UC Social Work Program Performs Strongly in National Rankings

The nation’s leading journal of social work education ranks the University of Cincinnati’s master of social work (MSW) program 55 out of 128 nationally in terms of program standards of selectivity and student choice. The rankings are listed in the winter issue of the Journal of Social Work Education, a publication of the Council on Social Work Education, the national accrediting body for social work programs.

“We were guided by the assumption that schools that are more selective are more likely to educate more able students who will become more capable social workers,” write the authors.

The authors took into account three factors as they explored selectivity of schools, first examining the overall full-time student admissions trends in graduate social work education over the past 15 years. Secondly, the authors reviewed student selectivity among graduate social work programs, and then compared school rankings based on selectivity with rankings based on faculty productivity and school reputation. The authors calculated data from 1990 to 2004.

The article reported a 67.5 percent admissions ratio for UC’s full-time graduate social work programs, as well as a 64.5 percent yield ratio – the attractiveness of the program to students – which was calculated by dividing the number of students who enrolled in the program each year by the number of applicants admitted each year.

“Over the past five years, our MSW program has grown 100 percent, and there is a high demand for our student interns,” says Gerald J. Bostwick, Jr., interim director and professor of the UC School of Social Work. “We work with more than 275 agencies within a 90-mile radius of UC. In addition, there is a high demand for our graduates because of our reputation around the state.”

San Francisco State University was No.1 in the MSW program rankings. Michigan State University ranked 46th, the University of Pittsburgh ranked 60th, The Ohio State University ranked 75th, Indiana University ranked 76th, the University of Louisville was 114th, Syracuse University ranked 116th and the University of Kentucky ranked 124th.

Students entering UC’s MSW full-time program must hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, have an overall GPA of 2.5 and a 3.0 in upper-level undergraduate work, and have at least 15 quarter credits of social sciences, a human biology or physical science course and a statistics course.

UC’s School of Social Work

Urban Solutions for the 21st Century