<p>Since it is national research council, you can only assume that it is based largely on research. What criteria they use is a mystery to me. There are some real head scratchers on there.</p>
<p>For example, while Princeton is a fine school, and has a good aerospace engineering department, I have never seen it placed as high as #4 in any other ranking system, especially above Michigan and Purdue. Also, Cornell is apparently a top 10 aerospace school despite the fact that they don’t actually have an aerospace engineering as an undergraduate degree, and even their graduate program isn’t usually placed in the top 10. CalTech also does not have an undergraduate program in aerospace. Basically, this only really applies to graduate school.</p>