The University of Missouri-Rolla is again one of the nation’s top graduate engineering schools, according to U.S. News and World Report’s latest rankings of graduate schools. The rankings also list five UMR programs as among the best in the country.

UMR is ranked 68th among the nation’s best graduate engineering schools by U.S. News. The magazine’s annual “Best Graduate Schools” report will be released on Monday, April 3. UMR’s rankings are included in the U.S. News guidebook’s “premium” online edition at www.usnews.com.

Last year, the guidebook ranked UMR No. 67.

U.S. News’s online rankings include five UMR graduate engineering programs:

• Civil engineering, ranked 44th.
• Electrical engineering, ranked 51st.
• Materials engineering, ranked 47th.
• Mechanical engineering, ranked 50th.
• Nuclear engineering, ranked 15th.

“We are proud of UMR’s outstanding graduate programs and the national recognition that they received,” says Dr. Y. T. Shah, UMR’s provost.

UMR is gaining recognition for undergraduate engineering as well. Last fall, U.S. News listed UMR at No. 51 in its listing of the best undergraduate engineering schools.

Shah says that UMR’s recent success in improving undergraduate retention and graduation rates should improve the campus’s undergraduate ranking as well.

“Both undergraduate and graduate engineering programs rankings largely depend on our educational processes and academic reputation,” Shah says. “UMR’s academic reputation is significantly increased through its increase in research funding and expansion of graduate programs.”

UMR’s creation of online graduate programs in engineering management, systems engineering and mining engineering in recent years have also helped to improve the campus’s visibility, Shah says. UMR also offers graduate-level distance-education to the military at nearby Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

 More information about UMR’s academic programs are available online at academics.mst.edu. The U.S. News rankings are available on the U.S. News website, www.usnews.com.