Athens, Ga—The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication ranks among the top five Communication Ph.D. programs in the nation, according to the website PhDs.org.
“Grady College’s doctoral program long has been known for its individualized instruction and for the quality and depth of its doctoral faculty,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “These rankings—based on an empirical evaluation of a variety of factors—place the college among the elite of the elite.”
The rankings were based on 20 factors including faculty metrics such as the number of publications and citations written by faculty, and number of awards won by faculty; student topics like GRE scores and percent of students with fellowships; and broader features of doctoral programs including the average time it takes to complete a degree and measures of ethnic and gender diversity.
The overall ranking lists Grady College fifth behind Stanford University, Cornell University, Michigan State University and the University of Pennsylvania. There were 83 communication programs included in the ranking. The complete list of communication programs can be viewed on the PhDs.org website.
The data used in the rankings come from four sources: the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the National Research Council, the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering.
“We are very pleased that the hard work and expertise of our faculty and their devotion to our doctoral students is reflected in this ranking,” said Jeff Springston, associate dean for research and graduate studies at Grady College.
Springston noted that Grady College is particularly strong in the student outcomes section of the ranking. This section includes length of time to graduate, placement rate after graduation, percentage of first-year students who receive full financial support and percentage of students who work in academia after graduation.
Graduate studies at Grady College include masters of arts degrees, a new low-residency MFA in Narrative Media Writing, a graduate certificate in Media Industry Research and Ph.D. degree programs in advertising/public relations, journalism and entertainment and media studies. More information about the Grady College Graduate program can be found at Grady.uga.edu/academics.
PhDs.org was originally funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the National Postdoctoral Association, and the Center for Science and the Media with the goal of providing the most accurate and recent data for every doctoral program in America. More than 4900 doctoral programs are included covering 59 fields of study.