National Research Council to Release Doctoral Rankings

The National Research Council will release its rankings of some 5,000 doctoral programs at American colleges and universities on Tuesday afternoon. Anxious faculty members, provosts, deans, and academic vice presidents across the country will finally get the answers to questions about the quality of their programs that have simmered for 15 years, since the last such set of rankings came out.

The Chronicle has developed an interactive site, available Tuesday afternoon, to give readers a unique and sophisticated way to compare programs in all 62 fields covered by the research council’s rankings. Comparisons by faculty publications, grants, citations, graduate students’ time to degree, GRE scores, and reputation of programs will be a mouse click away, along with many other features. Readers will also be able to do their own analyses of programs using all key NRC data.

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More on the NRC Rankings

INTERACTIVE TOOL: Explore the NRC Rankings in Detail
OVERVIEW: An Elaborate Ranking Makes Its Debut, Finally
FAQ: What’s in the Report? And Why?

The Chronicle reporter who has been following the ranking process for years, David Glenn, will have a review of the project and what universities hope—and perhaps fear—to get from it. Readers should return to this Web site today shortly after 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time, to view the rankings, the interactive tools, and our report on several controversies that surround them.

The new rankings, a sequel to the influential 1982 and 1995 editions, are based on work that began in 2003 but has been delayed many times since then. Many of the data cover doctoral programs in the 2005-6 academic year.

What appears today will also be the most comprehensive source of information on graduate students’ completion rates and their time to degree, according to Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. For that reason, along with data on professors’ performance and how programs are viewed by peers, the rankings will resonate throughout higher education.