April 3, 2000
Three Ph.D. programs at UCSC rated among nation's best
By Jim Burns
Three Ph.D. offerings at UC Santa Cruz are among the best in the country, according to the 2001 edition of U.S. News & World Report's popular guide helping students select graduate schools. The rankings appear in the magazine's "Best Graduate Schools" guide, released March 31.
Specifically, UCSC was highly ranked nationally in the following Ph.D. program areas:
- Geology. In the overall rankings in this field, UCSC made the top-25,
finishing in a tie for 23rd. The campus's Earth Sciences Department, which offers
bachelor's and master's degrees in addition to a Ph.D., has been highly ranked in
other national assessments. A National Research Council survey in 1995 ranked earth
sciences in the top quartile of all doctoral programs in that field; the assessment
takes place every ten years.
- Third World Literature. UCSC made the top-10 ranking, finishing fourth,
in the Third World Literature "specialty" in the field of English. The
campus's Literature Department offers bachelor's and master's degrees in addition
to a Ph.D. The doctorate offers concentrations in American, British, and other English
literatures; French literature; modern literary studies; pre- and early modern studies;
Spanish, Latin American, and Latino literatures; and world literature and cultural
studies.
- Astrophysics/Space. UCSC made the top-10 ranking, finishing tenth, in the Astrophysics/Space "specialty" in the field of physics. The campus's Astronomy and Astrophysics Department, which offers a doctorate and an undergraduate minor, has also been highly ranked in other national assessments. UCSC astrophysicists, for example, were recently ranked first in a survey measuring the impact of research on the field. The survey, evaluating the top 100 federally funded U.S. universities, was completed by the Institute for Scientific Information and ranked universities whose research papers attracted the most attention from other scholars in each of 24 fields between 1994 and 1998.
U.S. News first ranked graduate schools in 1987 and has done so annually since 1990. The survey's rankings of master's and doctoral programs in the arts, sciences, social sciences, and humanities are based on the results of surveys sent to faculty leaders in each discipline around the country.
