Three grad programs ranked in top 50
The University of Nevada, Reno ranked in the top-50 graduate schools in the country for three separate programs. The undergraduate school remains in the third tier nationally, according to U.S. News and World Report’s recent releases of the 2009 editions of “America’s Best Colleges” and “America’s Best Grad Schools.”
The civil and environmental engineering, geological sciences and speech pathology and audiology graduate programs all earned top-50 rankings. This is the first time the speech pathology and audiology program has been ranked, whereas both of the other programs were ranked last year.
Despite the strong rankings of UNR’s graduate programs, the undergraduate school failed to break into the top 100. The undergraduate rankings are aimed to impress high school juniors and seniors who haven’t made their decisions on where to continue their education.
UNR recently increased student recruitment, especially for students of high academic caliber since the university recently earned National Merit status for recruiting 17 National Merit Scholars.
“I think earning National Merit status will affect our recruitment more than the rankings,” Richard Wood, admissions and student orientation coordinator, said.
But the rankings are still an important tool for students from other states or students who have never been to Reno, Wood said.
“Students, especially students who have never been here, use it as a tool to understand our university,” UNR President Milton Glick said.
The rankings are organized into groups called tiers, said Bob Morse from U.S. News and World Report. The top-two tiers consist of the top-50 schools in each category and these 50 schools receive numbered rankings. The remainder of the more than 1,400 schools ranked by U.S. News are divided into the third and fourth tiers, but are not numbered beyond that.
The rankings are devised by assigning each school scores in seven categories, with each category counting for a percentage of the school’s total score.
These categories are peer assessment, worth 25 percent of the overall score; student selectivity, worth 15 percent; faculty resources, worth 20 percent; graduation and retention rate, worth 20 percent; financial resources, worth 10 percent; and alumni giving, worth 5 percent.
This ranking system is highly controversial, according to Glick.
“Unfortunately, one of the major categories is ‘peer assessment’ which amounts to reputation,” Glick said. “You have university presidents and provosts from around the country who may have never been to your school judging it only on how well it’s known and what they may have heard. Having said that, do they have some legitimacy? Yes.”
There are alternatives that attempt to offer the same types of information as the U.S. News and World Review rankings, but do not assign a specific ranking to schools. One of these systems is the Volunteer System of Accountability, Wood said.
Glick said the university should always be looking to improve itself and the rankings are a way improvement is measured.
Improvement is a slow process, described by Glick as possibly taking up to a decade.
“One important step to raising UNR in the rankings is to improve both student retention and graduation rates, both areas that the university is already working towards,” said Jane Tors, the Executive Director of Public Relations for the university.
Glick said UNR should always strive to be better.
“We can and should improve these criteria, not because of U.S. News, but because it’s the right thing to do,” Glick said. “The driving force is because it’s the right thing to do for the students of the state, but when we do these things, the rankings will go up.”
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