<p>Hi,</p>
<p>My son is interested in computer science programs, and we are wondering if there is a list of rankings specifically of CS programs (as opposed to the colleges as a whole).</p>
<p>By the way, we're mostly concerned about undergrad CS program rankings at this point.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>This is an interesting set of rankings:</p>
<p>[Google-based</a> Ranking of Computer Science and Engineering Departments](<a href=“http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/rank.html]Google-based”>Google-based Ranking of Computer Science and Engineering Departments)</p>
<p>The google-based ranking is sort of fun, but not really what we care about 
I’m interested in the quality and perception of quality (by employers and graduate schools) of an institution.</p>
<p>Try this: [The</a> Best Schools for Computer Science Majors - 20 Top Colleges & University CS Programs Ranked For 2009](<a href=“GoDaddy Corporate Domains - Protected”>http://www.collegecrunch.org/rankings/the-20-best-schools-for-computer-science-majors-2009/)</p>
<p>Actually, the first link I posted also includes the US News rankings, as well as the Google rankings. There is actually a lot of overlap among these.</p>
<p>[NRC</a> Rankings in Computer Science](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area29.html]NRC”>NRC Rankings in Computer Science)
[Rankings</a> - Computer Science - Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-computer-science-schools/rankings]Rankings”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-computer-science-schools/rankings)
[ARWU</a> SUBJECT 2009 Computer Science](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectCS2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectCS2009.jsp)</p>
<p>Why is Brown ranked so lowly in those rankings? I thought it was like on a par with Stanford, MIT, etc. lol</p>
<p>Are the US News rankings in the google list also the grad school rankings, or do they also have undergrad rankings? I think that if a school has a highly ranked graduate program, it probably also has a great undergrad program, but I don’t think the converse applies – just because a school doesn’t have a top graduate program doesn’t mean they don’t have a great undergrad program.</p>
<p>Thanks, noimagination, for those links!</p>
<p>Most of the rankings I have seen are based primarily on the graduate programs. Computer science is a bit hard to rank, in my opinion, because sometimes it is a stand-alone department, sometimes it is combined with computer/electrical engineering, in some places it is not even in an engineering school (e.g. Univ. of Chicago), sometimes it is an entire school (e.g. Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science). I don’t know the details of the ranking methods, but it seems a bit hard to apply standard measurements when the field is spread out like that.</p>
<p>While it is reasonable to conclude that strong graduate programs mean strong undergraduate programs because the profs are well-funded and well-connected, I don’t think that automatically translates into supreme opportunities for undergraduates. Access to research opportunities varies. On the other hand, if a student is interested in doing some real research, complete absence of a graduate program could make it hard to find hands-on research.</p>
<p>I usually suggest students find out who the undergraduate program director for their field is, and contact them with specific questions about research opportunities, placement specifics (both industry and graduate school), internships and so on.</p>
<p>Visits are good, also.</p>
<p>We’ve just started doing visits. At MIT we got a separate EECS tour, so we got a lot of information there (and its reputation is of course well-known). I wish we’d visited the CS college specifically at Northeastern because it’s a very small program there and the tour guides and info session folks did not know much about it. Northeastern is an exciting choice due to its co-op program, but I think my son will want to do graduate studies, so I want to make sure that he is getting a strong and well-recognized undergrad education. Other schools on our list so far (some visited so far, some not) are WPI, RPI, CMU, UMass Amherst (weren’t crazy about it when we visited, though I know it’s CS program is supposed to be good), RIT, University of Vermont. We’re in Vermont, and want to stay reasonably close, ideally. We may look at Vermont Technical College, but I think that’s a lower-tier program. We’re also looking at Daniel Webster, but again I think that’s a lower-tier. If he wanted to go much farther, we’d look at Cal Tech, Stanford and Berkeley.</p>
<p>My son has strong numbers, and decent but non-spectacular ECs. MIT and CMU would be a stretch, the others should be match or safeties. He’s a legacy for both MIT and CMU, but MIT doesn’t consider it (both parents were grad students there). I think CMU does consider legacy, but it’s a grandparent in that case.</p>
<p>
I doubt there’s many, if any, fields in which Brown is on par with Stanford or MIT. Computer science is certainly no exception.</p>
<p>Being #13 in the NRC ranking and #20 in the US News ranking is not exactly “lowly,” however.</p>
<p>
Also in Rochester, the University of Rochester has a very good computer science program.</p>
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</p>
<p>Thanks, we’ll check that out!</p>
<p>Brown does poorly because it’s Grad School programs don’t do as well. And I’ve chatted with a Stanford friend of mine. Seeing their tests and some of their hw problems, their program for undergrads seems a tad less demanding than ours (we both came to college without any programming experience, and we both have taken about the same amount (accounting for different schedules) of programming-based courses, though my friend has taken a few more theory courses as they’re a year ahead of me).</p>
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</p>
<p>Actually, it specifically IS the exception, where for undergraduates, Brown often comes up in the same sentence as Stanford, MIT, CMU, etc.</p>
<p>Here’s another interesting list of rankings:
[Computer</a> Science College Rankings](<a href=“http://education-portal.com/computer_science_college_rankings.html]Computer”>http://education-portal.com/computer_science_college_rankings.html)</p>
<p>hmm, on second thought, I think that’s just the same as the US News list.</p>
<p>mathmomvt - That list has a big error. They completely left off UT-Austin, which is top 10 in Comp. Sci. by every rankng, incl. USNews, which it is based on. Bad oversight on their part!</p>
<p>This is just my two cents, but I hear Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley have really good computer science departments. UC Berkeley especially- it’s in the Silicon Valley so there is a lot of computer science industry there.</p>
<p>In computer science especially, where a large percentage of the graduating undergraduates go into the corporate/high-tech world, and where the first job is extremely important, the best way to rank is to ask the top high tech companies where they recruit. I don’t expect that anyone has done a deep study of college placement departments to see who recruits.</p>
<p>My list is strictly one of impressions, based on my past recruiting trips, and on what I know about some high tech companies. The list, based on this criteria and some extrapolation, is:</p>
<p>UC Berkeley
MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Stanford
Purdue
University of Texas Austin
University of Illinois Urbana
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
University of Wisconsin Madison
Caltech
Brown</p>
<p>Several of the State Flagships (in addition to the ones on my list) do extremely well in preparing CS graduates. Stanford is somewhat different in that it prepares them, but with a business bent, and many don’t pursue the “hard-core” CS jobs. Caltech is also different in that it is small, and many of the CS graduates have a theoretical bent. Many go on the grad school. Generally smaller schools (with the exception of Caltech) and LAC are not the ideal places to become highly proficient in CS. It’s not to say that you won’t get the necessary foundation, but moreso that you’ll probably want to continue in grad school through the masters level.</p>
<p>I’d say</p>
<p>MIT
CMU
Stanford
Berkeley
Illinois
Caltech
Cornell
Washington</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>I’m interested in CS too, so this is quite a helpful thread for me.</p>
<p>I copied down this list a while ago…I don’t remember where it’s from, but a man who regularly hires recent college graduates listed these as the top undergrad CS programs in the US (and consequently the ones employers hold in high regard): </p>
<ul>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>UIUC</li>
<li>University of Washington</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>University of Texas-Austin</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin-Madison</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Georgia Tech</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>University of Maryland-College Park</li>
</ul>
<p>No particular order, I think.</p>