Medical school, graduate bioscience programs tops in state according to national survey

Medical school, graduate bioscience programs tops in state according to national survey

Two bioscience graduate programs rated best in U.S.

March 28, 2008

Two bioscience graduate programs--paleontology and ecology/evolutionary biology--were ranked the best in the United States, and the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine tied for 16th in the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the nation's best graduate schools.

Graduate programs in the biological sciences overall tied for 18th in the magazine's "Best Graduate Schools" issue, on newsstands March 31, 2008.

As a comparatively small institution, the University of Chicago's medical school is at a disadvantage on total research funding from the National Institutes of Health, a key component of the medical school survey. Chicago regained some of that, however, by ranking fifth in the country on research funding per faculty member, with average annual grant support per researcher from the NIH of more than $243,000.

No other Illinois program scored as well in either medical education or the biological sciences.

Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine has made substantial gains in the U.S.News survey, rising from 22nd in 2004.