Release date: April 4, 2003
Contact: Elaine Justice, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0643 or ejustic@emory.edu

U.S. News Ranks Emory's Graduate and Professional Schools

Emory University's medical, law, business, public health and nursing schools are among the Top 30 schools in America, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2004 edition of "America's Best Graduate Schools" guide. These rankings will be reported in the newsstand book and the issue of U.S. News & World report due on newsstands April 7.

Emory's School of Medicine is ranked 19th among research-oriented medical schools and 35th among primary care-oriented medical schools. Goizueta Business School ranked 21st. Emory Law School was ranked 27th. The Rollins School of Public Health was ranked 9th (up from 11 in the 2001 edition, the last time it was ranked). The Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing ranked 26th (up from 32, also in the 2001 edition).

Last year Emory was 20th in research-oriented medical schools and 25th in primary care-oriented schools; Goizueta was ranked 22nd; and the law school was ranked 22nd last year.

In other rankings new this year, Emory's physician assistant program in the department of family and preventive medicine ranked 3rd (up from 4 in the 2001 edition); the graduate program in nursing-midwifery ranked 7th; Emory's joint biomedical engineering program with Georgia Tech ranked 6th; and the graduate program in clinical psychology ranked 25th.

Although gratified to be included among the top medical schools in the country, Thomas J. Lawley, dean of the medical school, said "what matters most is the superb quality of the doctors we educate here, and that is an intangible factor that cannot be captured in a numerical ranking."

Noting the number of top-ranked health specialties, Lawley says Emory's "research programs and allied health professional programs enhance the strength of medical education at Emory and all contribute to well-rounded Emory doctors."

James Curran, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health, said top 10 recognition for the school "will help reinforce Emory's strategic positioning in Atlanta, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, The Carter Center and other agencies working in the forefront of public health worldwide."

Marla Salmon, dean and professor of nursing, said the school's rankings place Emory in the top 10 percent of all nursing schools with graduate programs and eighth among private schools of nursing. "These are strong indications of both our excellence and upward trajectory and reflect the tremendous strength of our faculty, students and staff," she says.

Emory Law School Dean Thomas Arthur said he expects increased recognition in the next few years as the result of the university's "generous new support for the law school. We have already added six new faculty members for next year," he says, including two new Woodruff Professors, Emory's most prestigious professorship.

Tom Robertson, dean of Goizueta Business School, also expects gains in the future, based on the number and caliber of new faculty hired at the school and the ever-rising academic profile of its students. The school has been in the top 25 since 1994.

Many of the categories of schools and programs were not re-surveyed this year, so previous years' rankings remain current. That means the physical therapy program in Emory School of Medicine's department of rehabilitation medicine remains third among all PT programs.

U.S. News first published a reputation-only graduate school ranking in 1987. The annual America's Best Graduate Schools report began in 1990.

Back