Cornell's undergraduate program in architecture has been named No. 1 for the fourth consecutive year in America's Best Architecture and Design Schools, an annual survey conducted by DesignIntelligence and the Greenway Group.

The graduate architecture program was ranked sixth for a second year in a row.

The 2012 rankings of the top 20 programs were based on a survey of more than 185 leading American architecture firms and organizations, asking which academic programs best prepare students for professional practice. Respondents have direct experience hiring and evaluating the performance of recent architecture graduates.

Deans and chairs from 60 architecture programs also participated in a separate survey that focused on specific educational issues; in a survey of more than 1,600 undergraduate and graduate architecture students across the country, 92 percent of students surveyed reported that they felt well prepared upon graduation for their profession.

The top five undergraduate programs in the 2012 rankings are: Cornell, University of Texas at Austin, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and Rice University. The top five graduate architecture programs ranked ahead of Cornell are Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, Washington University in St. Louis and Kansas State University.

DesignIntelligence's published report also includes rankings and surveys of landscape architecture, interior design and industrial design programs and historical reviews of top-ranked schools.

Cornell's B.Arch. program was reaccredited for six years effective Jan. 1, 2010. The professional M.Arch. program was initially accredited Jan. 1, 2009, for a three-year term.

DesignIntelligence, the bimonthly report of the Design Futures Council, has been ranking architecture programs since 1999. The Greenway Group is a management consulting and research firm.