<p>Does anyone have a logical explanation for why the undergraduate programs of universities that offer PhDs are only ranked against the undergraduate programs of other universities that offer PhDs and vice versa for universities that only offer masters degrees?</p>
<p>Why is the existence of a PhD program at a university a relevant distinction when ranking their undergraduate programs? Pardon me if I’m mistaken, but doesn’t the existence of doctoral programs have nothing to do with the quality of their undergraduate degrees?</p>
<p>I’ve often wondered the same, so your question motivated me to wade through USN&WR’s web site for an explanation. Here’s what I found (not entirely satisfactory, imo): </p>
<p>"We have separate rankings for undergraduate engineering programs at colleges that offer doctoral degrees in engineering and for engineering programs at colleges whose terminal degree in engineering is a bachelor’s or master’s. Research at the graduate level often influences the undergraduate curriculum, and engineering schools with doctoral programs in engineering tend to have the widest possible range of offerings.</p>
<p>Students who prefer a program focused on undergraduates can consult the list of top programs at schools whose terminal degree is the bachelor’s or master’s."</p>
<p>I suppose you could argue in a general way that the separate rankings allow “apples-to-apples” comparisons, but I’m not convinced that the distinction is particularly useful when evaluating the merits of various undergraduate engineering programs. Maybe someone else can come up with a better justification for their methodology.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that’s probably the best explanation I’ll ever get, most likely due to the fact that their is no good explanation.</p>
<p>If we were to rank them together, I’d be willing to bet that many of the “big wigs” would probably loose their undergraduate appeal.</p>
<p>Also, after reading that all of these rankings are solely based on something as subjective as student a peer review, its hard to look at these ratings like anything more than a popularity contest. </p>
<p>It’s still nice to see that Cal Poly is in the top 10 engineering schools (that offer up to a masters degree :<), even if it’s a subjective and ineffective ranking system.</p>
<p>“The U.S. News rankings of undergraduate engineering programs accredited by ABET, formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, are based solely on the peer judgments of deans and senior faculty who rated each program they are familiar with on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Engineering school deans and faculty members (two surveys were sent to each ABET-accredited engineering program) were surveyed for this ranking in spring 2011.”</p>