UC San Diego Maintains High
Rankings in 2008 Graduate School Survey

April 2, 2007

By Paul K. Mueller

Graduate education programs at the University of California, San Diego maintained their top national rankings in the 2008 U.S. News & World Report survey released on March 31, with social sciences and humanities joining medicine, science and engineering among the nation’s elite programs.

“These rankings, among many other measures of performance and achievement, serve to highlight UC San Diego’s outstanding faculty and extraordinary students,” said Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

The UC San Diego School of Medicine held its position as 14th in the nation for research medical schools, and ranked 2nd nationally for faculty-member funding. The medical school was 38th among primary medical schools, with two specialized programs – those in AIDS and drug-and-alcohol abuse research – finishing 6th and 10th in the nation.

UC San Diego’s growing prominence in the social sciences and humanities is reflected in top-10 rankings for graduate studies in political science (7th) and economics (10th), with specialized programs in econometrics and behavioral neurosciences each ranked 2nd in the country. Latin American history ranks 7th, and Asian history ranks 10th. Programs in experimental psychology, American politics, international politics, sociology of culture and multimedia visual communications are each ranked 6th best nationally.

In science, UC San Diego retained its customary position as a leader in several key areas of research, ranking 2nd in discrete mathematics and combinations, 5th in neuroscience & neurobiology, 5th in geophysics and seismology, 6th in plasma physics, and 9th in computer-science systems. UCSD was 18th nationally in biological sciences, 20th in chemistry, 13th in computer sciences, 15th in earth sciences, 16th in physics, and 21st in mathematics.  

UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering ranked 13th among 191 engineering schools, and 7th in the nation among public universities.  With nearly $139 million in federal, state and industry research support in FY06, the Jacobs School ranks 3rd in the nation for research expenditures per faculty member and 10th in the nation for total research expenditures. 

Among the engineering specialties, the Department of Bioengineering once again ranked 2nd in the nation for biomedical engineering.   The department has ranked among the top five programs in the nation every year for the past decade, and is considered an international model for biomedical engineering education.  Other Ph.D. programs highly ranked in the Jacobs School include: electrical engineering and communications (17); computer engineering (17); civil and structural engineering (20); mechanical engineering (21); aerospace engineering (22); and materials science and engineering (26). 

The Jacobs School’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering was ranked 9th in the nation for computer systems, and 13th for the overall category of computer science.  In addition to computer systems, the department ranked highly in all computer science specialties surveyed by U.S. News including theory (14), programming language (17) and artificial intelligence (19).

UC San Diego ranked 13th in the category of genomics and bioinformatics, reflecting the national prominence of UCSD’s interdisciplinary bioinformatics program which is offered jointly by eight UCSD departments including the Jacobs School’s bioengineering and computer science and engineering departments.

The professional-school rankings are based on surveys of peers and of professionals who hire new graduates, as well as objective criteria such as research activity and student selectivity. The rankings of Ph.D. programs in the sciences result from peer-assessment surveys.  Complete rankings appear in U.S. News’ 2008 America’s Best Graduate Schools guidebook and online at www.usnews.com.

Media Contact: Paul K. Mueller, 858-534-8564