I’m looking at colleges to transfer to next spring and I want to major in computer science. Though I’m wondering does it really matter which school I got to for computer science or are college rankings useless?
it matters what college you go to for CS but the rankings are not the definitive criterion. Most subject rankings refer to graduate programs.
When you ask if something matters, the question also includes “matters to whom?”. College rankings matter to the people who publish them because they make money. College rankings matter to colleges because they can effect the number of applicants they get.
What matters for you are: affordability, quality of CS programs, and finally internship and job placement opportunities.
Ranking publications may or may not help you determine these things. Rankings that allow you to sort by statistics that matter to you can be useful.
Some employers recruit from certain schools; the higher “ranked” the employer, the higher “ranked” the schools some employers target. My employer (not well known) was unable to attract grads from “top” schools, but we found that other grads were perfectly competent and did an excellent job for us.
Does it matter for any other STEM related field as well such Chem Engineering, Mech Engineering etc? Lately I’ve been looking at schools such as UIUC and Georgia Tech, But also considered a few state schools as well.
UIUC and Georgia Tech are state schools. In engineering many of the top schools are state schools.
state schools as in lower tier
It depends on the employer. Some employers, like mine, only recruit from engineering schools above a certain point in the ranking, and also from what they consider very strong engineering schools local to them. So for example, we’d recruit from the top 30 or so nationwide, and also the strongest regional players, even if they were outside the top 30. But other employers don’t care about stuff like that.
I have seen some employers only recruit from ABET accredited programs.
That would seem to be a given.
CS is not engineering, so ABET accreditation is not normally strictly required, although it can indicate that the program meets a good baseline quality standard (but also has more non-CS science requirements). However, programs without ABET accreditation can range from top-end (e.g. Stanford, CMU, UCB L&S CS) to quite poor, so closer inspection of the actual program and offerings may be needed in such a case.
Recently in the past year I decided to study Computer Science instead of studying the liberal arts so I talked to my advisor about switching majors to Associate in Science so I can earn better grades in the courses I need in order to transfer to colleges such as UIUC (i.e. Calc 1, Calc 2, Chemistry, etc.) So I can atleast be competitive, But lets say if I did just decided to transfer to a local college or any other college out of state then my job prospects won’t be that great?
Your job prospects at FAANG-like companies might be worse, but futurists suggest CS grads will continue to be in high demand.
I’m not trying to get a job at Apple or Facebook or Goggle as most of those jobs are in California which where I’m not trying to go.