Best Graduate Schools In 2018: See Which MA Schools Made The List

If you’re considering getting a graduate degree, there’s no doubt you’ve poured over the data to help you choose which school is right for you. The cost of the program, how easy it will be to find a job once you get that degree and the actual prestige of the program likely all factor into your search.

Rankings can go a long way in helping you choose a good graduate school, and according to U.S. News & World Report’s new set of rankings, there are plenty of good graduate programs right here in Massachusetts.

The new rankings look at schools in six disciplines: business, law, engineering, education, medicine and nursing, and there’s a Massachusetts school on every list. The rankings are calculated based on factors such as employment rates, starting salaries for graduates and standardized test scores of newly enrolled students. U.S. News explains that because each graduate program is different, the methodology varies across disciplines.

If you’re planning on getting an MBA, there are six schools in Massachusetts that rank among the best:

Harvard University (1)
Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. (3)
Boston College (44)
Boston University (44)
Northeastern University (54)
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (57)

Below are the top schools for getting an MBA across the country:

Harvard University (1)
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business (1)
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business (3)
MIT Sloan School of Management (4)
Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (4)
Stanford University (4)
Haas School of Business at The University of California-Berkeley (7)
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (8)
Columbia University (9)
Yale University (9)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (11)
Duke University (12)
New York University (12)
University of Virginia (14)
University of California-Los Angeles (15)

(Click here to see the full rankings)

If you’re planning on getting a degree in law, there are four schools in Massachusetts that rank among the top 100:

Harvard University (3)
Boston University (23)
Boston College (26)
Northeastern University (65)

Below are the top schools for getting a law degree across the country:

Yale University (1)
Stanford University (2)
Harvard University (3)
University of Chicago (4)
Columbia University (5)
New York University (6)
University of Pennsylvania (7)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (8)
University of Virginia (8)
Duke University (10)
Northwestern University (10)
University of California-Berkeley (12)

(Click here to see the full rankings)

If you’re planning on getting a degree in engineering, there are seven schools in Massachusetts that rank among the best:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1)
Harvard University (23)
Boston University (34)
Northeastern University (39)
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (56)
Tufts University (67)
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (94)

Below are the top schools for getting an engineering degree across the country:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1)
Stanford University (2)
University of California-Berkeley (3)
California Institute of Technology (4)
Carnegie Mellon University (5)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (5)
Georgia Institute of Technology (7)
Purdue University-West Lafayette (8)
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (9)
University of Texas-Austin (9)
Texas A&M-College Station (11)
University of Southern California (11)
Columbia University (13)
Cornell University (13)
University of California-San Diego (13)

(Click here to see the full rankings)

If you’re planning on getting a degree in medicine, there are four schools in Massachusetts that rank among the best:

Harvard University (1)
Boston University (30)
Tufts University (50)
University of Massachusetts-Worcester (50)

Below are the top schools for getting a degree in medicine across the country:

Harvard University (1)
Stanford University (2)
Johns Hopkins University (3)
University of California-San Francisco (4)
University of Pennsylvania (5)
Columbia University (6)
Duke University (7)
Washington University in St. Louis (7)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (9)
Yale University (9)
University of California-Los Angeles (10)
New York University (12)
University of Washington (12)

(Click here to see the full rankings)

If you’re planning on getting a degree in nursing, there are six schools in Massachusetts that rank among the top 100:

Boston College (31)
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (45)
University of Massachusetts-Boston (59)
MGH Institute of Health Professionals (63)
Northeastern University (79)
University of Massachusetts-Worcester (79)

Below are the top schools for getting a degree in medicine across the country:

Duke University (1)
Johns Hopkins University (2)
University of Pennsylvania (3)
Emory University (4)
Ohio State University (5)
University of Washington (6)
Yale University (6)
Columbia University (8)
University of Pittsburgh (8)
University of Maryland-Baltimore (10)
Case Western Reserve University (11)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (11)
New York University (13)
University of Alabama-Birmingham (13)

(Click here to see the full rankings)

If you’re planning on getting a degree in education, there are five schools in Massachusetts that rank among the top 100:

Harvard University (1)
Boston College (23)
Boston University (36)
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (41)
University of Massachusetts-Boston (74)

Below are the top schools for getting a degree in education across the country:

Harvard University (1)
Stanford University (2)
University of California-Los Angeles (3)
University of Pennsylvania (3)
University of Wisconsin-Madison (3)
Johns Hopkins University (6)
Teachers College, Columbia University (7)
Vanderbilt University (7)
University of Washington (9)
Northwestern University (10)
Arizona State University (11)
University of Texas-Austin (11)
New York University (13)
University of Oregon (14)

(Click here to see the full rankings)

U.S. News rankings of programs in business, law, education, medicine, nursing and engineering are based on two types of data: expert opinion and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students. The data comes from surveys sent to administrators in close to 2,000 graduate programs and from reputation surveys sent to more than 16,500 academics and professionals in the discipline. U.S. News also surveyed professionals who hire new graduates. Statistical indicators fall into two categories: inputs, such as admission test scores, and outputs, such as starting salaries.

The value for each indicator was standardized about its mean and weighted, based on its importance. Final scores were re-scaled so the highest ranking institution was given a score of 100, and other scores were calculated as a percentage of that top score and then rounded to the nearest whole number.

Beyond the six disciplines ranked annually, U.S. News periodically ranks programs in the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Click here to see which schools rank among the best for graduate programs.

Story by Feroze Dhanoa, Patch Staff

AP Photo/Charles Krupa