@UWfromCA- One needs to be careful, because Computer Engineering is not really the same as Computer Science. The difference between the two can vary quite a bit depending on the school (some schools do not even offer CS through the School of Engineering).
In general, the USNews undergrad rankings for research universities don’t add much value above and beyond the grad school rankings, because the population being polled (people in academia) tend to judge the quality of the undergrad program based on research rank (vs. course offerings and/or teaching quality, which are much harder to determine).
Senior people in academia tend to be busy and they don’t have the time or inclination to monitor hundreds of undergrad programs.
Be aware that people in industry have a different set of evaluation criteria that people in academia - even when it comes to research. Industry tends to favor applied research over basic/theoretical research and university research programs can vary significantly in this regard.
Since the grad rankings are purely poll based, and the person being polled has a vested interest in the outcome of the poll, the grad rankings tend to correlate with the size and placement rate of the schools Phd program roughly 20-30 years ago.
Note that the richness of course offerings tends to correlate with the size of the undergrad program and the masters program. Undergrad teaching “quality” can be inversely correlated with the size of the Phd program due to competition for a professor’s finite time, and large undergrad programs can result in large class sizes and poorer advising.
As a result, there are some very good undergrad programs associated with Phd granting Universities with smaller Phd programs, universities that only grant masters degrees (US news calls these “regional universities”) and colleges that only grant bachelors degrees.
WPI is one of them. WPI has a medium sized undergrad and masters program and a small Phd program. It tends to be more of a feeder into industry than academia. Note that it also appears in the USNews undergrad teaching polls, which is unusual for a technical institute.
UWash is highly regarded in industry and also does well in the polls of academia. It has very large undergrad, masters and Phd programs. It is a feeder for both industry and academia (Seattle is a top computer industry hub along with Silicon Valley and Boston).
Another potential problem with very large programs though, can be access to high level research.
If one uses undergrad CS research awards as a proxy for access to high level research, there is some correlation with USNews graduate rankings, but it is not perfect. I tend to favor research awards to the US News rank for evaluating the research aspect of undergrad programs. University of Washington does well in this criteria despite its size.
Computing Research Association Awards Sponsored by Microsoft & Mitsubishi (last 5 yrs)
Weighting awards 1-4 points to the 4 levels of the award
…# of…Weighted by…Norm to…USNews
…School… Awards…Award level…Grad Class …Grad Rank
- URochester…6…10…2.8…52
- Princeton…13…20…2.2…8
- Harvey Mudd…10…20…2.7…NR
- Tufts…8…11…1.9…70
- Columbia…10…17…1.8…15
- UWashington…13…21…0.7…7
- Cornell…10…16…0.9…6
- Berkeley…10…24…0.7…4
- Harvard…5…9… …1.0…18
10.UIUC…7…14…0.5…5
NSF Research Fellowships for graduate study by baccalaureate institution 2010-2016 (7yrs)
…# of…# of…Norm to…USNews
…School…Awards…Grads…latest grad class…Grad Rank
1…Prince…32…117…3.9…8
2…CTech…15…60…3.6…11
3…Olin…8…38…1.4-3.0*…NR
4…Yale…10…51…2.8…20
5…Mudd…13…78…2.4…NR
6…Harv…14…96…2.1…18
7…MIT…40…283…2.0…2
8…Colum…15…126…1.7…15
9…NW…6…52…1.6…34
10.Berkeley…32…286…1.6…4
11.Stan…23…217…1.5…3
12.Rice…7…70…1.4…20
13.CMU…19…211…1.3…1
14.UVA…10…115…1.2…29
15.Duke…5…68…1.1…25
16.Tufts…6…83…1.0…70
17.Cornell…15…213…1.0…6
18.GTech …19…288…0.9…9
19.UWash…20…357…0.8…7
20.UPenn…7…127…0.8…19
*Olin does not have a CS major so number is estimated