Tufts' undergraduate International Relations (IR) program and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy's master's program both cracked the top 10 in recently released worldwide rankings.
In the Teaching, Research and International Policy (TRIP) survey of IR programs, the Fletcher School came in fourth place out of master's programs, while the IR program nabbed the tenth spot on the undergraduate list.
Representatives from both programs said they were pleased with the results.
"I think being tenth in the nation is something to be quite proud of," Kirk Lange, the assistant director of the undergraduate IR program, said.
According to Lange, the ranking is particularly impressive because Tufts' undergraduate program was competing against counterparts at a number of larger universities.
Harvard and Princeton took the top two spots, respectively, for the leading undergraduate IR programs. And Georgetown has the top master's program, followed by Johns Hopkins, according to the TRIP survey.
Nathaniel Eberle, the director of public relations and communications at the Fletcher School, called the rankings helpful, but cautioned that they are not conclusive.
According to Eberle, the survey is unable to fully capture the complexity of what makes a school stand out.
"We've always hovered in the top five, and while we find that to be quite a feather in our cap, Fletcher has never really looked at that specific survey as a gauge of how we're doing," he said.
The disparity between Tufts' undergraduate and graduate rankings is not unique.
Johns Hopkins, for example, did not place in the top 10 for its undergraduate program, despite grabbing the second spot for its master's program. Similarly, while Georgetown's graduate program took top honors, its undergraduate counterpart was ranked fifth.
The nature of the rankings likely contributed to the discrepancy.
The latest TRIP survey, published in February, is based on feedback from 2,724 IR scholars in 10 countries, according to its Web site.
But in 2007, many members of the Annapolis Group, an association of presidents of liberal arts colleges, announced their intention to stop participating in the annual survey. Tufts is not a member of the Annapolis Group and continues to participate, but colleges that refrainmight have distorted undergraduate rankings.
Still, Michael Tierney, an author of the TRIP report, said that the survey's researchers cast a broad net and try to be as inclusive as possible. He said they look for contributing scholars using information from U.S. News and World Report and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The TRIP survey is a project undertaken by the College of William and Mary's Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations.
