MIT Shines in Latest U.S. News Ranking

Newsletter Staff

MIT ranks 4th in the latest U.S. News and World Report undergraduate rankings, announced in the magazine’s “America’s Best Colleges” issue published in late August. Tied with CalTech and Stanford, the Institute ranking is just below traditional leaders Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, and is significantly improved from last year’s decade-low ranking of 7th.

MIT is consistently ranked in the top 10 of colleges, with its highest ranking of 3rd occurring in 2000. Click here to view "M.I.T. Numbers for a chart showing the rankings over the last decade.

MIT ranked even higher when the undergraduate engineering programs and business programs were considered. The Institute ranked 1st in the Best Undergraduate Engineering School category (click here for a five-year comparison chart), and 2nd in the Best Undergraduate Business School category (click here for a five-year comparison chart).

Categories (and weights) used by U.S. News to judge colleges include:

• Peer assessment (25%)
• Faculty resources (20%)
• Graduation and retention rate (20%)
• Student selectivity (15%)
• Financial resources (10%)
• Alumni giving (5%)
• Graduation rate performance (5%)

U.S. News also rated individual engineering and business departments. Several of the Institute’s programs in these areas were ranked in the top five. They are:

Engineering

• Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronomical (1st)
• Biomedical/Biomedical Engineering (4th) [tied with Georgia Tech]
• Chemical Engineering (1st)
• Civil Engineering (4th) [tied with Stanford and U. of Texas, Austin]
• Computer Engineering (1st)
• Electrical/Electronic/Communications (1st)
• Environmental/Environmental Health (2nd)
• Materials (2nd) [tied with Berkeley]
• Mechanical Engineering (1st)

Business

• Entrepreneurship (5th)
• Finance (5th)
• Management Information Systems (1st)
• Productions/Operations Management (1st)
• Quantitative Analysis (1st)
• Supply Chain (2nd)

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Graduate Rankings

MIT faired equally well in the U.S. News graduate school rankings, announced last April. The Institute ranked first in the Best Graduate Engineering School category (click here for a five-year comparison chart) and has consistently done so over the past decade. The Sloan School at MIT was ranked 4th this year in the Best Graduate Business School category, and has been ranked between 3rd and 5th every year over the last 10 years.

Individual MIT graduate engineering and business programs that were ranked in the top five, include:

Engineering

• Aeronautics and Astronautics (2nd)
• Chemical Engineering (1st)
• Civil Engineering (4th) [tied with Georgia Tech and U. of Texas, Austin]
• Computer Engineering (1st)
• Electrical Engineering (1st)
• Materials Engineering (1st)
• Mechanical Engineering (1st)
• Nuclear Engineering (1st)

Business

• Information Systems (1st)
• Production/Operations (1st)
• Supply Chain/Logistics (1st)

In addition, non-engineering or business programs were also rated by U.S. News. Several MIT departments ranked in the top five in this category as well, including:

• Biology (2nd) [tied with Berkeley and Harvard)
• Chemistry (1st) [tied with Berkeley)
• Computer Science (1st) [tied with Berkeley, Carnegie-Mellon, and Stanford]
• Earth Sciences (2nd) [tied with Stanford]
• Math (1st)
• Physics (1st) [tied with Stanford]

Prepation of this article included contributions by Greg Harris. Data was taken from the 2007 edition of the U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges." Charts used were prepared by members of the Office of the Provost/Institutional Research.

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