For more than 150 years Penn State has been a leader in higher education, as shown by rankings from those who monitor academe from the outside. Programs in all five departments in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences are consistently rated highly in many rankings, including U.S. News & World Report. Here are a few examples of recent rankings, primarily relating to our academic standing. Both our undergraduate and graduate Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering programs are ranked in the top ten.
U.S. News and World Report Rankings
Graduate Programs
- 1st - Geology, Earth Sciences specialty (2019)
- 3rd - Environmental Sciences, Earth Sciences specialty (2019)
- 4th - Geochemistry, Earth Sciences specialty (2019)
- 5th - Earth Sciences overall (2019)
- 6th - Petroleum Engineering (2019)
- 12th - Materials Engineering (2018)
Undergraduate Programs
- 3rd - Petroleum Engineering (2019)
- 11th - Materials Engineering (2019)
- 24th - Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs (2019)
Best Global Universities
- 20th - Geosciences (2017)
- 34th - Materials Science (2017)
Online Education
Penn State World Campus's online programs are among more than 1,200 programs surveyed by U.S. News and World Report and are ranked best in the nation. Only regionally accredited institutions whose programs are offered mostly or entirely online were evaluated.
- 1st - Best Online Bachelor's Programs
- 4th - Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs
- 6th - Best Online Graduate Education Programs
Note that specialty rankings are not available in all disciplines at the undergraduate level, and not all disciplines are ranked every year.
QS World University 2016 Rankings by Subject
- 25th - Geography
- 26th - Engineering - Mineral & Mining
- 28th - Materials Science
- 31st - Earth and Marine Sciences
National Science Foundation Research Expenditure Rankings
In the most recent institutional rankings (FY2016) released by the National Science Foundation of total research expenditures for science and engineering, Penn State ranked 17th nationally in total research expenditures across the board. EMS programs ranked in the top twenty were:
- 1st - Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
- 3rd - Physical Sciences - Materials Science
- 7th - Total Engineering
- 7th - Geological and Earth Sciences
- 10th - Atmospheric Science and Meteorology
