After 330 years out in front in the academic race, it looks like Harvard is only an "also ran."

The University of California at Berkeley emerged "the best distinguished university in the country" in a massive report on graduate schools published today by the American Council on Education. But Harvard still ranked first in four of the five major areas of study examined.

Berkeley placed a consistent sec-in all five categories--humanities, social sciences, biological sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. Harvard's out-of-the-money finish in engineering dropped the University into second spot overall.

Following Harvard in the overall ratings were Stanford. Columbia Illinois, Yale, Princeton, University of Michigan, California Institute of Technology, M.I.T., Chicago, and Wisconsin

In its first graduate school study in nine years, the ACE examined 29 disciplines at 106 American universities. The universities were judged by 5000 graduate school education, who rated them on the basis of the scholarly reputation of their facultie, and the effectiveness of their Ph D. programs.

Thirty per cent of the judges were department chairman 40 per cent were senior scholars, and 30 per cent junior faculty members who had received doctorates no more than 10 years ago.

They filled out questionnaires, rating fields with which they were familiar. Each field at each university received one of six ratings, from "distinguished" to "not sufficient to provide acceptable doctoral training."

Harvard ranked first in 11 of the 29 disciplines; Berkeley was on top in nine.

Harvey Brooks, Dean of Engineering and Applied Physics, yesterday called the rating system "not entirely meaningful." "Berkeley has five to ten times the number of faculty members that we have in engineering. Sheer numbers put them in front," Brooks continued

The engineering category is divided into four fields--civil, chemical, electrical, and mechanical. Harvard placed eighth in faculty and sixth in program in both mechanical and electrical en-engineering and received a "good" rating in civil engineering.

Sanitation Unrecognized

The University does not have a chemical engineering department, so Harvard did not rank at all in that field. "Because of the way the ratings work, the lack of that department pulled us way down, even though we ranked very high in the other three fields," Brooks said.

Brooks also pointed out that the report does not take into account specific areas within fields. "For instance," he said, "we have a distinguished group in the sanitary engineering program within the civil engineering field. But the rankings do not recognize it."

Harvard's exact rank in engineering was not disclosed. But the University received a good rating, for below the five schools that were considered "distinguished" -- M.I.T. Berkeley, Stanford, Cal Tech, and Illinois.

"You'll notice," Brooks observed, "that besides Stanford they are all either technological schools or state schools. Harvard just doesn't have the endowment in engineering to even pretend to compete with a university like Berkeley."