The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration fell one spot to seventh in U.S. News and World Report's annual survey of the nation's best graduate schools, while the Thayer School of Engineering held steady at 47th and the Dartmouth Medical School remained unranked.
The U.S. News survey compares graduate programs for business, education, engineering, journalism, law and medicine.
Tuck School Director of Communications Paul Argenti said he is delighted with the Tuck School's rating.
"We were very pleased, particularly as the competition are excellent schools," he said. "We are on a range between six to 10. It's nice every year to get that sort of affirmation."
The survey gave the Tuck School a raw score of 97.1 out of 100. Top-ranked Stanford University received a raw score of 100.
The top 10 "is within 10 points of one another," Argenti said. "This is very competitive, and that's one of the things that is interesting. We can have a better score yet a lower rank depending on the year."
"We were very pleased," he said. "We know that the Tuck School is an excellent school but it's nice to get outside affirmation."
Representatives of the Thayer School and DMS were more skeptical of the survey's meaning, saying it discriminates against smaller schools.
Associate Dean of the Thayer School Carol Muller described the report as "fairly irrelevant to the kind of education the Thayer School provides."
"Much of the ranking has to do with the size of the school and the total amount of research dollars the faculty undertakes," she said. "For a small school [47th is] quite good. We are probably the smallest school on the list."
"We are a high quality school, but small," Muller said. "Thayer graduates a little over 100 students each year compared to thousands from other schools."
Muller said many people incorrectly assume the rankings are based on scientific criteria.
DMS failed to make the rankings because it fit neither of the two kinds of schools judged by the survey, according to Director of Communications Hali Wickner. The survey ranks the best research-oriented schools and the best primary-care schools.
"The reason we are not listed is because they've taken these two categories, and there isn't a way to quantify the quality of the schools in between that don't fit either of the two categories," she explained.
"We do well even research wise, but we can't compare total dollars," she said.
Last year Dart mouth received $28 million for research from the National Institutes of Health, Wickner said.
The National Institutes of Health gave the number one ranked school, Harvard University, $439 million during the same period, according to U.S. News.
The Mayo Medical School in Minnesota, which received the fewest government dollars of any top-25 ranked medical school, was given $51 million last year.
