Competition for top placement in U.S. News and World Report rankings can be stiff, so the Health Sciences section of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) came up with a solution: the Undergraduate Task Force.
The task force, which evaluated previous submissions for the SMHS online bachelor’s degree programs, looked for meaningful, value-added strategies to implement, with the ultimate goal of improving the student experience. Within short order, the online programs jumped in the rankings from 59 in 2017 to 23 in 2018, with an overall score of 85 out of 100. U.S. News and World Report assesses schools in four general categories: student engagement, student services and technology, faculty credentials and training, and peer reputation. The task force’s recommendations, designed to strengthen the online programs, will finish rolling out by 2019.
