April 2, 2004 — The University of Utah is the school in this state most often ranked by U.S.News & World Report in its 2005 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools, which hits newsstands Monday. The U of U is ranked in 23 separate categories. The next most frequently mentioned school appears in 7 ranking categories.

The University of Utah moved up in several categories since the rankings were last released. The MBA program at Utah’s David Eccles School of Business moved up to the 64th position from 78th where it ranked last year. Dean Jack Brittain says he is always working to improve his program. “There are over 2000 business schools in the U.S., and around 1000 of these have MBA programs. Simply to be in the top 100 shows we are being recognized as a first rate school.”

Utah’s Graduate School of Engineering also made gains in the rankings, moving from the 63rd position to 56th in the country. Several engineering specialties were recognized. The Biomedical/Bioengineering program is ranked 15th, Computer Engineering ranks 45th, Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering ranks 47th, and the Mechanical Engineering program is 66th. “The U’s College of Engineering offers a world-class education in leading areas of technology development,” says Dean Robert Roemer.

The University of Utah was also recognized for its graduate schools of Law, Public Affairs, Education, Medicine, and Health Sciences. The School of Medicine, which perennially makes the list of the nation’s best graduate schools, is ranked 22nd in Family Medicine, is tied for 31st in Primary Care, and is 35th in Physical Therapy. The College of Education is ranked 19th in both Administration/Supervision and Special Education. The law school is again ranked in the top tier of all schools, an achievement it has reached every year since the U.S. News rankings began.

Besides the U.S. News rankings, The University of Utah was also recently recognized by another organization, which evaluated and ranked the top 500 universities in the world. According to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) Institute of Higher Education, a Chinese university, The University of Utah is the 81st best university in the world and the 52nd best university in America.

The SJTU ranking system differs from the U.S. News and other systems that focus on universities only in the United States. The Chinese institution used strictly quantitative criteria methodology to determine a school’s overall score, leaving out the common method of opinion polling.

Each of the five criteria in the SJTU rankings counted for 20% of a school’s final score. The criteria include Nobel laureates, highly cited researchers, articles published in Nature and Science, articles in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index, and academic performance per faculty.

For more information on the U.S.News & World Report 2005 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools visit: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

For the Academic Ranking of World Universities – 2003 visit: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm.