After ranking 7th in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s tally of “Best Undergraduate Finance Programs” of 2021, the Carroll School’s Finance Department has landed at no. 7 again, this time on a comprehensive global rankings list.
The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) surveys departments at more than 1,800 universities across 93 countries and regions. Run by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, an independent higher education organization, the GRAS methodology uses “a range of objective academic indicators and third-party data” to measure university departments across indicators including research output, research influence, international collaboration, research quality, and international academic awards.
The ranking methodology for the finance category gives particular significance to faculty research. The quantitative rank is weighted, with over 80 percent of each department’s score determined by two categories: total number of “influential journal publications” and “number of papers published in Top Journals.”
The Finance Department’s 7th-place ranking is an all-time high on the GRAS, climbing 31 spots since its no. 38 rank on the first GRAS list, published in 2017. Finance’s rising prominence on global lists is mirrored by its rise up the national rankings as well—7th place in the 2021 U.S. News & World Report survey also marks an all-time high for the Finance Department from U.S. News.
Landing among other top-10 schools on the GRAS, including University of Pennsylvania (no. 2), Harvard University (no. 4), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (no. 9), the Carroll School’s Finance Department is in good company. The full list of ranked finance departments includes 200 international universities.
The GRAS ranking, which primarily focuses on scientific and medical departments, also includes departmental rankings for management and business administration. Beyond the top-50 schools, the GRAS places departments into ranges, with the Carroll School in the 101-150 range for the management discipline (out of 500 universities). The survey was released in early October.
—Rachel Bird, Carroll School News