U.S. News releases rankings
for 2002

By Jan Gleason

Emory’s medical and business schools are among the Top 25 schools in America, according to the U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Graduate School” guide for 2002. These rankings will be reported in the issue due on newsstands April 9.

The School of Medicine’s ranked 22nd among research-oriented medical schools and 41st among primary-care-oriented schools. The Goizueta Business School’s MBA program ranked 23rd, and its executive MBA program placed 10th. The School of Law ranked 27th, and its trial advocacy program was ranked ninth. In other ratings new this year, Emory’s graduate programs in history and clinical psychology both ranked 25th.

These figures show a slight decrease from last year, when Emory was 19th in research-oriented medical schools and 40th in primary-care-oriented schools; Goizueta was ranked 21st, and the law school was ranked 26th.

“In terms of research schools, we’ve hovered around the same spot on the needle for the past five years, since making a move up from 24 in 1996,” said Medical Dean Thomas Lawley. “Two or three points on the 100-point scale—a scale made up of reputation, research dollars, tuition and other measures—can mean the difference between being 22nd or 16th. But for our size—we’re the third-smallest medical school ranked in the top 25—we’ve done extremely well over recent years in the measures that matter most to us. We believe we’ll continue to do well as our research dollars (about a third of the ranking system) go up and our reputation catches up with the great things we’re doing here.”

Many of the categories of schools and programs were not re-surveyed this year, so last year’s rankings remain current. That means the medical school’s physical therapy program remains third among its peers; the physician assistant program remains fourth in the nation; the Rollins School of Public Health stays at No. 11; and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing remains 32nd.

On another front, the nursing school just learned it has climbed from No. 37 to No. 20 in 2000 NIH funding to nursing schools. “This is particularly impressive because we are the new kid on the block with our Ph.D. program, and no NIH training dollars are figured into our total—it is based purely on research,” said Dean Marla Salmon.