This year's annual graduate school rankings, as compiled and published by U.S. News & World Report, reaffirmed Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law's continuing success while concurrently marking a minimal, yet notable, decline in prestige for Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Cardozo retained its "tier two" overall status, placing the institution in a category immediately following the nation's top fifty law universities. The law school was also recognized in the top ten lists of schools garnering a seventh place ranking in dispute resolution, and securing a fifth place standing in intellectual property law. This report, which honors Cardozo along with top tier institutions such as Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, underscores the school's continued high-level success.

Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Cardozo Susan Davis focused on the specialized rankings. "What is significant is that we're ranked in the top ten in two major areas," she emphasized. Davis also stressed that even though "there are many schools which have special programs in that area (intellectual property law)… Cardozo has always been very strong in [that department]." She further assessed, in accordance with the review in U.S News & World Report, that Cardozo has become lauded as one of the nation's leading law schools.

Not every Yeshiva graduate school, however, had reason to celebrate the arrival of this year's report. Specifically, Albert Einstein College of Medicine fell four spots in the "top medical school" rankings, to number thirty-two. Despite the ostensibly disturbing information, Abe Habenstreit, Director of the Philip and Reta Rosen Department of Communications and Public Affairs at AECOM, maintained an optimistic outlook. In an interview with The Commentator, he stressed Einstein's continual success boasting its receipt of "approximately 7,000 applications for 180 seats." As such, Habenstreit was quick to conclude that, "Einstein is in a fortunate position." He also brushed off the rankings, declaring, "In a statistical sense, the difference between three or four places is not really significant…I would say the same if we went up three points."

Further investigation, however, revealed that Einstein fell four points on the score sheet for a particular reason. Apparently, each year the National Institute of Health (NIH) provides billions of dollars for universities across the country to perform specified research projects. These grants play such a significant role that U.S News & World Report uses the funds allocated as an indication of how universities compare with each other.

According to the NIH website, and confirmed by NIH employee Carol Bleakley, Einstein received a total of $82,708,000 in 1997, $99,044,000 in 1998, $100,619,000 in 1999, and $113,224 in 2000. These numbers reflect an increase of over 19% in 1998, only 1% in 1999, and 12.5% in 2000. Due to the oddity of a mere 1% increase in 1999, U.S News apparently chose to dock Einstein on the charts.

When questioned about the grants, Habenstreit was confident that everything was okay, claiming that this year's grants (which will be reflected in next year's rankings) are up 12.5% (as previously noted). He expressed no concern about the 1999's peculiar episode making clear that it was 'a one-time deal.'

Peter L. Ferrara, Director of Public Relations for Yeshiva, concluded that "the rankings game is not based in real objective measures," but on the other hand, "…perception is nine-tenths of the reality in our society, and we would always prefer to go up.