The long-awaited graduate school rankings from the National Research Council (NRC) were released in October, with a number of UConn’s programs faring well in the complex new ratings system.
“Overall, we are pleased with the results,” says Lee Aggison Jr., interim vice provost and dean of the Graduate School. “These numbers help confirm what we knew: that UConn is home to many robust, top-notch graduate programs. We have a great deal to be proud of.”
The UConn programs that are rated highly include Animal Science, Biomedical Science, Communication Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Electrical Engineering, English, Environmental Engineering, French, and Kinesiology.
At the same time, Aggison cautioned against reading too much into the rankings as a whole, which are the subject of some controversy within the academic community nationwide.
“Questions have been raised about the methodology and the accuracy of the data,” said Aggison. “We’re happy that some of our best programs have been recognized, but we also feel that others deserved a higher ranking than they received. We won’t be using the data as the basis for future decisions regarding our graduate programs.”
As part of its report, the NRC itself states: “Production of the rankings turned out to be more complicated and to be accompanied by more uncertainty than originally thought. As a consequence, the illustrative rankings described in this chapter are neither endorsed nor recommended by the National Research Council as an authoritative conclusion about the relative quality of doctoral programs.”
Critics have also pointed out that the data used to determine the rankings is now five years old, so any program changes since 2005 are not reflected.
“What this does do is spell out what criteria are important to different fields of study,” says Aggison – noting that for some, publishing articles may be important, while for others, writing books and book chapters is more highly valued. “This can help create a template to better evaluate different programs going forward.”
