NRC Rankings, Redux

The National Research Council has released a revised version of its research-doctorate program rankings, which account for the average number of citations per publication, awards per allocated faculty member, the percentage of doctoral graduates with academic plans, and the percentage of first-year students attending with full financial support, all of which NRC says were not properly assessed as part of its first round of rankings, released in September. According to Inside Higher Ed, the NRC revised its rankings in response to requests for reconsideration of issues it received regarding 450 programs at 34 institutions overall. Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, David Glenn says the new rankings still do not address some "concerns that scholars have raised about the project" — notably, those surrounding NRC's revised ranking methodologies. The Chronicle notes that while most programs' positions did not change much as a result of the council's revisions, at least 20 percent of the programs assessed in certain academic fields — geography, linguistics, and operations research — did change significantly.