UNLV placed 23 programs – including 13 from the William S. Boyd School of Law – among the nation’s top 100 in their fields, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual collection of top graduate and professional schools.
U.S. News officially released its on March 29. In addition to another strong showing from Boyd Law, the Lee Business School’s part-time MBA program jumped 14 places to crack the top 75, and four engineering disciplines ranked within the top 100.
“Nevada needs highly skilled professionals, and UNLV’s strong graduate programs answer the call by training future leaders in areas essential to our state’s growth and sustainability,” said UNLV President Keith E. Whitfield.
Boyd Law again ranked among the nation’s best in overall and multiple discipline-specific categories, highlighted by maintaining the top spot in the area of legal writing for the fifth straight year. Overall, Boyd ranked 67th out of 192 accredited programs. Its part-time program ranked 20th, and the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution placed 8th in the dispute resolution category.
Other top-100 law school programs in this year’s national U.S. News rankings include Clinical Training (35), Health Law (40), Contracts/Commercial Law (45), Tax Law (55), Business/Corporate Law (69), Constitutional Law (71), Criminal Law (72), Intellectual Property Law (72), and Environmental Law (96).
UNLV graduate programs in social work (79), geology (81), public affairs (88), nursing master's (90), and doctor of nursing practice (99) all ranked within the top 100 in their discipline. In engineering, top-100 ranked programs include nuclear engineering (28), aerospace studies (65), environmental engineering (84), and civil engineering (98).
Each year, U.S. News analyzes more than 2,000 graduate and specialty programs in a broad range of disciplines. Programs are ranked by discipline or specialty and evaluated based on criteria specific to each degree field, expert opinions about program excellence, and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research and students.
In addition to U.S. News' annual rankings of graduate programs in six major disciplines, the publication also periodically ranks additional specialty programs in health sciences, social sciences and humanities, and the sciences. UNLV has several other top-100 graduate programs ranked during the discipline’s most current ratings period, including Criminology (29 in 2021), Sociology (84 in 2021), Political Science (89 in 2021), English (99 in 2021), Physical Therapy (57 in 2020), and Health Care Management (65 in 2019).
![Political cartoon showing "The Times" building with speech bubbles that say "Scandal after scandal, All I can Say is Four more Years" followed by "Why is he so happy" and then "He's the cartoonist."](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/media/image/2024-10/MS-01047%20Mike%20Smith%20Box%2038%20Folder%201.jpg?itok=6iVxnNMX "Political cartoon showing "The Times" building with speech bubbles that say "Scandal after scandal, All I can Say is Four more Years" followed by "Why is he so happy" and then "He's the cartoonist."")