March 31, 2005

Engineering, Medicine And Social Sciences Graduate Programs
Rank Among The Nation’s Best In Annual U.S. News Survey

By Denine Hagen

In the annual survey of graduate programs released April 1 by U.S. News, ten programs in the UCSD Social Sciences and two in the Humanities are ranked in the top ten. UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering ranks 11th among 179 engineering schools, and the UCSD School of Medicine ranks 14th in the category of research-focused medical schools and 7th in the nation for primary care among 123 medical schools. Both the Jacobs School and the School of Medicine rank 6th in the nation among public universities in their respective professional school categories.

Reflecting UCSD’s leadership as a research university, the Jacobs School of Engineering and the School of Medicine both rank second in the nation for research expenditures per faculty member. Total federal, state and industry research support at the School of Medicine is $242 million, and at the Jacobs School is $138.3 million.

All five of the Jacobs School’s academic departments had graduate programs ranked in the top 20 including the Department of Bioengineering which ranks 2nd in the nation for biomedical/bioengineering. Other highly ranked disciplines include computer engineering (16); electrical/electronic/communications (16); mechanical engineering (18); aerospace engineering (20); and civil engineering (16).

Among the medical specialties, UCSD's AIDS program is ranked 7th, the drug and alcohol abuse program is 11th, and internal medicine is 18th in the nation.

The professional school rankings are based on surveys of peers and of professionals outside academe, and objective criteria such as research activity and student selectivity.

In addition to the professional school rankings, UCSD excelled in the ranking of Ph.D. programs in the social sciences and humanities. UCSD is ranked 7th in the nation, and third among all public schools, for political science, with top ten rankings for the specialties of comparative politics (3), American politics (6), international politics (6), and political methodology (7). UCSD economics is ranked 2nd best among public universities, and 10th overall in the nation. It is also 2nd for econometrics, 12th in microeconomics, 16th in macroeconomics, and 16th in international economics.

In the psychology and sociology specialties, UCSD ranks 2nd for behavioral neuroscience, 3rd in cognitive psychology, 6th in experimental psychology, 6th in sociology of culture, and 16th overall for psychology. From the humanities, Latin American history ranks 7th, and Asian history ranks 10th in the nation. Rankings of the social sciences and humanities are based on results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline.

The rankings appear in U.S. News’ 2006 America’s Best Graduate Schools guidebook and in the April 11 edition of the U.S. News weekly magazine. The survey results also appear on-line beginning April 1 at www.usnews.com.

The current U.S. News guidebook includes rankings from past years for graduate programs in the biological and physical sciences, and in the arts. In those repeat rankings, UCSD ranked 14th in the biological sciences. Other highly ranked science programs included physics (16), mathematics (21), chemistry (22), and applied mathematics (31). In the area of geology, UCSD was ranked 11th in the nation and 6th in the specialty of geophysics. UCSD's programs in multimedia/visual communications were ranked 6th in the nation.

The magazine's rankings for engineering, medicine, and the social sciences and humanities were based on new surveys conducted in 2004; the fine arts rankings were from a 2002 survey, and the physical and biological sciences rankings were derived from a 2001 survey.

Media Contact: Denine Hagen, (858) 534-2920