The Washington University Medical School advanced one place, from fourth in 2001 to third, while the WU Olin Graduate School of Business dropped five spots, from 26th in 2001 to 31st in this year’s U.S. News and World Report graduate school rankings edition.
The rankings, which came out last week, also reported an increase for the WU School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which jumped from 40th in 2000 to 35th, as well as for the School of Law, which stepped up from 27th in 2001 to 25th.
William A. Peck, M.D., dean of the medical school, said two main factors contributed to the increase in the school’s ranking and its regular inclusion in U.S. News’s top medical research institutions.
“It’s the great faculty and the wonderful students that make the difference,” he said. “Also, [National Institutes of Health] support, faculty reputation and student selectivity are big things they pay attention to. But one of the reasons we’ve done so well overall is because our individual programs are marked highly.”
Other departments within the medical school ranked this year by U.S. News were internal medicine, ranked fourth; microbiology, neurosciences and pediatrics, all ranked sixth; AIDS research and cell biology, both ranked 10th; and primary care, ranked 30th.
Most medical schools have different areas of focus, some being primary care, and others being research, said Peck in response to the low primary care program ranking. He went on to say that the WU medical school specializes in research, which accounts somewhat for the relatively lower ranking.
But the drop in the ranking of WU’s graduate business school was not as acceptable, according to Stuart Greenbaum, dean of Olin School of Business.
“This is inescapable and unacceptable, and we need to stand ready to alter our strategies,” said Greenbaum in an e-mail to all business graduate students and faculty. “By continuing to do things as usual, we can expect the usual outcomes.”
Greenbaum later said that the business school will take the advice of consultants McKinsey and Leo Burnett, who will specifically analyze the school’s strategies and marketing. Though the consultants were hired before the ratings were publicized, Greenbaum and other prominent members of the business school administration plan to use their advice in part to strengthen the school and avoid another drop.
Joseph Fox, Associate Dean and Director of MBA Programs for Olin Graduate School of Business, said the school plans to use the rankings as a starting point for recognizing areas where improvements can be made.
“We look to see if there is meaningful and relevant information that we can improve from,” said Fox. “There are several criteria that U.S. News uses. We look at how we can improve on one or on all of them. But at the same time, we’re not going to give up on the philosophies and developments we believe in just because of a ranking.”
The question of the accuracy and reliability of U.S. News rankings has been a historically debated issue among the ranked schools.
Greenbaum said that because of the consistently changing criteria used by U.S. News to rank the schools, it is often difficult to anticipate a school’s placement.
“The rankings come and go,” he said. “Inevitably, you do well in some areas and not so well in others. [U.S. News] changes what they rank you on every year, so our position keeps bobbing up and down.”
Joel Seligman, dean of the School of Law, also sees flaws in how the rankings are constructed.
“I am not a great fan of rankings,” he said. “They have serious methodological flaws.. To the extent that rankings can be respected, you want to look at trends over a longer period of time than one year. In three years, for example, we have improved from 32nd to 25th.”
Seligman said the principle reason for the law school’s steady increase has been “great faculty hires, many new programs, such as those in intellectual property, interdisciplinary studies, and international law, and a focus on being a student-friendly law school.”
Christopher Byrnes, Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said the school’s expansion of new departments and programs contributed to the rating increase. He highlighted the school’s effort in environmental engineering, which is a combination of chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering. Also, he said the school’s further advances in biomedical engineering and computers and communications was perhaps an additional contributor to the increase.
Even with an increase of five places in one year, Byrnes said that he still strives to keep the rating moving upward.
“I’d like to be number one,” he said. “Our approach has been to pick some strategic areas. We need to work at them through the course of years and we figure we’ll get better and better known in some selected areas. But it’s a gradual thing.”
For now, however, Byrnes was quite pleased with the increase.
“It’s wonderful they’re ranking us higher,” said Byrnes. “My first year as dean, we ranked something like 58th.. I’m really pleased that what U.S. News is saying reflects what I think of the school.”
WU Chancellor Mark Wrighton shared Byrnes’ sentiments about the rankings of WU graduate schools in general.
“We are pleased to see a steady growth in the recognition of the quality of our graduate and professional programs,” he said in a press release about the rankings. “[This] reflects the superb faculty and students who teach, learn and do research here. The fact that 18 of our graduate-level programs are now ranked in the nation’s top 10 by U.S. News is gratifying evidence of our strengths in many academic disciplines.”

Contact Jenni at [email protected]

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