The U.S. News and World Report has awarded high ratings to several Hopkins institutions, including the School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and departments in the Schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering.
The medical school was designated the second best of its kind in the country for research, and the Bloomberg School kept its ranking as the best of its kind in the country.
Paula Burger, dean of Undergraduate Education and vice provost, believes that the caliber of these graduate programs has an impact on the quality of undergraduate education, particularly in the kind of faculty and graduate students accessible to undergraduates.
"I am always struck by the fact that Hopkins students cite the privilege of studying with faculty who are the leading experts in their fields as one of the great strengths of a Hopkins education," Burger said. "They feel studying with people who have such expertise does in fact add to the excitement of their courses and the knowledge that is shared."
Burger also noted that undergraduate students benefited from high graduate program rankings that measure scholarly distinction and attract the strongest graduate students.
"The better regarded our graduate programs are, the higher the quality of the TAs we are likely to enroll," Burger said.
Eaton Lattman, Dean of Research and Graduate Education at Hopkins said that the University has been working very hard to improve stipends for graduate students. But, he noted, "this is unlikely to percolate up into the rankings for a long time."
The School of Medicine was recently ranked second in research in the 2008 US News & World Report graduate school rankings. The Bloomberg School of Public Health maintained its number one spot, while the Whiting School of Engineering fell to 26.
Several of the Ph.D. programs at Hopkins were highly ranked as well --- the graduate program in biological sciences was ranked sixth in the nation, the graduate program in history was ranked ninth, and the graduate program in English was ranked eighth. Many of these rankings, however, were calculated in 2007 and were merely repeated this year.
As imprecise as these rankings may be, they do have significant implications for the university as a whole.
The U.S.News & World Report rankings are reached using two different methods. Rankings for professional schools rely upon both expert opinions about program quality and statistical gauges that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research, and students. Rankings for graduate programs in the sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts are based solely upon the opinions of academic experts.
But this method of ranking does present a problem, according to Dean Lattman, with regard to rankings in the arts and sciences.
"Large departments have an advantage since they have a better chance of evoking name recognition on the part of the assessors. Hopkins's model of selective excellence means that departments like Physics and Astronomy do not cover all areas of physics. Assessors whose field is not represented in a department are not likely to rank that department highly," Lattman said.
Adam Falk, dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, also registered his complaints with the system of rankings.
"What is interesting to us is, `what is our peer group?'" Falk said, "And what should be interesting to someone applying to a program is, `is this program the right fit for me?' I don't like rankings, because they induce all of us to focus on the wrong thing."
Joann Rodgers, director of Media Relations and Public Affairs at the School of Medicine, reported that she was very pleased with the school's ranking.
"The magazine's evaluation reflects what we believe is our commitment to excellence in research, education and the advancement of clinical care. We are delighted to be in the good company of other top-tier institutions," she said.
When asked if they had made any changes to their graduate programs that they believe had affected the rankings, most department heads replied negatively. Rodgers, though, reported that the School of Medicine had been working very hard in recent years to recruit diverse faculty, redesign the school's curriculum to reflect changes in medical science, and improve the quality of care through evidence-based medical care.
"Such changes are the right thing to do," Rodgers said. "A side benefit, perhaps, is that we continue to be held in high regard by medical professionals and the public."
Graduate students at Homewood also take the rankings with a grain of salt. Claire Cage, a graduate student in the History Department focusing on French history, said she would consider the History Department's top ten ranking to be very good. However, Cage said that she does not believe that students at the graduate or undergraduate level should attach too much weight or significance to these findings.
"Graduate students should be more concerned about finding an excellent advisor to work with, especially in Hopkins' Ph.D. History program, which is very centered upon the advisor-advisee relationship," she said.
