The ranking marks the 16th consecutive year that the program at the Moore School of Business has been ranked either No. 1 or 2. The only public university ranked in the top five, USC outpaced Columbia University, Harvard University, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and the University of Southern California.

The ranking appears in America's Best Graduate Schools, which will be in the April 11 edition of U.S. News & World Report. All rankings are available online at www.usnews.com.

Joel Smith, dean of the Moore School of Business, said the ranking affirms the University's continued commitment to its international business program.

"The Moore School has placed one or two in the U.S. News & World Report for graduate international business since these rankings were first published, " Smith said. "Maintaining this lofty perch over 16 years is further testimony to the outstanding contributions of the faculty, staff, and students of the Moore School. Good faculty attract good students. Their service to the school is greatly appreciated, and we are pleased to see that performance reflected in this ranking."

Thunderbird Graduate School of Arizona topped the rankings. The other public universities ranked are the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (No. 6) and the University of California at Berkeley (No. 9).

USC's School of Law was again among the top 100 schools listed. Other USC programs or colleges that appear in the book or online include history, law, education, nursing, English, psychology, pharmacy, chemical and civil engineering, and the Moore School.

U.S. News rankings are based on objective measures, such as entering students' test scores and placement success, and expert opinion, drawn from inside and outside academia, on program quality, faculty, and research. 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.

The top ranking for the Moore School caps off a year of notable accomplishments for the state's most comprehensive business school. Earlier this week, the school was named among the top 50 collegiate entrepreneurship programs in the country by Entrepreneur magazine in its April issue. Last fall, the inaugural class of its new Executive IMBA program, a partnership between the Tecnologico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, Mexico, began, and the Moore School was ranked No. 1 in undergraduate international business education in U.S. News in its 2004 America's Best Colleges Guide for the eighth consecutive year.

The Moore School also has received several major gifts, including a $45 million gift from alumna and financier Darla Moore and a $3 million gift from Sonoco. The Moore School, in conjunction with USC's College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management, also was chosen as the 23rd U.S. site for an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Center of Industry. USC's national center will focus on tourism research.

This year also marks the 35th anniversary of the Moore School's Professional Master of Business Administration Program (PMBA), the first program of its kind in the United States to give working professionals throughout the state the opportunity to earn an MBA by attending classes via satellite transmission with interactive audio and through delayed video streaming on the Internet.

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