<p>I plan to major in Computer Engineering whereever I end up. I am going to apply ED to Cornell in the fall, and I had University of Washington-Seattle as a second choice (I want to be close to good skiing), based soley on the US News rankings for undergrad engineering colleges. </p>
<p>I had previously been considering U. of Rochester and Syracuse as backups to Cornell, but I noticed they were both ranked awfully low in the Engineering department ratings. Someone on the RU forum said the departmental rankings are total bull, and little attention should be paid to them. Anyone have an opinion on this?</p>
<p>Like someone just said yesterday I believe. "Any of the top 80 schools are good." I think that if someone goes to say a school ranked 10th in the nation and another goes to a school ranked 50. That both are given what is needed to pursue their dreams, granted that they work hard.</p>
<p>I myself, take the top 25 business schools and narrow it down, by saying "which of these do I think offer the best fit for me?" I do use usnews, but that is just one of the factors. I would be willing to go to a 10th ranked business program over a #3 if it fits my personality better. Which will probably happen for me.</p>
<p>So if you want to go to a lower ranked school, that's fine. Go to a school you will enjoy learning at for those four years.</p>
<p>Are you familiar with how they actually come up with the peer assessment scores, though? Who actually ranks them - professors at competing schools or what? (I am talking about the Peer Assessment Score). </p>
<p>I mean, I am talking about a difference of about 60 places on the Engineering rankings (Washington is 22, Rochester is in the 80's). Washington is also 14th (I think) in the Computer Engineering specialty rankings. </p>
<p>I guess I just need to visit both schools and decide for myself if I don't get accepted into Cornell ED.</p>
<p>Udub is excellent in CS--lots of microsoft money and a new CS building by Paul Allen. Seattle is also a jobs hotbed and lots nicer than Syracuse and Rochester.</p>
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I myself, take the top 25 business schools and narrow it down, by saying "which of these do I think offer the best fit for me?" I do use usnews, but that is just one of the factors. I would be willing to go to a 10th ranked business program over a #3 if it fits my personality better. Which will probably happen for me.
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<p>personally, i think the top three business schools are in a class of their own. harvard, stanford, wharton, the HYP of b-schools.</p>
<p>Harvard and Stanford don't offer, undergraduate business. Any of the top 10 undergraduate, can get you into Harvard or Stanford mba. Perhaps a few of the top 25.</p>
<p>"personally, i think the top three business schools are in a class of their own. harvard, stanford, wharton, the HYP of b-schools"</p>
<p>we were talking about UNDERGRAD business programs. Harvard and Stanford both offer Master in Business Administration degree ONLY.</p>
<p>And you CAN'T really get in a good MBA program without 4-5 years of work experience...................</p>
<p>It's easier to get in Wharton undergraduate business degree (then you dont need to worry about MBA) than to quit your job and spend extra money to get a Wharton/harvard MBA degree....</p>
<p>Anonymous, at the MBA level, Kellogg is certainly on par with Harvard and Wharton. </p>
<p>As for you Live, make sure the program you go to is solid. Whether it is ranked in the top 25 or not doesn't really matter, as long as you learn a lot and enjoy what you do.</p>
<p>Rochester has a good deal of connections to various companies around the nation/world, and a LOT of internship connections with the plethora of science/engineering companies in Rochester (Rochester has a lot of these type of companies such as Bausch and Laumb, Kodak..etc). There has to be another reason for why the ranking is so low..i'm trying to pinpoint it.</p>
<p>So, in other words, you think Rochester is ranked too low? I couldn't see why it would be ranked so low, either. Most of the time research-friendly universities are great for engineering, and you'd think RU's small size would only help its program.</p>
<p>If it came down to Rochester, Syracuse, CU-Boulder and Washington-Seattle as my backups to Cornell, which would you say would be the top backup for computer engineering? I had been thinking Washington-Seattle, but I wouldn't mind RU or Syracuse considering how close they are to me in MD compared to Seattle or Colorado.</p>
<p>Umm, I'd go UR 100%, UR is def. more prestigious than the other schools...computer engineering/computer science program is on its way up too.. I have 2 friends going there next year. </p>
<p>then again, university of washington already has a strong compsci dept, but the think about it is that it really isnt as prestigious as rochester, so i mean, going to rochester and coming out with a compsci degree will really mean something when it comes to feeding to graduate schools, the dept is good + you have extremely strong depts to fall back on and take classes in if you double major /minor/ cluster, etc. A lot of people use Rochester as their safety to cornell too, i dunno why, I guess because it's in that same circle of prestige. </p>
<p>finally, rochester's other engineering programs such as BME/Optics/MechE/etc are very well known/well respected, so the overall strength of engineering is pretty strong.</p>
<p>Rochester E.D. II and 100% over all those choices- just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. I guess I ought to make time to visit there this summer and check it out first-hand. </p>
<p>If I ended up at Rochester, I'd definitely try and get into their 5-year BS/MS program (w/ 75% tuition scholarship the fifth year). I'm not real big on the prestige thing - I think grad schools and employers will recognize that certain less prestigious schools may be incredibly strong in certain areas. Seattle is huge for tech stuff as well.</p>
<p>Oh well, guess I'll just hope I get into Cornell so I don't have to worry about making a decision. I think it would probably come down to RU and Washington, although I hear Syracuse has a strong CompE program as well. I think a lot of people use RU as a backup for Cornell because RU is considered just a small notch below Cornell academically and is very close geographically, so it just makes sense.</p>
<p>One more thing: Would you guys say Carnegie Mellon is in about the same league as Rochester? I originally wanted to go farther North than Pittsburgh, but I guess it may be worth a look considering they have a top-ranked CompE program?</p>
<p>i would same rochester and carnegie-mellon are in the same league for the most part with the exception of comp sci... in comp sci, carnegie-mellon is on the level of stanford, MIT, Berkeley.</p>
<p>in any case, rochester is a phenomenal school, very well-respected, especially in science and engineering.... for the life of me, i don't understand its poor showing on us news... another example of a bizzare anomoly, because rochester is a top feeder school for grad programs in science and engineering. further evidence that us news is not the bible.</p>
<p>No, CMU is better than Rochester in Engineering/Computer Science...and overall. Rochester does have a respect Econ Program and Political Science program, and it is also solid in the Sciences and Business, but CMU is tops in Engineering, the Sciences, Business, Economics and overall has a stronger academic core.</p>
<p>keep telling yourself that, you'll go far. I believe that CMU is a fabulous school, but really at this point its just counterproductive to compare them because they both are so strong. It's like comparing 2 county colleges.</p>
<p>Although US News rankings should not be used solely, there is a HUGE difference between a top 20 school and a school ranked number 80. I'm not saying the 80th school won't give the opportunities to succeed. But you gotta realize that the 20th school will almost always give you a better education and / or more opportunities.</p>
<p>You can argue that rankings are essentially useless when two school are seperated by about 10 places, but 60? give me a break!</p>