I plan to apply for masters in Chem. E or Biomed in the future, and I want to know if it’s wise to pursue masters in same school in terms of academics and future job prospects. Then I realized that our school is not even in top 100 engienering grad programs…I wonder why?
@paul2752 - Here are the criteria that US News uses to rank graduate engineering programs: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/engineering-schools-methodology
As you can see, 40% of the overall ranking is based on peer and recruiter rankings. It takes a long time to move the needle on these rankings. MIT professors could be skinning and eating graduate students and the school would still be highly ranked for many years. Alabama has tremendously upgraded its facilities, faculties, and undergraduate students, but it could take many years for it to move ahead of even Auburn. Many of the other factors are chicken-and-egg. If Alabama were more highly ranked, it would attract more research funding, top students, faculty, etc. If it attracted more research funding, top students, and faculty (publishing more widely cited papers) it would do better in peer and recruiter rankings.
And sadly, many people who do these rankings are ignorant and prejudiced. I have visited the Alabama engineering college and was greatly impressed. Tuscaloosa is a very nice college town. Half the UG students are now OOS and score very well on their ACTs and SATs… Yet, particularly in the Northeast and West Coast, the impression is that indoor plumbing is just beginning to replace outhouses and that lynchings are still an everyday event.