Top University Rankings for 2004 Released 701
jemecki writes "US News and World Report has posted their annual rankings for the top colleges and universities in America. Of particular interest to Slashdotters are the top Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering universities and the top overall engineering schools. For those that don't want to RTFA, Harvard and Princeton are the best in the country, and MIT, Stanford and Berkeley are the best in Engineering."
"Premium login"?? (Score:5, Informative)
Am I missing something?
Take it with a grain of... (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I'm more interested in which universities have good industry and job opportunities surrounding them, since my first job after getting a degree will likely be close to wherever I graduate from.
Re:applicability to the real world (Score:5, Informative)
but it's not for everyone
Hooray (Score:3, Informative)
Although this means nothing to me, I know most slashdot readers and editors will be looking at colleges in about 5 years or so.
Frankly, I've found that the real world puts much less esteem on who granted your degree than the schools themselves do.
Pretentious eggheads laugh at DeVry, employers dont. They usually care if you can do the job, and have appropriate hygeine.
Princeton Review (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:1, Informative)
This is actually how it was and still is. People with gold medals or scientific competition accomplishments can get in easier - or even bypass the exams completely. Each university conducts its own exams, so you rarely can apply to more than two.
So there are ranks of people in the admissions process:
- Those who are admitted right after applying, with no exams
- Those who have to take less exams (often just one) and if they get an A are admitted right away.
- Those who have to take all the exams.
The last two are sorted by how well they did.And, oh yeah, nowadays they have a new category: those who pay with hard currency.
Princeton Review also has a list out... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Top Party School - all we care about. (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/954063.asp?0si=-
TOP PARTY SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER
Boulder, Colorado is said to have an endless amount of things to do: concerts, coffee shops, movies, parties, shopping and plenty of outdoor activities for those adventure-seekers. The Division I sports add to the energy of the school and the atmosphere around campus (campus is only 30 minutes from Denver too). The school is large, with over 25,000 undergrads enrolled last year. The student body is described as "a combination of rich kids and hippies, kids who don't care about class work and kids who are super-competitive, studying hard during the week and letting loose on the weekends."
Runner-ups
2) University of Wisconsin, Madison
3) Indiana University (was number one last year)
4) University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
5) Washington and Lee University
Is Stanford Eng Dept even Accredited? (Score:2, Informative)
However, Stanford's Engineering department was not. The reason being is that most of the classes were taught by TA's, aka graduate students.
Stanford didn't meet the minimum requirement of actual Professors with Graduate and Post Graduate degrees teaching lectures.
With that understanding, how is it possible for Stanford to even be a top school in engineering?
The only reason I can find is that though the department may not be accredited, and that the instruction may not be from seasoned professionals, the classes taught are still of the quality you would hope from a university that used to allow students to drop classes the day before the final. (sarcastic, but also thoughtfully meaning that the instruction has improved greatly)
Re:Suggestions welcome, really, please (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Suggestions welcome, really, please (Score:1, Informative)
One of the things I love most about U of M is that they'll let any student in Engineering take any class for any department without looking at the Prereqs. One extra year and I could add Film and Math degrees practically without even applying to those departments.
-B
Re:Suggestions welcome, really, please (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Suggestions welcome, really, please (Score:2, Informative)
- One of the computer professors was diagnosed as insane.
- The accredidation for the grad program was placed on probation about 5 years ago for a 3 year period.
- Rumors have it the place is falling apart, and no one likes the new President. This from my mother-in-law, who used to work in the University publicity/communication office.
- The campus is in the middle of urban Cleveland, i.e., the hood.
You'll make friends, and have an OK time, and make the most of it. You get a great name to put on your degree. But I definitely can't recommend the computer department there. If you're serious about your education, don't pick CWRU unless you have your expectations set that you'll have to teach yourself a lot and learn from your peers instead of professors.
One point to make about most of these institutions: If you're smart, you'll get a good education, regardless of how good or bad the professors are. I say this because you will gravitate towards the other smart folks in class, and you'll end up teaching each other as much, if not more, than you'll learn from a professor. This may not be true at teaching institutions, but it was my experience at CWRU...er...Case.
Take with a grain of salt (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, one of the ideas that someone brought up was the notion of trying to influence our ranking in the U.S. News annual report. So we looked into how the rankings are done.
As I recall, it turned out that the main factor in the rankings of universities as a whole was the peer assessment (other deans of universities and colleges). To this end, all of the institutions who put a priority on being near the top of the list make sure to send out promo material to everyone that U.S. News queries... ideally a few weeks before U.S. News sends out the queries, so that the promo material is still fresh in the mind of the voters.
For either the overall rankings or the rankings of the individual programs (like engineering, business, etc), there were some other very interesting quantitative measures that came into play. One of them was something like the percentage of classes with fewer than, say, 21 students (which increase a school's score) and another was the percentage of classes with more than about 35 students (which lower a school's score).
One insteresting suggestion someone on the committee made was, if we had any classes with a maximum class size of 21 or 22, lower it to 20. Only one or two students have to wait until next quarter for the class, and the college gets a discreet jump in its score. Same goes for lowering classes with a max of 35 or 36 to 34. Every little bit helps.
Anyway, the long and short of the story is that... there are a lot of clever people who make it their business to juice the scores that their school gets. If a school isn't very high on the list, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad school. It might just mean that they haven't found out how the ranking game is really played. (Kinda like an athlete who doesn't realize that everyone else is using steroids yet).
Re:Phd programs help undergrads? (Score:1, Informative)
The explanation I would give for the stats you mentioned above is probably the fact that huge research institutions like MIT/Stanford/Berkeley spend lots of money on the departments with Ph.D. programs and the undergraduates there have a lot more resources than they would at a smaller college. I know when I was a research assistant in my "university"'s CS department (yeah, it's on those lists) I had a huge office space, a lot bigger than the office I have now in industry. (Yes, I have an office not a cubicle, and I still had more space as a researcher.)
Re:Phd programs help undergrads? (Score:5, Informative)
In general, the best and brightest faculty in a given field are going to be primarily interested in their research. Graduate students are vital, and substantial, part of most research programs. Thus, the leaders in a field are more likely to go to an institution where they can supervise a cadre of grad students.
(Yes, there are exceptions; some brilliant professors are happy to concentrate on teaching rather than research. You'll find good examples at the institutions at the top of the list. I am speaking in general.)
Re: Northwestern (Score:3, Informative)
I'm in ChemE at Northwestern, and the department is very good, so I would recommend it. In terms of computers, I know a good amount of CS majors and not many like the department that much, and from what I have seen it is not that wonderful. The ECE department is good though, I know many ECE majors and some grads and they enjoy it and get a lot out of it.
And about the co-op program, I would have to say I approve; guess where I'm writing this from ;) The program here has undergone some bumps over the past years with a new director, but I would still recommend it for almost anyone in engineering.
Rankings aren't "new"... (Score:2, Informative)
List (Score:2, Informative)
1(tie). Princeton University (NJ)
3. Yale University (CT)
4. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
5. California Institute of Technology
Duke University (NC)
Stanford University (CA)
University of Pennsylvania
9. Dartmouth College (NH)
Washington University in St. Louis
11. Columbia University (NY)
Northwestern University (IL)
13. University of Chicago
14. Cornell University (NY)
Johns Hopkins University (MD)
16. Rice University (TX)
17. Brown University (RI)
18. Emory University (GA)
19. University of Notre Dame (IN)
Vanderbilt University (TN)
21. University of California - Berkeley *
University of Virginia *
23. Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
Georgetown University (DC)
25. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor *
26. Univ. of California - Los Angeles *
27. Tufts University (MA)
28. Wake Forest University (NC)
29. U. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill *
30. Univ. of Southern California
31. College of William and Mary (VA)*
32. Brandeis University (MA)
Univ. of California - San Diego *
Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison *
35. New York University
University of Rochester (NY)
37. Case Western Reserve Univ. (OH)
Georgia Institute of Technology *
Lehigh University (PA)
40. Boston College
U. of Illinois - Urbana - Champaign *
Yeshiva University (NY)
43. University of California - Davis *
44. Tulane University (LA)
45. University of California - Irvine *
Univ. of California - Santa Barbara *
University of Washington *
48. Pennsylvania State U. - University Park *
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)
University of Florida *
51. George Washington University (DC)
Pepperdine University (CA)
53. Univ. of Maryland - College Park *
University of Texas - Austin *
55. Syracuse University (NY)
Worcester Polytechnic Inst. (MA)
57. University of Iowa *
58. Purdue Univ. - West Lafayette (IN)*
University of Georgia *
60. Ohio State University - Columbus *
Rutgers - New Brunswick (NJ)*
University of Miami (FL)
Univ. of Minnesota - Twin Cities *
64. Boston University
Miami University - Oxford (OH)*
University of Connecticut *
67. Brigham Young Univ. - Provo (UT)
Indiana University - Bloomington *
Texas A&M Univ. - College Station *
Univ. of California - Santa Cruz *
University of Delaware *
University of Pittsburgh *
73. Clark University (MA)
Michigan State University *
Southern Methodist University (TX)
Univ. of Missouri - Columbia *
Virginia Tech *
78. Baylor University (TX)
Clemson University (SC)*
St. Louis University
SUNY - Binghamton *
SUNY Coll. Environ. Sci. and Forestry *
University of Colorado - Boulder *
84. Fordham University (NY)
North Carolina State U. - Raleigh *
Univ. of California - Riverside *
87. Illinois Institute of Technology
Iowa State University *
Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ)
University of Denver
91. Marquette University (WI)
Univ. of Massachusetts - Amherst *
University of Tulsa (OK)
University of Vermont *
95. Auburn University (AL)*
University of Kansas *
University of New Hampshire *
University of Tennessee *
99. American University (DC)
Loyola University Chicago
Michigan Technological University *
Texas Christian University
University of Alabama *
University of Arizona *
University of San Diego
Washington State University *
107. Ohio University *
University of Dayton (OH)
University of Kentucky *
Univ. of Nebraska - Lincoln *
University of the Pacific (CA)
112. Catholic University of America (DC)
Colorado State University *
Florida State University *
University of Missouri - Rolla *
Univ. of
Re:Top Party School - all we care about. (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know which has the BEST female to male ratio, but BGSU [bgsu.edu] has about a 3:1 ratio. Not too bad, but obviously irrelevant for us geeks.
Oh, and the bandwidth is great. They block all P2P, though.
Re:"Premium login"?? (Score:1, Informative)
Engineers Drinking Song came from MIT (Score:4, Informative)
Of course MIT is the best engineering school - they have the best understanding of engineers!
MIT Traditonal, The Engineer's Drinking Song [mit.edu], as sung by engineers worldwide.
Search for it on Kazaa, you'll find the Chorallaries excellent version.
Princeton Review List doesn't require log-in (Score:3, Informative)
Bah (Score:5, Informative)
Re:"Premium login"?? x1488 (Score:1, Informative)
Take #5 off your list.
Those are rankings for med-doc, not comprehensive (Score:3, Informative)
"Overpriced?" (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what: higher ed is expensive. I work at a very expensive private college. Assuming that you were to pay full freight for everything (few do), you would pay $11k/year less than it actually cost us to provide you the classes, services, room+board, etc.
So how do we do it? Volume! No, really we make it up by grants, donations and endowment income. The latter has been in the tank over the past few years, the former has been a lot tighter as well as all those insta-zillionaires watched their stock profits vaporize.
Cuts? Sure. My department's budget is down 25%, we're running 20% low on staff. We're under hiring freeze, we're putting off needed renovations (Library+leaky roof = bad news) we've stopped replacing computers in labs, we have cut adjunct profs and reduced the courses taught, etc, etc. And guess what: the budget still doesn't balance. We're eating our endowment to stay alive until the good times return. (And that's with the amazingly lower salaries in higher ed: you think you can get a PhD with 20 years of experience for $80k/year in industry? Our president makes a whopping $165k: a CEO of a similar sized corporation would clear a million easy.)
We're one of the lucky ones. We've got enough endowment to survive for quite a bit longer without layoffs. We even got a small raise this year.
But overpriced? No way: it just costs a hell of a lot to run a college.
Re:"Premium login"?? (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't care to link, here's [usnews.com] the ranking:
Re:Come to Canada instead (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Phd programs help undergrads? (Score:2, Informative)
The article's "UI" is a little confusing. It appears the first list ranks only those universities whose programs stop at the master's level. The second list ranks only those universities whose programs stop at the doctorate level.
Otherwise, it would be useless to have the two lists, because they'd probably be identical and dominated by the universities with doctorate programs.
How US News Fabricates Statistics: A Case Study (Score:1, Informative)
But it gets worse than that. My father was department chair for an unquestionably top-3 department in the field of Health Administration. This is the intersection of business administration and medicine -- an MHA qualifies you to run a hospital, drug company, medical supply firm, etc. Some Health Administration departments are part of medical schools (including my dad's). Others, including generally the lower ranked ones, are attached to business schools.
One year US News came out with their rankings and ta-da! My dad's department had dropped from #3 to out of the rankings entirely (15 schools or so). So had several other top-ranked departments. It turns out that the business schools had heavily lobbied US News to only consider MHA programs attached to business schools.
This survey is a joke.
Re:Johns Hopkins (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Country -vs- country rankings? (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, the quality of the education you receive at a university is largely dependent upon you, rather than the university. A smart student who strives to achieve his best rather than the bare minimum will likely do equally well at a no-name state school and at a prestigious Ivy League. A stupid student who does the bare minimum will not get a good education at any school.
Besides, do you realize these ratings are largely subjective? I thought it was more-or-less understood that ratings are bullshit.
Re:"Overpriced?" (Score:2, Informative)
I worked in higher ed for a while and although the pay was low, the rest of the benefits made up for it.
Re:applicability to the real world (Score:3, Informative)