Several academic departments in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have been ranked among the best graduate programs in the United States by U.S. News and World Report magazine.

The magazine ranked the graduate programs in math, science and education among the country's top 25 public programs. Statistics has the top ranking of any department at Iowa State at third in the nation among public institutions and fifth overall.

Ken Koehler, University Professor and chair of statistics, attributed the high ranking to several factors: a $1.8 million National Science Foundation grant helped the department improve its graduate program and attract more doctoral students (it now has 90); the department recently hosted a major conference for users of software for statistical computing; and the department has one of the best survey sampling programs in the world. Koehler also said the Snedecor Hall remodeling project should help to recruit and retain faculty and graduate students.

The U.S. News & World Report magazine graduate rankings are on-line at http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/mat/statistics. Other articles written at ISU can be seen at www.las.iastate.edu/newnews/usnews.shtml, and Inside Iowa State (www.iastate.edu/Inside/2008/0404/rankings.shtml).