new US News grad school rankings

[hesadork]

For whatever they're worth...

 

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/edu-rankings

 

 

[higheredphdapp]

I never put much stock in them, however, when asking for advice on my impending decision from 2 ed school faculty, both noted that one program is ranked higher and that's important. So maybe they are still valued just because they are the only option? 

 

Also, how are the specialty fields ranked? surely k12 superintendent reviews are not going into the higher ed rankings... at least I hope not.

[SCGH]

I think the rankings are useful in that they reflect the general perception among industry and academic participants of the overall quality of a particular program. That said, I do not think people should make much over the distinction between a program that ranks 3rd over a program that ranks 7th. The rankings are useful in creating a set of broad tiers, say the top 10 programs in Tier 1, the next 10-15 schools in Tier 2, etc.

Edited March 12, 2014 by SoCalGuy

[hesadork]

Here is the methodology on the speciality rankings.  In short, it is a subjective survey of prestige -- numbers (scores, research spending, productivity, etc.) do not factor into the analysis.  For the Higher Ed sub-field, there has been a lot of movement year-to-year over the years...which makes me skeptical.

 

"Specialty rankings: Education specialty ratings are based solely on nominations by education school deans and education school deans of graduate studies from the list of schools surveyed. They selected up to 10 top programs in each area. Those schools receiving the most votes in each specialty are listed and are numerically ranked in descending order based on the number of nominations they received as long as the school/program received seven or more nominations in that specialty area. This means that schools ranked at the bottom of each specialty ranking have received seven nominations."

[higheredphdapp]

thanks for posting that -- that's useful knowledge.  I wonder if these nominations are based on the master's programs, phd, edd, or all of them. 

[hesadork]

Doctoral.

 

The main rankings--and therefore the speciality rankings--are open only institutions that offer a doctoral option (PhD or EdD in Education).  The metrics on the main rankings (GRE scores, admission stats) relate only to doctoral applicants.  And perception of programmatic prestige is probably largely driven by strength of the faculty in terms of research productivity, which arguably is more of a doctoral consideration.

[RedPill]

All my related programs went down.

 

 

Although, I will say that generally speaking, these are the go-to programs. If you're attending any program on the (complete) list, you're attending a well-known, prestigious and relevant program. 

 

http://www.university-list.net/us/rank/univ-20131034.htm

 

Other programs I would add to the list above include UVA, UConn, Boston College and maybe others. I don't know much about student affairs programs, so I can't comment on those. UConn is def a student affairs centric program.

Edited March 15, 2014 by RedPill