do rankings in subcategories really matter?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I am a freshman chemical engineering major at Virginia Tech. Virginia tech is, imo and many others, a very respectable engineering school (ranked 14th overall undergrad). Most of vt's programs are ranked very high, however chemical engineering is not ranked at all. Will this negatively effect my ability to get good jobs/interships/grad school? or will the fact that it is a highly overall ranked school even this out?</p>

2

<p>You're doomed.</p>

3

<p>^lol (10 char)</p>

4

<p>IMO, rankings are generally based on abigous factors. </p>

<p>Asking students and alumni are factored in, but if the school has succesfully taught their engineers to be critical they will probably get a lower score here than they would have had the school done a worse job.</p>

<p>Research grants and programs are also factored in, which is nice, but this can keep a professor from the classroom as much as it can enhance the learning environment.</p>

<p>Endowments, while it's nice to have money to attract the best professors sometimes it attracts the smartest but not the best teachers.</p>

<p>So, really, what do rankings say? Well, they say that we can easily confuse people to believe that we should be paying more the same education we were getting last year.</p>

<p>I do feel that it is somewhat important to go to a school that is ranked and certified, assuming that your school even qualified for the ranking (some ranking systems require the schools to actively participate in the ranking program, which can cost) and participated. The fact that VT is on that list and has other subgroups ranked gives a good indication that you will get the education that will come from a highly ranked school, even if you are not in that subgroup.</p>

5

<p>Assuming you mean USNews rankings, subdiscipline rankings for undergrad are 100% based off peer assessment. I wouldn't take much stock in them.</p>

6

<p>They don't really matter that much. If you should look at anything, you should look at the things that matter. Courses, quality of professors, quality of labs/equipment, etc. are important.</p>