<p>When applying for a mechanical engineering degree, should the ranking of its mechanical engineering program be considered as a deciding factor? Do employers really care how highly the school is ranked in the particular field?</p>
<p>Think of it this way....you don't want to go to a sucky school.</p>
<p>one thing you can do is look at the career sites of prospective employers and see what schools they recruit at and see if the one you are interested in is included. Obviously when you are just starting college you probably do not know many of the companies you may eventually be looking at. But for example, look at Ford:
<a href="http://www.mycareer.ford.com/HOWWEHIRE.ASP?CID=32%5B/url%5D">http://www.mycareer.ford.com/HOWWEHIRE.ASP?CID=32</a>
There are some great schools there, but not all are top ranked.</p>
<p>Rankings are an artificial way of evaluating things so if you're looking for specific things like recruiting, rankings won't help you very much. You'll need to look deeper. </p>
<p>In general, employers don't care about rankings because they know where they want to recruit better than what a list of school names can tell them. There is a correlation, obviously, but you can't just rely on rankings.</p>
<p>Depends on the ranking you're talking about. For some US News rankings they give both a "recruiter" and a "dean's" score on a 0-5 scale.</p>
<p>Sorry my last post didn't really answer your question. Your deciding factor should be what you fell is the best fit for you overall (social scene, academics, athletics, location, etc.)</p>