2019 Best Graduate Schools – U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report announced the 2019 Best Graduate Schools, which are designed for prospective students looking to continue their education and advance their careers. As the global authority in rankings and consumer advice, U.S. News evaluates graduate programs across six major disciplines: business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing.

The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business moves up this year to tie with Harvard University for the No. 1 spot among full-time MBA programs. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania follows at No. 3. For part-time MBA programs, the Haas School of Business at the University of California—Berkeley comes in at No. 1. Chicago’s Booth School of Business is No. 2, while Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management moves up this year to No. 3.

Among law schools, Yale University and Stanford University maintained their respective No. 1 and No. 2 ranks. Harvard University rounds out the list at No. 3.

Harvard is once again the No. 1 medical school for research. Johns Hopkins University follows at No. 2, and New York University and Stanford tie for the third spot.

This year, U.S. News updated the Best Graduate Schools methodologies in the following ways.

• Reduced the value of reported GPA, GRE and GMAT scores: For the first time U.S. News reduced the value of reported GPA, GRE and GMAT scores for full-time and part-time MBA programs and GRE scores in the education rankings if less than 50 percent of an entering class submitted these scores. U.S. News believes this lack of data means the scores are not representative of the entire class.
• Decreased emphasis on reputation in medical school research ranking: To better account for all the research activity conducted at medical schools, U.S. News added four new factors to measure nonfederal research grants and non-National Institutes of Health federal research grants in the medical schools research ranking. Simultaneously, U.S. News decreased the weight of reputation by 10 percentage points in this ranking.

The six graduate disciplines U.S. News ranks annually are evaluated on factors such as employment rates and starting salaries for graduates and standardized test scores of newly enrolled students. Because each graduate program is different, the rankings methodology varies across disciplines.

Additionally, U.S. News published new rankings of graduate programs in other popular academic disciplines. These include science fields such as biological sciences and chemistry, as well as public affairs, social work and criminology. In biological sciences, three schools tied for the No. 1 spot: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California—Berkeley and Stanford University. California Institute of Technology is the top school for chemistry. Indiana University—Bloomington is the No. 1 school for public affairs, and the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor is the best for social work.

New this year, the MBA rankings, along with U.S. News’ rankings of online and undergraduate business programs, will be featured in the “Best Business Schools 2019” guidebook (ISBN 978-1-931469-89-0), to be published later this spring. The complete 2019 Best Graduate Schools rankings will be available on usnews.com, with extended rankings data exclusively in the U.S. News Graduate School Compass. For more information on the Best Graduate Schools, explore Facebook and Twitter using #BestGradSchools.

2019 Best Graduate Schools Rankings
*See the full rankings here

Best Business Schools
1. Harvard University (MA) (tie)
1. University of Chicago (Booth) (tie)
3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)

Best Education Schools
1. University of California—Los Angeles
2. Harvard University (MA) (tie)
2. University of Wisconsin—Madison (tie)

Best Engineering Schools
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University (CA)
3. University of California–Berkeley

Best Law Schools
1. Yale University (CT)
2. Stanford University (CA)
3. Harvard University (MA)

Best Medical Schools – Research
1. Harvard University (MA)
2. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
3. New York University (Langone) (tie)
3. Stanford University (CA) (tie)

Best Nursing Schools – Master’s
1. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
2. Duke University (NC)
3. Emory University (GA)