<p>how accurate do you guys think it is? because some good engineering schools such as polytechnic new york city, resealer polytechic, and colorado school of mines are left out. their undergrad engineers' salery is just as good as MIT and Stanford according to payscale(link here): Best</a> Engineering Colleges By Salary Potential</p>
<p>but they arent even on the top list of engineering programs in us.news' rankings. anyone have any explanation to that? and so is us.news' ranking for engineering schools really that accurate?</p>
<p>I’d say that if you take the US News ranking as an unordered set (not a ranking), it’s pretty accurate in naming the best engineering schools.</p>
<p>By the way, Payscale data is useless. It’s all self-reported, so it very easily leads to a sampling bias that destroys the accuracy of the data (the most likely explanation is that students with higher salaries are more likely to brag about it online, as on sites like Payscale). And salary after graduation isn’t the be-all-end-all metric for measuring quality, anyway - hence why US News takes many factors into account.</p>
<p>the rankings are based on how other engineering schools perceive each particular school. It has nothing to do with anything else. RPI is usually very high on that list and Colorado School Of Mines is a good school.</p>
<p>So don’t just take the US News list and believe it 100%. It’s a good place to start looking though.</p>
<p>The top rated engineering programs have more professors in the National Academy of Engineering (an academic award for research contributions. There is a very strong correlation with number of NAE members and engineering department prestige.</p>
<p>Here’s something else you could look at in addition to the US News rankings: [url=<a href=“School Rankings by College Major – Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ”>School Rankings by College Major – Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ]School</a> Rankings by College Major – Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ.com<a href=“how%20job%20recruiters%20view%20schools,%20be%20aware%20it%20is%20biased%20towards%20larger%20schools%20since%20they%20of%20course%20can%20attract%20more%20recruiters%20since%20they%20have%20more%20students%20looking%20for%20a%20job”>/url</a>.</p>
<p>I guess the thing to learn here is that no ranking list is flawless.</p>
<p>I personally think the caliber of students a school attracts is a better indication of quality than the US News peer assessment. I that regard, RPI is doing just fine.</p>
<p>I feel like ranking small private schools against huge publics is such a futile task. How can I compare the quality of engineering education at Harvard against the engineering education at Georgia Tech? On the one hand, I bet Georgia Tech has a better selection of advanced electives and students are more likely to choose engineering careers. On the other hand, I think everyone will agree that Harvard is the preferable education, even if one wants to major in engineering.</p>
<p>why go into harvard for engineering when clearly the school is for subjects like law and business and such? i have never heard of havard engineering before. true its a ivy and top school, but when it comes to engineering i dont think its got the upper hand when compared to smaller polytechnics and CO school of mines. correct me if i am wrong btw</p>
<p>If your goal is to be hired into investment banking, management consulting, and similar school-prestige-conscious employers, yes. For actual engineering employment, many other schools have a better reputation and attraction of engineering recruiters.</p>
<p>A Harvard student can take some courses at MIT through cross registration agreements, though whether many do so is another matter altogether.</p>
<p>Harvard has a top 25 Engineering program, so it is no pushover. Relative to its other programs/departments, Engineering may be relatively weak, but in the absolute sense, it is still quite good. </p>
<p>This said, Harvard Engineers are not known for seeking careers in Engineering. As such, Engineering companies do not pursue Harvard as aggressively as other top Engineering programs.</p>
Payscale “measures” the average salaries of mostly below average students at each university since it excluses people with graduate degrees, professional degrees, entrepreneurs, free-lance professionals, etc. Most people who visit payscal are either looking to change jobs or relocate … most of these people are not successful enough in their careers to be courted by head hunters. Why else would you want to visit payscale?</p>
<p>The US News specialty rankings for engineering are based on peer assessment only (usually a survey of department heads and deans of engineering colleges/schools). I would hardly call that “taking many factors into account”.</p>
<p>My son is interested in Computer Science (in addition to engineering). Can I assume that the US News ranking of Computer Engineering would be a good list to follow? Also, other than US News and WSJ article referenced earlier, where can I find other quality rankings of computer science and engineering schools.</p>
<p>Rankings (regardless of source) should only be looked at as a rough approximation – with two schools ranked somewhat close to each other, a student could reasonably choose the lower ranked one for various academic and non-academic reasons.</p>
<p>“Well you can look at the University Graduate Career Surveys . Some, like Berkeley and Cal Poly, list job titles of survey respondents, so you can get some idea of what kinds of jobs they are doing.”</p>
<p>Only 48 percent of graduates responded. Of that 48 percent, only 55 percent are “employed,” and a whopping 31 percent are pursuing graduate studies. So, only ~75 out of 282 EECS majors from the Class of 2010 had jobs lined up at graduation? Only 26.60 percent?</p>
<p>And, here, I thought engineering was a “legitimate” major that more-or-less guaranteed gainful and meaningful employment!</p>
<p>At least if one were to study engineering at a relatively fourth-rate institution like Harvard College, one would have the safety net of the “H-bomb” to secure careers in finance or banking…</p>