U.S. News & World Report, Financial Times give high marks to IU graduate schools
Indiana University graduate schools were in the top 30 for four of the five graduate disciplines ranked annually by U.S. News & World Report.
The 2015 rankings included overall schools as well as specific programs within five disciplines: business, law, education, engineering and medicine.
Program rankings and overall school rankings are important to increase the attractiveness of the institution, said Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the IU School of Education.
He said every school competes for high quality students and faculty as well as external research dollars.
“In a way, what it shows is that we are successful in that competition,” Gonzalez said.
The IU School of Education ranked No. 25; the School of Medicine in Indianapolis ranked No. 18 for primary care; Kelley School of Business was No. 21; and Maurer School of Law was No. 29, each in their respective disciplines.
Although IU doesn’t have its own graduate engineering program, the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis School of Engineering and Technology ranked No. 102.
Earlier this year, U.S. News & World Report ranked online graduate programs and placed the IU School of Education at No. 2 for online education programs and Kelley at No. 1 for online MBA.
The Financial Times recently named the MBA program, called Kelley Direct, No. 5 in the world.
“It’s verification that the program is very strong,” said Idalene Kesner, Kelley dean.
The rankings are the first time the Financial Times, a U.K.-based publication, has ranked online MBA programs. Although online education is embraced in the U.S., that’s not the case worldwide, Kesner said.
“Hopefully, this can change perceptions,” she said.
Potential graduate students and faculty members worldwide also are looking at residential program rankings to find their schools, Gonzalez said.
Those specific IU graduate programs ranked highly as well.
The School of Education had six programs in the top 20, including curriculum, elementary education and higher education administration in the top three.
At Kelley, five programs, including the evening MBA in Indianapolis at No. 8 for part-time MBA, were in the top 20. Entrepreneurship, information systems and production/operations were all No. 10.
The School of Medicine at Indianapolis moved up two spots to No. 46 for research.
The McKinney School of Law moved up 11 places overall to No. 87; it also had legal writing and health law in the top 10.
In addition to the five disciplines ranked annually, U.S. News & World Report ranks other graduate programs every four years and also released rankings for the sciences.
The departments of chemistry and physics improved their rankings to No. 24 and No. 39, respectively, while biology stayed at No. 34 and mathematics dropped four spots to No. 34. Analytical chemistry and nuclear physics both ranked in top 5 for those programs.
Editor's note: This story from The Bloomington Herald-Times is being published here as a courtesy for readers of IU in the News.