BU’s Health-Related Schools Score in US News Rankings

MED gets its best-ever, Sargent’s OT is number one

BU schools that train healers of various stripes notched impressive showings in US News & World Report’s latest education rankings, one of them a personal best for the School of Medicine. Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences and the School of Social Work also fared impressively.

The magazine deems MED the 29th best medical school in the nation for research, up one step from last year and the school’s highest grade ever in that category. MED ranked 40th for primary care education, up from 2015’s 52nd. US News says 116 medical schools submitted data for the rankings.

MED’s research grade is based in part on the dollar value of grants awarded to schools by the National Institutes of Health. The primary care grade considers the proportion of a school’s graduates entering residencies in family practice, pediatrics, and internal medicine—meaning that the rank in that category varies with the percentage of students in each graduating class pursuing those fields.

“We are very pleased with our new rankings in both research and primary care, which reflect well on the medical school faculty, staff, and students,” says Karen Antman, MED dean and provost of the Medical Campus.

The Sargent College occupational therapy master’s and doctoral programs scored best in the country; the last ranking for such programs, in 2012, placed it second. SAR’s physical therapy master’s/doctoral program ranked 14th (up two spots from 2012), and its master’s program in speech-language pathology ranked 12th (up from 21st).

Christopher Moore, dean of Sargent, says the occupational therapy ranking testifies to both faculty quality and the school’s education approach. “Our OT students receive highly personalized instruction,” he says. “They work across the full breadth of OT practice, and are the beneficiaries of a carefully titrated blend of high-tech and high-touch instructional methodology.”

The program recently added doctoral instruction to its master’s program. While not required by the field’s professional organization, the American Occupational Therapy Association, the addition “represents our recognition of the rapidly expanding authority and professional role and responsibilities for OTs,” Moore says. The program’s first doctoral students will enter SAR this fall, “promising to graduate in several years as our most highly prepared graduates ever.”

The SSW master’s program ranked 12th, up 4 spots from 2012. US News groups social work in its own category under health care education and bases the rankings on peer assessments by deans, administrators, and faculty at similar programs.

Gail Steketee, SSW dean, puts the credit squarely on her faculty: “The average teacher ratings were 4.7 out of 5 for our combined full-time and part-time faculty, with nearly 60 courses rated by 800 students across our curriculum. In fact, our full-time faculty members teach across all of our program formats, enabling them to use a wide range of pedagogical approaches to maximize student learning. Their field education is rigorous and connects them very closely to community needs,” and their track record of publication and awards is extensive.

She also cites the new Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health, an SSW outpost on the Medical Campus that “focuses on integrated health and behavioral health care, prevention and interventions, critical health policy and economic concerns, global health interests, and many other aspects of health.” The center enables SSW to better collaborate with Medical Campus colleagues, Steketee says.

Among the school’s prominent alumni, she says, is Mary Lou Sudders (CAS’76, SSW’78), Massachusetts Health and Human Services secretary.

The reliance of US News on peer assessments for its social work ratings “inevitably leads to bias,” Steketee says, but top-ranked schools do tend to have strong faculties and resources, and the rankings “are among the best recognized within academia for graduate programs.”

This BU Today story was written by Rich Barlow