Why does U.S. News rank certain disciplines and not others?
Because we cannot survey every area of study, we make our decisions on the disciplines to rank on the basis of how to best serve the greatest number of readers. We look at enrollment figures to determine the most popular areas of study. The disciplines we survey every year are the areas of law, business, medicine, engineering and education. In these areas we collect peer assessment data as well as objective data on entering students, faculty, finances and job placement that we use to calculate quality indicators. We survey graduate programs in other areas on a rotating cycle, collecting peer assessment data. In areas where rankings are not computed annually, we publish the date of ranking with each list. These areas include doctoral programs in the physical and social sciences and the humanities, as well as master’s programs in public affairs and fine arts and a number of programs in the health sciences. The specialty areas in a discipline that we rank are selected on the basis of tren
