Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy ranked sixth in graduate education programs in U.S. News and World Report’s 2006 rankings released August 29, 2005. The School of Education is the only school within Northwestern to rise in this year’s U. S. News rankings: NU dropped from 11th to 12th in the news magazine’s national university ranking.
Katie Weitz White, a third-year doctoral candidate in the School of Education, said she did not consider completing her Ph.D. at any other university. The school’s Human Development and Social Policy doctoral program offered something she could not find anywhere else, she said.
“(The School of Education) combines so many things that matter – small classes and lots of one-on-one attention. I can be working with two professors at any given time.”
The annual rankings consider a peer assessment score, a superintendent score, average GRE score of accepted students, student-to-faculty ratio, number of Ph.D’s and Ed.D’s granted, percentage of Ph.D. and Ed.D students, funded research in millions of dollars and funded research per faculty member in thousands of dollars for the 2003-2004 academic year.
School of Education dean Penelope Peterson cited student selectivity as one of the biggest factors contributing to the school’s jump in rankings. She said the school has the highest graduate record exam score of any graduate school in the nation, with the highest quantitative GRE scores.
The School of Education, which ranked 11th in the U.S. News & World Report’s graduate education school rankings in 2005 , is the smallest graduate education program in U.S. News’ top 10 and the only university of the group that also offers an undergraduate education program.
“We’re one-of-a-kind as a school of education because we don’t try to be everything to everybody,” Peterson said. She said that unlike other graduate education programs, the School of Education does not train counselors and administrators but instead focuses on human development and all forms of learning in addition to a traditional K-12 program.
“We really have a niche for looking at human development and learning across the lifespan, not just in the classroom but outside the classroom,” she said.
Michelle Albaugh , a second-year doctoral student in the Human Development and Social Policy program came to the School of Education to study leadership and how it affects organizations.
White, who used to work in Chicago public schools, saw the program as a way for her to do research that would make more of a difference and explore “how a person effects policy and how policy affects the person.”
“It’s a place to come and do interdisciplinary research no matter what your interest is,” Albaugh said.
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