<p>Did you see this?
<a href=“News & Events | Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences | UMass Amherst”>News & Events | Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences | UMass Amherst;
<p>“When Watson, billed as “the smartest machine on Earth” competed on “Jeopardy!” in February, 2011, against the show’s two most successful players, computer scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst were cheering for the machine. UMass Amherst is one of eight universities collaborating with IBM on the Question Answering (QA) technology behind the company’s intelligent new computing system.”</p>
<p>I do think UMass Amherst’s CS program is pretty good, but BU is well respected also. I don’t think it is worth agonizing over their relative rankings in US News (which is probably talking about the grad school anyway when they are talking about CS). You may want to make your decision on other criteria such as costs/financial aid, campus location, etc. UMass is in a small college town, while BU is in the middle of Boston - so they are very different! Have you been to the campuses?</p>