Three U. grad schools fall in 'U.S. News' list

Only Wharton and the Medical School went up in the annual rankings. and Faye Iosotaluno The annual U.S. News & World Report rankings of America's best graduate schools has rated three of the five ranked Penn schools lower than last year, with only the Wharton School's graduate program and the Medical School showing signs of improvement. Wharton ranked second this year by scoring 98 out of a total 100 points -- sharing the No. 2 slot with Harvard University and the Kellogg School at Northwestern University -- a one-place increase from 1998. It lags behind only Stanford University. On the down side, though, the Law School fell from eighth to 12th and the Graduate School of Education fell dramatically from 10th to 20th place. Within the 11 business specialty programs ranked by U.S. News, Wharton was rated among the top five in seven of the 11 departmental categories. The Finance Department was ranked best in the nation. And Allen said he was especially pleased that Wharton was ranked in the top 10 in each of the 11 categories. "This is just another one of many surveys showing that Wharton is basically always number one, two or three," Wharton Vice Dean Bruce Allen said. "And since all of these surveys have different methodologies, that just shows how robust this place is." "I look back and say I am particularly proud to be part of this community of scholars," Allen added. The Medical School also saw a one-place increase, moving from fourth to third, trailing only behind Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities. Yale and Duke universities -- which shared the fourth-place rank with the University last year -- slipped to fifth and sixth, respectively. The Medical School's speciality programs in Internal Medicine, Drug/Alcohol Abuse, Women's Health and Geriatrics were ranked in the top 10, with Pediatrics second only to Harvard. But the Education School saw the most drastic drop in the rankings, falling a full 10 slots from last year. Tom Kecskemethy, an assistant to Education School Dean Susan Fuhrman, attributed the drop to flaws in U.S. News' ranking methodology. "We've known for quite some time that U.S. News & World Report is constructed in a way that favors larger schools than small," Kecskemethy said. "If you look at the schools that advanced in front of us, you're talking about large public schools of education and schools that have had historical reputations of rank," he added. The Law School also fell from eighth place to 12th and held no top-10 positions within the eight evaluated fields. And the Graduate School of Engineering and Applied Sciences fell in ranking from 32nd to 35th. University spokesperson Ken Wildes said the U.S. News rankings are often arbitrary since they compare schools of varying sizes for different programs. "There's just great diversity among America's colleges -- comparing them is really difficult," Wildes said. "You have small schools and you have large schools, you have schools with research or teaching emphasis, schools that are involved in the community and schools that aren't," he added. U.S. News also evaluated doctoral programs within the graduate division of the School of Arts and Sciences. The graduate school's science programs, including Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics, were ranked among the top 26. The school also rated eighth in the specialized field of Artificial Intelligence and ninth in Geometry/Topology. Nursing programs were not ranked this year but the Nursing School ranked second in 1998. The School of Veterinary Medicine was last ranked in 1997, when it placed third.

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