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UO and OSU grad program ranks, from USNews via RG

Last updated on 03/17/2016

Story in the RG here on U.S. News Best Grad School Rankings. Yes, we all know Ken Arrow has proved it’s impossible to do this perfectly, but these rankings are influential, particularly for the professional schools like Law and Business:

Business Schools (of 92)

University of Oregon, unranked

Oregon State University, unranked

Education Schools (180)

University of Oregon, #12

Oregon State University, #124

Special Education (22)

University of Oregon, #3

Engineering Schools (139)

Oregon State University, #76

Law Schools (144)

University of Oregon, #78

Dispute Resolution (19)

University of Oregon, #7

Legal Writing (27)

University of Oregon, #4

Biological Sciences (224)

University of Oregon, #55

Oregon State University, #75

Chemistry (148)

University of Oregon, #60

Oregon State University, #80

Clinical Psychology (183)

University of Oregon, #25

Computer Science (112)

University of Oregon, #63

Oregon State University, #67

Earth Sciences (117)

University of Oregon, #34

Oregon State University, #34

Economics (76)

University of Oregon, #56

Oregon State University, unranked

English (134)

University of Oregon, #52

Fine Arts (198)

University of Oregon, #82

History (125)

University of Oregon, #56

Math (134)

University of Oregon, #56

Oregon State University, #73

Physics (142)

University of Oregon, #54

Oregon State University, #77

Political Science (86)

University of Oregon, #68

Psychology (214)

University of Oregon, #30

Oregon State University, #101

Public Affairs (168)

University of Oregon, #77

Public Health (44)

Oregon State University, #37

Nonprofit Management (28)

University of Oregon, #28

Sociology (94)

University of Oregon, #59

Statistics (78)

Oregon State University, #63

Speech-Language Pathology (224)

University of Oregon, #53

Veterinary Medicine (26)

Oregon State University, #26

Online Bachelor’s Programs (217)

Oregon State University, #7

19 Comments

  1. I'm no Econ Professor, but... 03/16/2016

    Maybe a little less blogging (and perhaps teaching more than 1 class per term) and you might help the Economics Department break out of the bottom 20 (out of 76), Uncle Jimmy!

  2. honest Uncle Bernie 03/16/2016

    Interesting how most of the sciences at UO are pretty close to each other in ranking, at least in fields with a lot of departments.

    It appears that UO is better than OSU in almost everything in which they are both represented. Too bad that OSU is widely regarded in Oregon as “the science school” or “the research school.”

    In 20 years, UO could move up quite a bit. Phil, Connie, now is your time!

  3. Patrick Phillips 03/16/2016

    Probably worth recalculating these as percentiles. For instance, an unbiased look shows that Biology is the top ranked science department at the UO on a percentile basis, even if, say, Economics has an equivalent numerical ranking. (Just saying.)

    Our strength in early childhood research really shines through in these rankings, and I do not think this is as widely appreciated as it should be. I also don’t think that we capitalize on this as much as we should as an institution — for a variety of reasons (we are doing better however).

    Also interesting to look more broadly across the state. OHSU has the #68 ranked biological science program, which puts them firmly as #2 in the state, despite their many $100 millions in gifts.

    • Look Again 03/16/2016

      “For instance, an unbiased look shows that Biology is the top ranked science department at the UO on a percentile basis”

      Biological Sciences (224): University of Oregon, #55
      Psychology (214): University of Oregon, #30

    • Unhinged 03/16/2016

      Actually, Patrick, your “unbiased” look seems a little biased. Psychology is higher ranked than Biology, even when looking at the percentile scores. Just saying.

      • Patrick Phillips 03/16/2016

        Duh. Good point to both of you. Yes, Psychology is rated higher and I somehow missed the math by focusing on everyone but Psychology when I glanced at things. Part of my comment on the early childhood stuff is clearly driven by the current and historical strength we have had in this area in Psychology.

        • uomatters Post author | 03/16/2016

          It’s not clear to me what the number of programs ranked by us news really means, and therefore how to interpret the rank or percentile. If they rank 100 programs in X and leave 50 unranked, and rank 50 programs in Y and leave 100 unranked, does rank #50 mean the same thing for programs X and Y? And what if they rank 50 in Z and leave 150 unranked?

          Also many of these PhD program rankings are old. I think Econ is from 2013, and from what I remember reading somewhere they are mostly based on a reputational survey of those deans and department heads who bother to respond. I’ve got a link somewhere on this, but why spoil the fun?

          In any case the UO administration and Deans seems more interested in the annual Academics Analytics reports, which they refuse to show to mere faculty.

          In comparison to the PhD ranks, the US News Law and Business rankings are annual, and are based on actual data about selectivity, test scores, employment outcomes, student/faculty ratios, and so on.

          • Uncle Jimmy 03/16/2016

            Count on the economist to spoil the party

          • Dog 03/17/2016

            oh just use the p-value of the rankings, certainly that is the truth …

        • Hippo 03/17/2016

          I think Patrick’s statement stands. Notice his words “science department”.

  4. just a troll 03/16/2016

    B-School is now so good that it is unranked. Last year it was 79th.

    What a jump!

  5. Kitten 03/16/2016

    I note also that in some of the non-science fields (English, History) UO rankings are comparable with those for some of the sciences (Physics, Math) even though we talk endlessly here of STEM and how much more money we need to funnel into it, and give little credit to the cheap and supposedly declining Hum and SocSci fields. I don’t put much weight on these rankings, but if we’re going to flail any of them around rhetorically (e.g., Education) we might as well be consistent.

  6. thedude 03/17/2016

    The sad truth is that you want good grad programs? You want the AAU? You have to pay for it.

    • uomatters Post author | 03/17/2016

      This is UO. We only pay for sports and administrators.

  7. awesome0 03/17/2016

    To me these rankings just pretty say if you pay shit wages and hire a depressing number of faculty relative to students, and have no money for research assistants, you get shit rankings almost regardless of field.

    Whatever happened to priority 1?

    • Dog 03/17/2016

      maybe priority 1 is shit …

      • Anonymous 03/17/2016

        In most vernaculars that is #2.

  8. honest Uncle Bernie 03/17/2016

    not entirely unrelated — a good piece by a student on tuition in today’s RG.

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