Is J-School Worth It?
Opportunities for hands-on learning, but payoff is not guaranteed
Practical. U.S. News recognizes the differences among institutions. In this, our first study of graduate schools of journalism and mass communications, the magazine, after consultation with academic experts, decided to focus on specialty rankings in the professions to maximize the usefulness of the survey for prospective applicants. We did not include the few specialty institutions like Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, which, as its name suggests, focuses largely on the study of ways that the media affect the evolution of governmental policies.
How can prospective applicants tell into which category a school falls? The answer: Examine the credentials of the faculty. If the teaching staff is composed primarily of Ph.D.'s, chances are that the school offers more theory than tradecraft. But if a school--the University of California at Berkeley, for instance--requires most of the faculty to have only significant professional experience, then its priorities are clearly the reverse.
PRACTITIONERS' CHOICES Earlier this year, U.S. News sent reputational surveys to a random sample of 190 print journalists, 180 broadcast journalists, 150 public-relations executives and 150 advertising executives. The same survey was mailed to 340 deans and leading faculty at all graduate programs in journalism and mass communications. The aim: to rank graduate schools of journalism and mass communications by combining the results of the two surveys, using the same statistical methods employed in some of the other U.S. News rankings. However, the response rate among the media professionals--13 percent--was too low to permit statistically representative rankings. Instead, we simply list below--in alphabetical order--those schools cited most often for their high quality by the professionals who responded to our surveys. To the left, we present numerical rankings based on the responses of the academics; their response rate was 40 percent.
ADVERTISING Northwestern Univ. (Medill) (Ill.) Syracuse U. (Newhouse) (N.Y.) Univ. of Ill. at Urbana-Champ. Univ. of Missouri at Columbia Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill
PRINT Columbia University (N.Y.) Northwestern Univ. (Medill) (Ill.) University of Kansas (White) Univ. of Missouri at Columbia Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill
PUBLIC RELATIONS Boston University Northwestern Univ. (Medill) (Ill.) Syracuse U. (Newhouse) (N.Y.) Univ. of Md. at College Park Univ. of Missouri at Columbia
RADIO/TELEVISION Columbia University (N.Y.) Northwestern Univ. (Medill) (Ill.) Stanford University Syracuse U. (Newhouse) (N.Y.) Univ. of Missouri at Columbia
THE BEST AS SEEN BY ACADEMICS Programs in print and broadcast journalism, public relations and advertising ranked as the best by deans and faculty members at schools of journalism and mass communications:
ADVERTISING 1. Univ. of Ill. at Urbana-Champaign 2. University of Florida 3. Northwestern Univ. (Medill) (Ill.) 4. Univ. of Texas at Austin 5. University of Georgia 6. Michigan State University 7. Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill 8. Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville 9. Univ. of Missouri at Columbia 10. Syracuse U. (Newhouse) (N.Y.) 11. Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison 12. Univ. of Ala. at Tuscaloosa 13. Univ. of Colorado at Boulder 13. Univ. of S.C. at Columbia 15. Univ. of Nebraska at Lincoln
PRINT 1. Univ. of Missouri at Columbia 2. Columbia University (N.Y.) 3. Northwestern Univ. (Medill) (Ill.) 4. Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill 5. Indiana Univ. at Bloomington 6. University of Florida 7. Ohio University (Scripps) 7. Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison 9. Univ. of California at Berkeley 9. University of Kansas (White) 11. Univ. of Md. at College Park 11. University of Texas at Austin 13. Syracuse U. (Newhouse) (N.Y.) 14. Arizona State Univ. (Cronkite) 15. Univ. of Minn. at Twin Cities
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