September 29, 2010
By Stacey Shackford
Graduate programs within Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences rank among the top in the nation, according to an extensive study released by the National Research Council on Tuesday.
Based on a regression analysis of program reputations, the Food Science and Technology program received the highest ranking, and the Plant Breeding program topped a list of 118 based on faculty opinions collected in a survey of its peers.
Fifteen graduate fields that draw the majority of their field members from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) were ranked in the study.
Fourteen of them placed among the top 20 in their peer groups based on the regression analysis (R-ranking), with 10 placing among the top 10. Animal Science, Communication, Entomology, Plant Biology, Breeding and Nutrition all came within the top 5 range.
According to the data collected from peer surveys (S-rankings), 12 CALS programs placed among the top 20, and 7 among the top 10. Animal Science, Applied Economics and Management, Biometry, Communication, Entomology and Food Science joined Plant Breeding to come within the top 5 range.
"As former chair of Food Science, I was delighted to see the program so high on the list, and as dean, I am proud that so many of our college's graduate fields excelled," said Kathryn Boor, the new Ronald P. Lynch dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
"It is especially heartening to see us score so highly in the S-ratings, which reflect a recognition of our excellence among our peers. These results will help us continue to attract the best and brightest faculty to Ithaca and Geneva to conduct their research and teach our students," she added.
Cornell is unique in that it pursues a public mission as New York's land-grant university within a private Ivy League setting. Working together with a large network of extension specialists and global partners, the application of CALS research on the environment, food and energy systems, and community and economic development plays a lead role in helping to address some of the most challenging issues facing society today, Dean Boor said.
University-wide, more than 75 percent of the 61 Cornell fields included in the study were in the top 20 range of overall R-rankings, while two-thirds were in the top 20 on the S-rankings. Other programs that ranked highly include Germanic Studies, Philosophy, Pharmacology, Physiology, Operations Research and Applied Mathematics.
"This study confirms what most of us already know, which is that the quality of Cornell's graduate fields is outstanding," University Provost Kent Fuchs said. "In addition to highlighting Cornell's many strong fields of study, the survey and its program rankings provide another resource for ongoing efforts to assess and improve PhD programs."
The 2010 NRC study, based on data collected in 2006, compares 4,838 individual research doctoral programs in 62 fields across 212 surveyed institutions.
Unlike the last NRC study, in 1995, the report does not give each program a specific numbered ranking, but rather produces a range of rankings for each graduate program, derived from 20 key variables, such as doctoral-student completion rates, time to degree, faculty diversity and student support services.
A program that performed strongly on some variables but less well on others might be assigned a ranking range of 6 to 29, indicating it is among the 6th through 29th best programs. For some fields the R- and S-rankings are close, but for others there is a wide variation.
Barbara Knuth, dean of the Graduate School, noted that several aspects of graduate education at Cornell have changed since the data was compiled. Applications to doctoral programs increased 5 percent since 2005, while the acceptance rate has declined 17 percent to 15 percent, indicating it has become more competitive.
The university has provided more funding for graduate student assistantships and fellowships, and the number of PhDs awarded in the social sciences and life sciences have gone up by 10 percent and 5 percent, respectively, Knuth said.
For more information about the rankings, visit www.gradschool.cornell.edu/nrc.
For an interactive chart of all rankings nationally, visit chronicle.com.