Inside Higher Ed has an interesting piece, More Questions on Rankings, on an article by Kyle Sweitzer (Michigan State) & J. Fredericks Volkwein (Penn State), Prestige Among Graduate and Professional Schools: Comparing the U.S. News’ Graduate School Reputation Ratings Between Disciplines (forthcoming in Research in Higher Education). The Inside Higher Ed notes that the article concludes that
Peer reviewers also seem to place a high emphasis on standardized test scores, with the average score significant for all of the graduate categories except education. Test scores also appear to have the greatest influence on the reputation (as measured by the survey) in law and medical schools.
Update: Over on TaxProf, Paul Caron discusses the article in Peer Reputation: Size Matters,
Gary Rosin