U.S. News and World Report named several University of Wisconsin graduate programs among the best in the country as a part of its “Best Graduate Schools” 2010 list released Thursday.
While not all programs are ranked each year, the list ordered schools in programs and specialties.
Sociology placed the highest out of UW programs at second in the nation. While the University of California-Berkeley was ranked first, UW beat out schools like Princeton, Stanford and Harvard University, which were also ranked in the top five.
Other UW programs in the top 10 include chemistry, education, psychology, and library and information studies.
UW was also ranked first in the nation in a number of specialties, including clinical psychology within health disciplines; educational psychology, and curriculum and instruction within the School of Education; and social stratification and sociology of population within Sociology.
Interim Education Dean Adam Gamoran issued a statement following the publication of the list as a result of the large number of School of Education specialties that placed highly.
“We are pleased to be ranked year after year among the nation’s best colleges of education,” Gamoran said in the statement. “We are particularly delighted that our core programs continue to be regarded among the very best.”
He added the quality of the school is represented in ways other than the rankings, including service to constituents and the quality of its graduates.
Ronald Serlin, chair of Educational Psychology at the time information was submitted to U.S. News, said being ranked first is as high a commendation as the program could receive because the specialty rankings are based on the reviews of peer programs’ deans.
“They know the resources we produce, the kinds of students we produce,” Serlin said. “We have an incredible department. [The rankings] indicate that we will continue to get good students, and with the help of those students, we will continue to produce cutting-edge research.”
While Serlin described the rankings as a “snapshot” of the quality of an institution at a moment in time, he said a continued positive reputation is more important, saying their top ranking this year is not a fluke, as the school has consistently been rated among the best.
“The pattern of excellence is what you look at. We have been consistently good and recognized as so by our peers,” Serlin said.
He said students can receive a top-notch education at any of the highly ranked schools, and the rankings are valuable because they lead students to program websites where they can further explore the quality of each institution.
“The pattern of excellence is what you look at. I don’t think a student will go wrong in choosing one of the top three or four schools of education,” Serlin said.
U.S. News compiles lists annually ranking educational institutions. Along with graduate school programs, they rate U.S. colleges and high schools, and rank colleges and universities on a global scale.
