Business & economics, Research, Campus & community, Technology & engineering, Campus news

Berkeley shines in new reputation, graduate school rankings

By Public Affairs

UC Berkeley’s reputation shines internationally, and the campus’s graduate schools retain high marks nationally, as well, according to two separate rankings made public this week.

Berkeley placed fifth in the world in reputation rankings issued Thursday by the Times Higher Education, the United Kingdom’s leading educational news publication. The rankings are based on a survey of more than 17,500 academics worldwide.

According to the Times‘ analysis of the reputation rankings, Berkeley is part of “an elite Anglo-American cadre of six global university ‘super-brands’ ” that has emerged. Rounding out the sweet six are Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, Stanford and Oxford.

“The six occupy what one expert describes as ‘a special zone beyond ordinary competition,’ riding well ahead of the chasing pack and reaping the multiple rewards associated with being the world’s best in teaching and research,” the analysis continued.

Berkeley’s ranking fell one place within the top six, compared with last year’s survey, trading spots with Stanford.

In the U.S. News & World Report 2013 Guide to America’s Best Graduate Schools, Berkeley maintained its overall rankings engineering (3rd) and business (7th), it moved up two places in law (7th) and fell one place in education (13th).

Berkeley’s graduate programs place at the top of U.S. News’s most recent rankings (2009) as well, often beating or tying private universities including Stanford and the Ivy Leagues. Berkeley took or shared first place in English, sociology, history (tied with Princeton and Stanford), psychology (tied with Stanford), chemistry (tied with CalTech and MIT), and computational science (tied with Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Stanford). In addition, Berkeley took or shared 2nd place in biosciences, math and statistics; 3rd place in earth science; 5th place in physics; and 6th in economics and political science.

Reputational rankings for certain disciplines saw Berkeley’s claim first place for public policy analysis. The public administration program ranked 6th, and social work ranked 7th.