UC San Diego Receives High Marks
in US News Graduate Program Ranking

March 27, 2008

By Rex Graham

Graduate education programs at UC San Diego maintained their top national rankings in the 2008 U.S. News & World Report survey released March 27, 2008.  UC San Diego again was one of only a handful of universities to have both an engineering school and a medical school both ranked in the top 15.

UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering was ranked 11th among the nation’s 191 engineering schools, up from 13th place last year. Among the engineering specialties, the bioengineering program once again ranked 2nd. The UC San Diego School of Medicine was ranked 14th nationally for research medical schools (5th among the nation’s public schools of medicine), and second in the nation in National Institutes of Health research funding per faculty member.  The School of Medicine’s primary care ranking rose from 38th in 2007 to 35th in this year, with its specialized programs in AIDS ranked 6th for both years.

The Jacobs School, which US News this year ranked 5th among the nation’s public engineering schools, received $141 million in federal, state and industry research support in the 2007 fiscal year. That funding ranked the Jacobs School 4th in the nation in research expenditures per faculty member and 9th in total research expenditures.

The UC San Diego School of Medicine received $293 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the 2007 fiscal year, which ranked the School of Medicine 14th among all medical schools in total NIH funding.

Graduate programs in the social sciences and arts and humanities, continued to be regarded among the best in the nation. Political science (7th) and economics (10th) were listed near the top nationally in their overall fields. US News also gave high rankings to the UC San Diego programs in behavioral neuroscience (2nd), econometrics (2nd), comparative politics (3rd), cognitive psychology (3rd), experimental psychology (6th), American politics (6th), international politics (6th), political methodology (7th), Latin American history (7th), Asian history (10th), fine arts (15th), and psychology (16th).

In the sciences, UC San Diego retained its customary position as a leader in key areas of basic biological, mathematical, and physical science research. US News gave high rankings to discrete mathematics and combinations (4th), neuroscience and neurobiology (5th), plasma physics (7th), biochemistry (9th), condensed matter physics (10th), biological sciences (18th), chemistry (20th), earth sciences (15th), physics (16th), and mathematics (24th). Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s graduate program in geophysics and seismology was ranked 5th in the nation.

The rankings are based on expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research, and students. The data come from surveys of more than 1,200 programs and some 14,000 academics and professionals that were conducted in fall 2007.

Media Contacts:
Rex Graham, Jacobs School of Engineering, (858) 822-3075
Leslie Franz, School of Medicine, (619) 543-6163
Barry Jagoda, Arts & Humanities, (858) 534-8567
Kim McDonald, Biological & Physical Sciences, (858) 534-7572
Mario Aguilera, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, (858) 534-3624