In Wednesday’s rankings, UCLA Engineering had the second-highest ratio of Ph.D. students to faculty, 5.7-to-1, of any engineering school in the survey. Six fields of study within UCLA Engineering — aerospace engineering, civil engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, materials science and mechanical engineering — ranked in the top 20 in their categories.
Overall program rankings are based on criteria including assessments by peers and recruiters, faculty research productivity, total research expenditures, quality of incoming graduate students, the number of doctoral degrees granted, and other factors. Fields of study are ranked by heads of departments within each discipline.
UCLA Engineering is the smallest of the public engineering schools in the U.S. News top 20 by number of faculty. That is changing, however. Dean Jayathi Murthy has launched a program to add roughly 50 new faculty – representing growth of nearly 30% – over the next few years. In addition, the school will accept 1,000 more students for graduate or undergraduate study than its current combined enrollment of 5,300.
“These rankings underscore the fact that UCLA Engineering already is considered one of the elite programs today,” Murthy said. “With our plans to expand and improve our research and educational programs, we will only be growing stronger.”
In January, U.S. News named the UCLA Master of Science in Engineering Online program the number one online engineering program in the country for the second consecutive year.