UW programs win top spots in nat'l survey

The University of Washington's School of Nursing and School of Medicine claimed four No. 1 spots in the U.S. News & World Report annual survey of graduate programs and professional schools.

A total of 35 UW programs and schools ­ ranging from speech and hearing to environmental law to English ­ claimed other top spots in this year's rankings. The magazine's 1998 America's Best Graduate Schools survey will be published in the March 2 issue, which should be on newsstands this week.

The UW School of Nursing sits alone atop the rankings of all nursing programs in the nation. When the magazine last rated nursing schools in 1995, the UW tied with University of California San Francisco.

For the fifth straight year, the School of Medicine was named the top primary-care medical school. Its teaching programs in family medicine and rural medicine were also rated the top in the nation, as they have been each year for several years.

Eleven other programs and specialties in the schools of nursing and medicine received top-10 rankings: clinical nurse specialist (second); family nurse practitioner (second); adult nurse practitioner (third); gerontological/geriatric nurse practitioner (third); women's health (third); pediatric nurse practitioner (fourth); geriatrics (fifth); internal medicine (fifth); pediatrics (fifth); teaching medical students about AIDS (fifth); and midwifery (10^th).

The UW Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, a part of the College of Arts and Sciences, earned No. 3 rankings in audiology and speech pathology, two of the new categories in this year's survey. Seven other UW programs and schools received top-10 rankings: clinical psychology (sixth); bioengineering (sixth); social psychology (seventh); special education (seventh); secondary education (ninth); computer science and engineering (10^th); and environmental law (10^th).

Other UW programs ranked in the 1998 survey are: sociology (13^th); biological sciences (15^th); psychology (16^th); education (23^rd); law (23^rd); history (24^th); English (24^th); engineering (30^th), public affairs (20^th, with the specialty in environmental policy ranked 5^th) and business (46^th).

The U.S News & World Report website (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/bcrank.htm), and the guidebook "America's Best Graduate Schools," both contain information about programs that were not surveyed this year. Among the UW programs ranked in previous years were: drama, 4^th in 1997; public health, 4^th in 1997; social work, 6^th in 1997; computer science, 7^th in 1997 (with the software specialty ranked 5^th); creative writing, 10^th in 1997; pharmacy, 13^th in 1997; physics, 14^th in 1996 (with the nuclear physics specialty 2^nd); geology, 16^th in 1996; architecture, 19^th in 1997; and mathematics, 24^th in 1996.

The publishers say the rankings are established through several combined research methods, including statistical analysis of selected academic attributes and surveys of deans, senior faculty and administrators at accredited schools in each discipline. For more information on the medicine and nursing rankings see the related story in the Health Sciences section of this issue. ¶