US News Undergrad Computer Science/Software Engineering Rankings

Parents Forum
1

OK, so the US News released a new set of rankings – including new categories for undergraduate computer science programs as well as software engineering programs – today. I realize we should all take these with a huge grain of salt. Here in our house, we take note of them but that’s about it.

I’m very curious, though, about the software engineering rankings in particular. My D21 has already decided she will be applying to 2-3 schools on this list, so we are familiar with the programs they offer. However, I was kind of surprised that some of them were ranked the way they were and was hoping someone here might be able to give some insight as to the methodology used by USN. (I don’t see any discussion of how they reached their conclusions).

As one example, North Carolina State (one of the schools to which D21 already decided to apply) is ranked number 9 for software engineering, which seems very nice. They tie with CalTech?I? As far as we know (unless we missed something) NCSU doesn’t have either a software engineering major or a concentration for software engineering within its computer science major. They do have a good number of faculty with published research in the software engineering area, however. Could this be the basis for the USN rank? I’m puzzled. What makes NCSU stand out from a software engineering perspective?

Here’s the link for reference: https://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/computer-science/software-engineering

2

For undergraduates, I will just focus on CS overall instead of specific ranking. I doubt the specific ranking is very reliable for undergraduates.

3

I agree. However, I’m wondering how a school makes a list of the top 10 undergraduate software engineering programs in the country without a software engineering major? I want to make sure there is not something we are missing here.

4

In case you are wondering where the ranking comes from:

Regarding software engineering…

Seems like they are treating software engineering as a subarea of CS, rather than requiring the existence of an actual major in software engineering (which exists, but is not very common). In other words, similar to the other subareas listed like cybersecurity, theory, etc…

Anyone interested in a particular subarea of CS may want to look carefully at the faculty rosters and upper level CS course offerings to see if the department offers what is of interest.

5

Thanks. I did see the CS ranking methodology but nothing for SE. What is perplexing in the case of NCSU, however, is not only is there not a major in SE, but they do not offer a “subarea” of concentration in software engineering within the CS major either. They do offer concentrations in cybersecurity and “entrepreneurship”. I wonder if people consider the “entrepreneurship” track a variant of SE? I don’t know enough about the coursework to assess whether they would be considered similar concentrations.

6

Does the ranking for individual majors/departments also include student debt, social mobility, and test-blind admissions policies?

7

Would you be willing to post the rankings here? Can’t view them past #5. In general though I would probably be a lot more trusting of the overall computer science ranking than that of a specific concentration.

8

Sure, I can post them. They only rank to #11:

  1. Carnegie Mellon
  2. GA Tech
  3. UC Berkeley
  4. UIUC
  5. UT Austin
  6. MIT
  7. UC Irvine
  8. Stanford
  9. Cal Tech
  10. North Carolina State
  11. Cornell
  12. U Southern Cal

USC doesn’t appear to have either a major or a concentration in SE either, but they do offer a Master’s in SE.

9

It doesn’t seem so, from what I can tell.

10

Re #7: Must be some unhappy MIT community members today :wink:

11

If I were to rank the rankings, I’d rank USNews dead last.

12

No kidding. I can’t make heads or tails of this.

13

But Irvine is celebrating!

14

No, see the quoted portion in reply #3.

The quote comes from https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/computer-science-overall (forgot to post the link before).

15

Many colleges do not have formalized subarea concentrations that a student can declare, although they may offer upper level CS courses in those areas.

16

OK, so can you point me to a guide to determine how one differentiates upper division SE track courses from from regular track upper division CS courses? (This is of course, in the case where a school doesn’t have a specific SE specialization).

17

These look like the software engineering subarea rankings from https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/computer-science/software-engineering . The general rankings from https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/computer-science-overall are:

  1. MIT
  2. CMU, Stanford, UCB
  3. Caltech, Cornell, Georgia Tech, Princeton, UIUC, Washington
18

Typically, you can find obviously named courses in the course catalog. For example, you can find COMPSCI 169 at UCB, CSC 326 at NCSU, and 15-313 at CMU.

19

Exactly. I’m asking about the SE rankings.

20

So, you are saying that a software engineering concentration requires only one course called “software engineering”? Thats what CSC 326 is at NCSU. Aren’t there other upper division courses that would be required for a “software engineering” concentration? Taking a single course doesn’t make sense to me.