<p>I noticed in the engineering ranking that the category of institutions that don't offer PhDs have lower peer assessment scores than the PhD schools. Since its supposed to be an undergraduate ranking, I didn't understand how the presence or absence of a PhD program should affect its score. That got me thinking. As I understand it, PhD schools are more noted for research whereas non-PhD schools are better known for the undergraduate experience. Maybe its the greater research quantity of the PhD schools that builds the reputation that is represented in their greater peer assessment scores. So are the peer assessment scores primarily representative of research quantity instead of education quality?</p>
<p>Everyone has their own understanding of the rankings, which goes on to show that they are not a very solid criterion to base a very important decision on.
That said, you are mostly correct about saying that programs that award research degrees (PhDs) are ranked separately from schools with only undergraduate emphases because it would be difficult to compare the two.
I don't really know how the rankings work but I'm pretty sure that the peer assessment scores are primarily based on the quality and quantity of research at a school. Schools that take little or no part in research are effectively going to be less well-known, especially in academia, so they will get lower scores. And thats the other thing, these rankings reflect the opinions and standards of academia more than industry, so the rankings aren't the best measure of engineering schools.
You will be considered a very apt and employable candidate coming out of a less research-oriented school like Cal Poly or SJSU, though the schools may not be ranked very highly compared to the likes of MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford, which are very large and powerful research institutions.
Oh and the "undergraduate experience" is independent of whether the college is a research institute or not, though the style of your education will likely differ between the two. Research schools tend to prepare you for grad school so your undergraduate education is more theoretical.</p>
<p>The way rankings such as US news work are by user submission and survey. US News sends out surveys to almost all schools. The surveys go to deans, presidents, provosts and some others. Not the average professor, but maybe a school or departments main research professor. There highly distinctive people are then asked to rate other schools. Not there own school, but a group of other schools. </p>
<p>I got this info from the provost of my University, while he was actually filling out the surveys in his office.</p>
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Not the average professor, but maybe a school or departments main research professor.
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<p>This is the reason why the score is affected.</p>
<p>The people who are giving their assessments are primarily researchers of engineering, not researchers of good academic programs.</p>
<p>Non-PhD schools are typically not driven by research-- they're driven by the goal of giving their students a more well-rounded education. If the assesssors aren't constantly reading about a school's research in their journal of choice, then they likely haven't heard a ton about that school at all, and their impression of that school isn't based upon what they typically base opinions on: research prowess. It's driven by word of mouth.</p>
<p>Hey, have you heard of huge-powerhouse-engineering-school?
Oh, yeah, the research I see coming from there is really pretty interesting and cutting-edge. I give it a nine.</p>
<p>vs...</p>
<p>Hey, have you heard of small-school-that-produces-great-engineers?
Uh... I think a colleague of mine had a student who went there, and he said the guy was fairly sharp. I give it a three?</p>