UC Design Program Pulls Rank: Named Best in the Nation

Year after year, the University of Cincinnati’s architecture and interior design programs continue to build on past success.  This year is no different.  Once again, both programs have been ranked among the very best undergraduate and graduate programs in the country in a survey of design employers just released today.

UC’s interior design program won top honors – rated as number one in the nation – for the sixth year in a row.  The undergraduate architecture program was ranked number two in the nation, while UC’s graduate architecture program was ranked number six in the nation.  Both the undergraduate and graduate architecture programs have consistently been rated very highly throughout the years of the survey.

UC’s undergraduate architecture and interior design programs, part of the university's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, outclassed rival programs at Pratt Institute,  the Rhode Island School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Notre Dame, while UC’s graduate architecture program topped rival programs at the University of Virginia, the University of California – Berkeley, Princeton University as well as the University of Notre Dame and the Rhode Island School of Design.

The 2005 blue-ribbon ranking comes as a result of an annual survey by DesignIntelligence, a design industry publication of the Design Futures Council.  It annually publishes a December issue that examines the quality of U.S. design education.

The DesignIntelligence survey of architecture, interior design and engineering firms’ owners, partners and principals asks, “In your firm’s hiring experience, which schools do you feel have best prepared students for the…profession?”  The survey targets those having direct experience with the hiring and performance of graduates.

Michaele Pride-Wells, director of UC’s School of Architecture and Interior Design, said that the programs’ consistently high rankings reflect not only the demanding curriculum but also the quality of UC’s nationally ranked cooperative education program.  “Co-op” refers to the practice wherein students alternate academic quarters with paid work related directly to their majors.  Via co-op, the university's architecture and interior design students regularly work in design firms around the globe -- Europe, Asia and throughout the U.S. -- before graduation.  UC’s co-op program is ranked among the top ten in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

For more on the 2005 rankings of architecture and design schools, go to http://www.di.net

2005 DesignIntelligence rankings:

Interior Design Programs

• University of Cincinnati
• Pratt Institute
• Kansas State University
• Cornell University
• Arizona State University
• University of Oregon
• Auburn University
• University of Texas at Austin
• Washington State University
• California College of the Arts (tied with University of Florida)
• University of Florida (tied with California College of the Arts)

Undergraduate Architecture Programs

• Cornell University
• University of Cincinnati
• Rice University
• California Polytechnic State U., San Luis Obispo
• Syracuse University
• Kansas State University
• Rhode Island School of Design
• University of Texas at Austin
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Graduate Architecture Programs

• Harvard University
• Yale University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Columbia University (tied for 4th with MIT)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (tied for 4th with Columbia)
• University of Cincinnati
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Virginia
• Rice University
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Listings courtesy of DesignIntelligence