Though U.S. News & World Report currently has the corner on the market for  

Grad School Rankings

 , there are alternative ranking systems out there, most notably The Graduate School Guide. These two rank most, if not all, fields of graduate study, using different sets of data and criteria to arrive at their numbers. (Other graduate school ranking systems are designed exclusively for specific fields of study, such as biomedical sciences, communication, engineering, philosophy, or psychology.)

U.S. News & World Report: America's Best Graduate Schools
(www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php)

What it ranks
Graduate school programs in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine (or the big five: the five areas with the largest enrollments). Programs in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and other areas, including selected health specialties, are also ranked.

How it ranks
The big-five grad school rankings are based on two types of survey data: expert opinion about program quality, and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research, and students. All other grad school rankings are based solely on expert opinion.

Understanding the data
The statistical indicators in this ranking system fall into two categories: inputs, or measures of the qualities that students and faculty bring to the education experience; and outputs, measures of graduates' achievements linked to their degrees.

Real-world application
If you're interested in law, for instance, U.S. News grad school rankings can help you examine how successful each law school is at preparing graduates for the bar. If you plan to earn your MBA, you can use the grad school rankings to see which school's graduates have the greatest earning power. Or if you want to be an engineer, you can look at each school's research expenditures to get a sense of how cutting-edge your experience there might be.

The Graduate School Guide
(http://graduate-school.phds.org)

What it ranks
Graduate school programs in seven different fields: arts and humanities, education, engineering, life sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, professional fields, and social and behavioral sciences.

How it ranks
The site allows you to customize your own grad school rankings by assigning varying weights to predetermined criteria such as educational quality and outcomes, tuition and expenses, funding and student support, student demographics, program size, and undergraduate selectivity.

Understanding the data
Grad school rankings are based on data from the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the National Center for Education Statistics, which makes this ranking system unique.

Real-world application
This flexible ranking system allows you to sort and rank programs based on your priorities, which in turn yields a customized list of the best graduate school programs for you, rather than a list of the best graduate programs in general.

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About the author:
Robyn Tellefsen is a frequent contributor to The CollegeBound Network. Learn more about finding a school that's right for you.

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