<p>How much of a factor should the strength of a school's individual departments be when selecting a college for undergraduate study? I've always disregarded this for the most part, looking more at overall undergraduate focus, student faculty ratios, and the like, but now I'm wondering if I should have payed more attention to departmental strength.</p>
<p>Does the strength of your major matter much for graduate school/jobs (vs other factors regarding undergrads)? Does this change depending on your area of study (Humanities vs Social Science vs Engineering vs..)? Or this be offset by a student excelling in a not so strong department vs doing okay in a strong department?</p>
<p>This has been bothering me lately. I've read that overall undergraduate focus and the student's individual ability are more important, but I can't help but be bothered by all the people I see saying "I want to go to X school because it's strong in Y."</p>
<p>You usually should have a balance - some schools are just amazing in everything, while other schools have those departmental strengths/weaknesses (Purdue University for example). I'm personally going to Apply to Yale for Electrical engineering even though USNEWs ranks yale sortof low for that, but I just love yale</p>
<p>The strength of the individual department is important as well as overall quality. If you ignore the strength of the department, you risk picking a school with a great overall rep but a weakness in your particular area. For example, Georgetown has a great overall rep but is not as strong in sciences. Conversely, you could overlook a school with a lesser reputation but great strength in your area. For example, U Delaware in chemical engineering.</p>
<p>I am sure there are other examples.</p>
<p>But for the most part, during undergrad, the "research strength" of the grad department (because that's what we're really looking at) is fairly negligible. This is less so at LACs, and certain universities (G-Town for politics, etc.)</p>