George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School was ranked 28th nationally and 81st worldwide, according to evaluations by Times Higher Education.
That continues an impressive run for the school, which was ranked 24th nationally and 29th worldwide by the Academic Rankings of World Universities published by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
“I am gratified by the international recognition of our law school by both Shanghai and Times Higher Education, both of which place us in the top 30 of U.S. universities,” said Henry Butler, dean of the Antonin Scalia Law School. “These rankings reflect the global impact of our faculty. This gives us a target for next year. Onward and upward.”
George Mason’s social sciences programs, ranked in the top half of institutions worldwide, according to Times High Education, is 176-200 out of 400 universities listed and is the second-highest ranked institution in the state behind the University of Virginia, which is ranked 151-175.
“It’s reflective of the fact we have and continue to have really strong programming in the college,” said Deborah Boehm-Davis, outgoing dean of Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “We want students to come out with well-rounded backgrounds. We want them to be good citizens. We want them to understand not just their major but where they sit in the world, and that’s really a broad education. Both the social sciences and humanities contribute to that mission.”
In evaluating social science programs and law schools, Times Higher Education examined five categories: teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. No social science program was ranked unless it had at least 200 papers published in the discipline in the last five years. For law schools, the minimum was 100 papers.
In other rankings, Mason is 201-300 worldwide in the Academic Rankings of World Universities, which included a 51-75 ranking for its social sciences program. It is 274th in the United States out of more than 1,000 institutions listed in a Wall Street Journal/ Times Higher Education evaluation. Mason’s dance program is ranked 16th nationally, and tops in Virginia, by Dance-Colleges.com.