Several UW College of the Environment programs placed highly in two recent rankings: QS World University Rankings by Subject and U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Graduate Schools.

The first ranking tracks an analysis of reputation and research output, conducted by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, of academic subjects at 5,203 institutions around the world. The ranking consists of 1,747 institutions at 148 locations with more than 55 subjects across five broad faculty areas, including arts and humanities; engineering and technology; life sciences and medicine; natural sciences; and social sciences and management.

The University of Washington has five subjects in the top 10, including Geology (No. 8), Geophysics (No. 9), and Earth and Marine Sciences (No. 10).

These disciplines don’t exactly match the College of the Environment’s academic unit names, but they include degree offerings in Earth and Space Sciences, Marine Biology, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Oceanography. Find a complete list and more about the methodology on the rankings website.

Many of UW’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Graduate Schools rankings, released April 7. Two disciplines in the College of the Environment remained ranked in the top 10: Earth Sciences (five-way tie for 9th, ranked in 2024), and Geophysics and Seismology (tie for 9th, ranked in 2024).

See a complete list of UW’s Best Graduate School rankings in this UW News press release.