How we rank programs

Our "Top colleges for" lists use only public federal data. A college is on a list when it has at least 10 graduates in that program. We add up graduates across every closely related federal field code, so a business school that files its degrees under several business codes is counted in full. We show each list's top 50.

Every college gets a score from five things, each measured against the other colleges on that same list:

• Selectivity: average SAT scores and admission rate.
• Earnings: what graduates of that program earn a few years out. When the government does not publish a program's earnings (usually because the class is small), we use the wider field at that college, then the college's overall earnings, and if there is nothing we score the college on the other four things alone. Each row says which kind of earnings it used.
• Size: how many students graduate in the program. A small college is not marked down for being small if it is highly selective.
• Academic strength: Carnegie research class, membership in the Association of American Universities, and total research spending. Programs in agriculture and applied fields also count land-grant status.
• Graduate depth: how many master's and doctoral degrees the college awards in the same field.

The mix of these five depends on the kind of program. Selectivity always counts for the most single piece.

Sciences

Biology, chemistry, physics, math and similar fields. Graduate depth carries the most weight here (20%), alongside academic strength (20%), size (20%) and selectivity (25%). Earnings count for only 5%, because science majors often earn their living after graduate school.

Engineering and computing

Selectivity 25%, earnings 15%, size 20%, academic strength 20%, graduate depth 10%. Pay right after graduation is a good signal in these fields, and big research universities with deep engineering schools do well.

Business, economics and finance

Selectivity 25%, earnings 20%, size 25%, academic strength 10%, graduate depth 10%. Earnings and the scale of the program matter most; a business school's strength depends less on whether the university is a research powerhouse.

Health and nursing

Selectivity 25%, earnings 5%, size 15%, academic strength 20%, graduate depth 10%. Starting pay is similar across nursing programs, so it counts little. Colleges attached to academic medical centers rank higher.

Education and social science

Education, psychology, sociology, political science, social work and similar. Selectivity 25%, earnings 10%, size 20%, academic strength 20%, graduate depth 10%.

Humanities and arts

English, history, philosophy, languages, communication, art and music. Selectivity 30%, earnings 5%, size 20%, academic strength 20%, graduate depth 15%. Pay says little about quality in these fields, so selectivity and the depth of graduate study carry more.

Agriculture and applied fields

Agriculture, environment, architecture, design and aviation. Selectivity 20%, earnings 10%, size 25%, academic strength 25%, graduate depth 10%. These programs are concentrated at land-grant and large public universities, so size and academic strength count most.

Our lists are an independent starting point, not a ranking of quality. They cannot see faculty, advising, internships or fit, so use them to build a list of colleges to research, then check each program's own pages. A college that does not award degrees in a program, or reports too few graduates, will not appear on that list.

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