Eleven graduate programs ranked among nation’s top 20 by US News

Eleven graduate programs at Rice University are ranked among the nation’s top 20 in “U.S. News 2014 Best Graduate Schools.”

The rankings, published March 12, are based on expert opinions about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students.

At the Brown School of Engineering, which ranks No. 32 nationally, the bioengineering program is No. 9; computer engineering is in a three-way tie for No. 16; environmental engineering is in a five-way tie for No. 17; electrical engineering is in a seven-way tie for No. 19; and mechanical engineering is in a four-way tie for No. 20. The computer science program and the programming language specialty, which are part of the School of Engineering but listed in the sciences section of U.S. News’ graduate school guide, rank Nos. 20 and 12, respectively, based on the 2010 placements. (U.S. News did not do new rankings for the sciences this year.)

At the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, which is in a four-way tie for No. 30 nationally based on its full-time MBA program ranking, the entrepreneurship program is No. 15 and the part-time MBA program is tied for No. 17.

At the Wiess School of Natural Sciences, the atomic/molecular/optical specialty in physics ranks No. 9 and the geophysics and seismology specialty in Earth sciences is tied for No. 12. Both rankings are from 2010.

U.S. News used data from surveys of administrators at more than 1,250 programs and more than 13,000 academics and professionals. The surveys were conducted during the fall of 2012 and early 2013. Rankings for science departments were carried over from 2010.

In addition to the programs above that rank in the top 20, the following Rice programs are ranked in “2014 Best Graduate Schools”:

Engineering:

• Chemical engineering — six-way tie for No. 22.
• Civil engineering — five-way tie for No. 35.
• Statistics — No. 38.
• Materials — eight-way tie for No. 39.

Humanities:

• History — six-way tie for No. 30.
• English — three-way tie for No. 36.

Social Sciences:

• Political science — four-way tie for No. 32.
• Economics — five-way tie for No. 48.
• Psychology — 11-way tie for No. 67.

Natural Sciences (2010 rankings):

• Earth sciences – three-way tie for No. 25.
• Physics — four-way tie for No. 26.
• Math — six-way tie for No. 30.
• Chemistry — No. 33.
• Biological sciences — No. 42.

For more information on how the rankings were conducted, visit http://tinyurl.com/afkxyj6.