USC is the only public university ranked in the top five, ahead of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Columbia University. The ranking marks the 13th consecutive year that the international business program has been ranked either No. 1 or 2.

The ranking appears in the April 15 issue of "America's Best Graduate Schools" and on the magazine's Web site at www.usnews.com April 5.

Joel Smith, dean of the Moore School of Business, said he was
particularly proud that USC is the only public university ranked among the top five.

"We at the Moore School of Business have focused on international business education for over a quarter of a century," Smith said. "It is a tremendous accomplishment for a state university to consistently compete with the top private business schools in the country.

"The ranking is a testament to the caliber of our students and reflects the faculty's innovative teaching, productive research and scholarship, as well as their commitment to one of the nation's finest international business programs."

Thunderbird Graduate School of Arizona clinched the No. 1 ranking for international business. Other public universities ranked are the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (No. 6), UCLA (No. 9) and the University of California at Berkeley (No. 10.) USC's law school is ranked in the second tier for the third consecutive year.

The U.S. News ranking is the second piece of good news for the
Moore School of Business this year. In January, the Financial Times of London ranked the MBA programs 38th among the world's top 100 business schools, up from 45th in 2001. The Moore School was ranked 24th among the U.S. business schools and was No. 7 among public U.S. business schools, five spots higher than the previous year.

U.S. News rankings are based on objective measures, such as entering students' test scores and placement success, as well as reputation ratings drawn from inside and outside academia. For the international business ranking, U.S. News & World Report asked business school deans and program heads to vote for up to 10 schools offering the best programs in each area. The 10 schools receiving the most votes appear in the ranking.

USC rankings from previous years that are posted on the magazine's Web site are school library media, No. 3; health librarianship, No. 4; and library science, No. 17 (all in 1999); social work, No. 29 in 2000; nursing, No. 52 in 2000; and speech-language pathology, No. 92 in 2000. Rankings from 2001 include political science, 56; history, 73; public affairs, 80; psychology, 151.

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