TULANE TALK

March 31, 2006

Good Morning:

U.S. News and World Report released their annual rankings of graduate schools today. These are the first rankings to be issued since Hurricane Katrina and, as you can imagine, there was some trepidation regarding how the storm would affect our standings.

Overall, we are pleased with the rankings. Our medical school was ranked 50th among the nationís top research schools. This is the first time our medical school has entered the top 50 in many years. This is especially welcome news given the fact that the medical school has had to set up shop in Texas and deal with myriad other Katrina-related challenges. Our business school was ranked 49, down from 45 last year and our law school was ranked 43, down from 41 last year.

While the law school and business school fell a few spots, it is important to note that, because of Katrina, U.S. News and World Report was unable to collect new data from us and had to use our scores from last year to determine our rankings.

Also, it is always critical to remember that these rankings, while very popular, are only one, very limited indication of a universityís quality. Moreover, the real statistical difference in being ranked, say 45 or 39 is minuscule. So, fluctuations in rankings from one year to another are really not reflective of a universityís true quality.

Having said all that, with all we have experienced and survived over the last seven months, no one can convince me weíre not Number 1.

Have a great weekend,