U.S. News & World Report has ranked the School of Management among the nation’s top 50 business schools in its first-ever survey of part-time MBA programs and also included the school’s full-time program in the top tier for the second year in a row.

The magazine’s annual “America’s Best Graduate Schools” report, published April 15, ranked the UT Dallas Professional Part-Time MBA program No. 22 among U.S. public universities and No. 41 overall.

The same report ranked the Full-Time MBA program at No. 50 overall and No. 24 among the nation’s public universities.

The part-time rankings were based on a fall 2009 peer-assessment survey that asked business-school deans and MBA program directors at each of the nation’s 314 part-time MBA programs to rate other part-time programs.

“The U.S. News & World Report ranking confirms other national acclamation for the part-time program,” said School of Management Assistant Dean Monica Powell. “It follows on the heels of BusinessWeek rankings last fall that placed The School of Management in the top 25 nationally.

“It’s another recognition that shows we are highly competitive,” Powell said. “We have the largest part-time program and yet also have the most competitive acceptance rate of the Texas schools in the top 50.”

Of the state’s three other part-time MBA programs included in the listings, UT Austin placed No. 7 nationally, followed by Southern Methodist University at No. 20 and Rice University at No. 24.

“We are very pleased to learn that the School of Management once again has been recognized as one of the nation’s best business schools,” said Dr. Hasan Pirkul, dean and Caruth Chair of Management. “The school’s faculty, students and alumni have worked hard and shown over and over that the learning that goes on here is competitive on a national level.”

U.S. News bases its rankings of full-time programs on surveys of business school deans and recruiters, as well as on statistical measures of quality. Criteria include acceptance rates, students’ grade-point averages and GMAT scores; as well as the percentage of students employed at graduation and their average starting salary. The publication surveyed 426 MBA programs to rank the top business schools.

The top three schools in this year’s full-time program rankings are Harvard University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Other full-time MBA programs in Texas placing in this year’s listing include UT Austin (No. 16), Texas A&M University (No. 33), Rice University (No. 39) and Southern Methodist University (No. 49).