Goizueta moved ahead on the important measures but so did other elite schools. Although U.S. News gathers an extensive amount of data, four variables account for 70 percent of the ranking. These are: reputation rank by academics (25 percent), Average GMAT score (16 percent), reputation rank by recruiters (15 percent), and compensation (14 percent). Our reputation rank by academics increased from No. 29 to 25. Our average GMAT score increased from 630 to 640, and our reputation rank by recruiters went from No. 25 to 24. On the last of these important variables, our total starting compensation has increased to $77,500." Robertson also said Goizueta is committed to improving its quality. "We take these rankings quite seriously," he noted. "In order to improve the school's standing in U.S. News' ranking in the years ahead, we're aggressively attacking." "We want to achieve a headcount of 75 world-class tenure track faculty by 2003 and fund 15 faculty chairs to attract outstanding senior faculty who are entering the most productive periods of their careers. This should have a positive effect on "rank by academics," which accounts for 25 percent of the ranking score. We plan to build the full-time MBA graduating class from 180 students to 240 students per year while achieving average GMAT scores of 650, which will help us maximize placement opportunities for our graduates, including Wall Street and major consulting firms. All these actions will improve the quality of this school and thereby effect the rankings." Goizueta's Executive MBA program's 12th place ranking was based solely on a reputational survey of business school deans and corporate recruiters. "Our quality indicators for this program have increased consistently over the last five years," said Robertson. --Jan Gleason Return to March 22,1999, contents page