Several programs at CWRU's graduate and professional schools continue to rate among the country's top 10, according to the latest U.S.News and World Report graduate school rankings.

CWRU's School of Medicine placed sixth among family medicine graduate programs; the Weatherhead School of Management is seventh in nonprofit management; the Case School of Engineering ranks seventh in biomedical engineering; the School of Law is eighth in health law; and the School of Nursing placed seventh in gerontological nursing, 10th in nurse anesthesia and 10th in adult/medical-surgical.

The nursing school also ranks 11th among pediatric nurse practitioner graduate programs and 15th in psychiatric mental health.

Overall, the School of Nursing rates 15th among 278 schools nationwide.

CWRU's engineering school has jumped six places overall to rank among the top 40 engineering graduate programs in the country, according to U.S. News. The engineering school is now 38th among 185 schools nationwide. Its national reputation among academics is 35th, compared to 39th a year ago, and among recruiters it is rated 34th this year, up from 41st in 2002.

The School of Medicine is rated 24th among 144 research universities in the 2003 graduate school rankings. In the peer assessment survey, the medical school is ranked 21st among academics in the country, 27th among residency directors and 32nd in selectivity.

The medical school also ranks 17th among pediatrics graduate programs nationwide.

Among the 177 law schools in the national graduate school rankings this year, CWRU's School of Law placed 57th. Its reputation among practitioners is 44th, and among academics the law school is rated 47th.

The management school placed 63rd overall among 365 schools. The national reputation of its graduate programs among recruiters is 26th and among academics is 41st.

U.S. News last ranked social work master's programs in 2000 and last ranked arts and sciences graduate programs in 2001 and 2002. Dentistry programs have not been ranked.

Complete results of this year's graduate school rankings are included in the 2004 edition of the newsstand book, America's Best Graduate Schools, available now. Many of the ranking categories appear in the April 14 edition of U.S.News & World Report, the weekly news magazine, and results are available online at USNews.com.

Each year, U.S. News ranks graduate programs in the areas of business, education, engineering, law and medicine. These rankings are based on two kinds of data: expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research and students. For the rankings in all five areas, indicator and opinion data come from surveys of more than 1,000 programs and nearly 7,000 academics and other professionals conducted in the fall of 2002.

This year, U.S. News also produced new rankings of graduate programs in selected health fields. The rankings in these fields are based solely on the ratings of academic experts. To gather the opinion data, U.S. News asked deans, program directors and senior faculty to judge the overall academic quality of programs in their field on a scale of 1 ("marginal") to 5 ("outstanding"). In business, education, engineering, law and medicine, U.S. News also surveyed professionals in the field who are part of the hiring process.