Why doesn U.S. News rank undergraduate specialty schools in fine arts, engineering, and business?
Fifty-eight of the approximately 1,400 accredited undergraduate institutions in the United States fall into a specialty category because they award most or all of their degrees in fine arts, performing arts, business, or engineering. These schools offer an important alternative for students aspiring to careers in particular fields. U.S. News provides pertinent data for each school but does not rank these institutions because there are too few in each category to allow a fair comparison and because their specialized focus would require a different system of ranking. However, U.S. News does rank 437 undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and 367 undergraduate engineering programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. These rankings are based solely on peer assessment surveys that were sent in the spring of 2009. The results of this survey are available on our website.
