By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 23, 2009 8:49 AM

U.S. News & World Report's annual list of the best graduate schools is out today, and a new category -- part-time law programs -- cites a number of schools in greater Washington. Five are in the top six.

Georgetown University tops the list, followed by George Washington University at No. 2, American University (4), George Mason University (5) and the University of Maryland (6). Only New York's Fordham University, at No. 3, prevented a complete sweep of the top spots.

The new category is a subset of the rankings of overall law programs, which now include data on full-time and part-time students.

Only one Washington region school was in the top ranks of the overall list: the University of Virginia, which tied for 10th with two other schools. The top-ranked law school is Yale University, followed by Harvard University.

In the past, the magazine used only full-time student data to rank programs, even if a school had many part-time students. But, a magazine spokesman said, some schools tried to "game" the system by admitting weaker students to the part-time programs to make their full-time statistics look better.

Liz Putze, spokeswoman for U.S. News & World Report, said the fact that five of the top part-time schools are in the Washington area is "random." But Andrew Cornblatt, associate vice president and admissions dean at Georgetown Law Center, disagreed.

"This city has many people who work in law-related jobs" on Capitol Hill, in federal agencies and elsewhere, he said. "It's the perfect marriage for people who work and can enroll in part-time programs." In fact, he said, Georgetown University's law program started as a part-time program.

In the overall law school rankings, Georgetown was No. 14, the same as last year. George Washington University dropped from 20th last year to 28th this year.

The overall 2010 America's Best Graduate Schools list includes more than 1,500 graduate school programs nationwide.