6 Rice graduate programs ranked among top 25 by US News & World Report

Rice University has six graduate programs ranked among the country’s top 25 in the 2020 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools.

Lovett HallThe George R. Brown School of Engineering, which ranks No. 27 nationally (up from No. 30), has four programs or specialties in the top 25: bioengineering (No. 10), environmental engineering (No. 14), computer engineering (No. 21, up from No. 23) and electrical engineering (No. 23, up from No. 25). The school’s computer science program was ranked No. 20 in the publication’s 2019 edition, the most recent time the discipline was ranked.

Other Brown School programs also rank highly, and every engineering department at Rice now ranks among the top 30: chemical engineering (No. 26), civil engineering (No. 26), materials science (No. 26, up from No. 37) and mechanical engineering (No. 29).

The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, which is No. 26 based on its full-time MBA program ranking, has two programs ranked in the top 25: the entrepreneurship specialty (No. 17) and the professional MBA program (No. 17). The latter is ranked in the category for part-time MBA programs but is not a part-time program.

Evaluating universities across six major disciplines — business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing – these rankings are designed for prospective students looking to advance their education interests and career goals.

The rankings are based on expert opinions about program excellence and on statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students. The data came from statistical surveys of more than 2,054 programs and from reputation surveys sent to more than 22,018 academics and professionals. The surveys were conducted in fall 2018 and early 2019. Disciplines that were not surveyed for the new book appear with their 2019 or earlier ranking.

For more information on the rankings, go to www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools.

About Jeff Falk

Jeff Falk is director of national media relations in Rice University's Office of Public Affairs.