@MotherOfDragons Re: Williams, check out their faculty, their curriculum, and then look at where they place graduates. Also, Tier I, for undergraduate CS in Rugg’s Guide.
If you also factor in how selective Williams is, I think you can get the picture.
Don’t worry about it.
@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
If you want to see which companies recruit directly from a particular university, check out the career fair attendees for that university (usually available online).
The Ruggs Guide is really difficult to get my hands on-there’s one from 2009 that I can get on an intra-library loan, and the guidance counselor’s office has no idea what I’m talking about. How accurate is that guide, and what is it using to create its rankings?
Wow @MotherOfDragons the Rugg’s Guide prices are outrageous! I bought mine for about $10 two years ago.
It’s not really that useful, he groups very large (40-50?) numbers of schools together into tiers, and as I remember there’s little to no discussion. I can take some pictures of the CS pages and send them to you if you want.
@ormdad thanks, but I don’t want to take money from ruggs by copying the book, and d’s list is mostly set. My curiosity stems from wondering what his methodology is. Williams seems to have good professors and interestingly titled classes, but not that different from some of the cs classes /profs we’ve looked at at lesser ranked colleges.
@MotherOfDragons Rugg’s surveys the admissions officers for grad schools, asking them to rank the undergrad programs from whom they are considering applicants. So it is their opinion, but since they are the “gatekeepers” for admission to grad programs, their opinion matters.
As far as cost, it is $25 to download in a PDF format. Considering tuition costs, that is the proverbial drop in the bucket. I donated my copy back to my son’s school after he made his college decision.
Good luck!
If they are asking PhD programs in the specific major subjects (as opposed to the general graduate admissions administrative parts of the schools), that could be actually very useful information for students who may continue on to PhD study in the subject. A high school senior may not otherwise know whether s/he is limiting the possibility of PhD study in the subject by attending an undergraduate school that PhD programs regard poorly in the subject.
(Given the past threads on LACs, math, and PhD programs, it would be interesting to see where LACs tend to fall for math in these ratings.)
However, there are other factors that can affect how well the major at the given school matches the student. That can include such things as available options within the major, whether the major requires secondary admission, and other academic characteristics of the school overall (e.g. general education requirements). Curricular organization can also differ at different schools, and some ways of organizing the curriculum can be better for some students than others.
@Mastadon, in CS, the distinction between “theoretical” and “applied” is pretty blurry. “Theoretical” usually refers to math & algorithms or AI (while “applied” means stuff like compilers, OS, and stuff more tied to hardware or applications), but there are some firms who’s key division is concerned with algorithms or AI.
@purpleTitan - I would agree, it is almost more of an approach to a subject rather than the subject itself.
To quote Justice Stewart, “I know it when I see it”, seems to apply…
I would place many aspects of AI in the applied domain these days as many applications can be enhanced by using AI techniques.