2014 Rankings – Top 10 Graduate GIS Programs

January 5, 2014

In each of the past 2 years I have produced rankings for the top graduate geography programs in the U.S. You can see my 2012 NRC-based rankings and my 2013 rankings in previous posts. This year I don’t see a compelling reason to revisit geography department rankings, so I suppose that means I’m satisfied with the 2013 rankings, at least for now.

[highlight color=”options: yellow, black”]New rankings are now available! Check out my 2015 Top Graduate Programs for Spatial Careers![/highlight]

This year I’ve decided to produce a set of rankings for students interested specifically in GIS-related graduate studies. Note that these rankings are meant to highlight outstanding GIS programs within geography departments. So, while there may be other graduate programs that produce outstanding GIS-practitioners, scientists, programmers, etc I have focused on programs that are led and taught by academic geographers. Also note that, along with my previous rankings, I do NOT recommend selecting a graduate program based solely on these rankings. You can use this as a starting point but be sure to explore as many programs as possible, seeking to find the best individual fit.

Top 10 Graduate GIS Programs

UC Santa Barbara Ohio State Penn State Arizona State Michigan State Buffalo Wisconsin Illinois Clark South Carolina

If you’ve read my Spatial Career Series you know that I like to divide the GIS world into a few different areas and the “specialty” rankings below reflect that perspective. All of the programs listed below would likely provide a top-notch education in most elements of GIS but I’ve grouped and ranked programs by their primary area of expertise/focus…or at least what I perceive to be their primary strength.

Top Cartography Programs

Wisconsin Penn State Oregon Kansas

Top Spatial Statistics Programs

Ohio State Arizona State Buffalo University of Texas at Dallas

Top Remote Sensing Programs

Boston Maryland South Carolina Georgia

Top Computation Programs

Illinois Arizona State Iowa San Diego State George Mason

Here are some other top notch programs that didn’t make one of the lists above but deserve serious consideration.

Outstanding Alternatives

Kentucky

North Carolina

Oregon State

Tennessee

Texas State

I’m certain that I’ve left out many well-deserving programs and for that I apologize. Who did I miss? Who doesn’t deserve to be here? What else did I do wrong? I want my readers to hear alternative and opposing views so let me have it in the comments below.