Many of Georgetown’s graduate schools gained a larger share of national recognition last week after moving up in this year’s U.S. News and World Report rankings of top graduate schools.
The Georgetown University School of Medicine climbed four spots and the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and McDonough School of Business both rose three places in this year’s rankings.
The Georgetown University Law Center retained last year’s rank of 14th. GPPI rose from 17th to 14th, tied with 10 other institutions.
After rising 12 spots in the past two years, the MSB graduate program moved up from 25th to 22nd place. The MSB has risen 12 spots in the past two years. According to Andy Pino, director of media relations for the MSB, the rankings demonstrate the progress and forward-thinking mentality of the business school.
“Over the past few years, we’ve enhanced our office of career management, developed innovative approaches to global management education and added to the ranks of our world-class faculty. Next year, we’ll open our new, state-of-the-art facility. Our faculty, staff, students and alumni have worked hard to make all of these things happen, and we believe the rankings reflect the momentum they have helped to create,” he said.
Despite the rise in rankings for the school’s MBA program, the undergraduate program fell eight spots in BusinessWeek’s 2008 rankings from 11th to 19th place. Pino said that officials in the business school acknowledge the role that aging facilities have played in the undergraduate program’s decline and are optimistic that the new building will help to rectify that problem.
The medical school’s rankings have steadily increased from 46th place two years ago to 44th last year and now 40th. Laura Cavender, executive director of communications at the Medical Center, attributed this to a rise in applications and higher success rates at matching students with residencies.
The medical school received about 11,300 applications for admission this year, up from last year’s 10,642. The school admitted 3.5 percent of applicants, down from 4.3 percent last year.
“In addition, our graduating students matched into their residency programs two weeks ago, and it was one of the most successful Match Days ever for Georgetown. Ninety percent of Georgetown medical students matched into one of their top three choices for residency programs. Forty-five percent of the class matched into residency programs in the top quarter of U.S. News-ranked institutions. That success rate is up from 39 percent last year.”
The U.S. News and World Report rankings are created using a combination of admissions information and surveys of experts and peer institutions. The rankings are intended to demonstrate not only the quality of students entering the institutions but also the success the students achieve upon graduating.
Harvard University topped the charts with its first-place rankings in both the business school and medical school rankings. Syracuse University was ranked first for its programs in public affairs, and Yale University took the top spot in the law school rankings.
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