The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration climbed one notch to sixth place in U.S. News and World Report's annual "America's Best Graduate Schools" edition, but the survey ranked Thayer School of Engineering 47th in the nation and did not rank the Dartmouth Medical School.
Tuck has steadily improved its ranking in the U.S. News survey over the past five years, rising from 10th place in 1992 to 8th place in 1993. But a Business Week magazine survey in Fall 1993 dropped Tuck seven spots from 6th place to 13th.
Tuck Director of Communications Paul Argenti explained the discrepancy in the surveys. "The U.S. News survey is a survey of academics, whereas the Business Week ranking is a rank of customer satisfaction," he said.
"Oddly enough, the Business Week rank did not effect the applicant pool," he said. "This year we have the biggest pool ever."
But Argenti said all the surveys are "very, very important."
The U.S. News Survey uses a number of criteria, including reputation, student selectivity, average GMAT score and median starting salary in its rankings.
Tuck had its worst performance in the categories measuring reputation. Argenti said reputation rankings are typically correlated to a school's size, because smaller schools have less visibility.
"We are a very small school," he said. "We don't even have academic departments here."
Thayer dropped six slots this year from its 1994 ranking of 43rd.
Interim Thayer Dean Graham Wallis called the survey "not really meaningful because you don't know much about many of the schools. It is not something that is to be taken too seriously."
Wallis said the survey's methodology depends on "name recognition, really. The big schools always do best."
Thayer currently enrolls about 140 students, he said.
Wallis said the difference between Thayer's ranking and Tuck's top-10 rank saying is because "the Tuck School is nationally recognized as a business school."
"The Thayer School is a very small, very select engineering school," Wallis said. "In the world, not many people associate Dartmouth with engineering."
Wallis said the survey "is never going to show the Thayer School in a good light."
Wallis said Thayer might improve its name-recognition by having "more famous people associated" with the school. "Or by having a scandal or something," he joked.
Dartmouth Medical School Dean of Admissions Susan Malin downplayed the medical school's absence from the listing. "I don't think it will have an impact on the number of applications," she said. "People virtually never talk about [the survey]."
This year's survey divided medical schools into two categories;research-oriented schools and primary care schools.
"I think Dartmouth has a very broad educational program that can't be slotted in either of the two camps," Malin said. "Maybe that is the reason it doesn't show up on either list."
"Our admissions is extremely healthy right now," she added. "We have an entering class of 86 people and we had 8000 applicants."
