<p>Hello,</p>
<p>Hi I am new to these forums and would like help on a specific matter. I am a student from the UK who has been attending a university in our version of the Ivy League (It is called the Russell Group). I am in the final year of university and am looking at applying to Grad school at either Iowa or USC. My first question is how competitive is USC to get into. Secondly at the moment I am leaning more towards University of Iowa and would like to know will I be able to get a job outside the Midwest and also is it still taken into high accord like I know it is a Public Ivy from what I have read on the internet. My main reason for leaning towards Iowa is that I love the location and the fact its smaller, plus renting off campus is cheaper in Iowa City. So please could someone get back to me about whether Iowa is worth it or should I be aiming for USC. I know USC is better rankings wise if I am correct but rankings are not everything to me as the UK college I am attending is based in Sheffield and I happen to love the facilities, the faculty and the city as a whole which made me choose it compared to some of my other choices when I applied (University College London an example of a higher ranked choice of mine but I didn't like the vibe it gave if that makes any sense). Lastly should I really be aiming to do Grad school at my Uni. My uni is ranked somewhere between 5-15 out of our Ivy League ( our Ivy league consists of 20 colleges) or is it still worth going to Iowa or USC. Thanks for the help. The course I want do is a Masters in Electrical and Computer engineering. </p>
<p>Is this a joke? Public Ivy!? On a related note, I have a nice bridge I would like to sell you…</p>
<p>I have never heard of University of Iowa in the context of ECE. Public Ivy? Really? Not to be disrespectful, but it really is not on the RADAR. USC most definitely is.</p>
<p>Perhaps check the pedigree of the Professors who are currently teaching the courses you would like to take. A Masters is something like 12 courses, so you should be able to draft up a likely schedule and see who is currently teaching those classes.</p>
<p>USC has one of the top 10 ECE programs in the country (world?). Admissions are highly competitive.</p>
<p>You are from the UK- perhaps you confused Iowa with its neighbor Illinois? Illinois IS very highly regarded. University of Illinois in Urbana-Champagne (UIUC) would be a fair comparison. I would use the same methodology.</p>
<p>Iowa is not as bad as all that. It is an AAU university as is UIUC. That being said, USC is certainly quite good in Electrical Engineering. </p>
<p>The “Public Ivy” thing is sort of a silly marketing thing but the only university that I have heard is actively using it is University of Miami.</p>
<p>@xraymancs, I have friends who are Hawkeyes. They did not study engineering, however. University of Iowa is an upstanding institution. But it spins my head to hear someone say “I attend the equivalent of your Ivy League institutions. I am gravely considering either USC or University of Iowa to take my Master’s. Is one better than the other?”</p>
<p>You say USC is quite good at EE. Would you advise OP that it might be about the same as University of Iowa in rigor and scholarship? Or would you use different language than that?</p>
<p>@ItsJustSchool I think that for a Masters degree that is mostly coursework, most major research institutions are perfectly fine. For research, it is more important to make sure that the field you are interested in is well covered at the institution you choose. Let me give an example with my own institution, Illinois Tech and my own field, physics. If you want to study Plasma Physics or String Theory, IIT is not a great choice. If you want to study Accelerator Physics or Synchrotron Radiation Research, we are very competitive. It all depends on what cutting-edge research is being done at the university. </p>
<p>I get very annoyed at the Graduate rankings because they are more or less a popularity contest rigged for the bigger departments. When i get this list to fill out, that has over a hundred physics departments to rate on a scale of 1-5, how can I possibly do more than give 3’s to most of them unless I know that they are particularly strong or weak? But those will be a small number, depending on who I know at those institutions in my own field. This is clearly a bad way to sample and unfairly penalizes small departments which might have some really top-notch researchers. The NRC ratings are a bit more objective but are quite out of date (2007).</p>
<p>Undergraduate rankings as done by USNWR are marginally better and more quantitative but can be gamed with proper strategies. Nevertheless, I would not use the undergraduate rankings to say anything more than whether the university is reputable as far as graduate programs are concerned. I also think that this whole business about “Ivies” is overblown and that an undergraduate can get an excellent education at many universities.</p>
<p>Back to the Iowa/USC question. Both are [url="<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Universities"]AAU[/url">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Universities"]AAU[/url</a>] members and this has relevance to graduate programs. If you look at the list of member institutions you see that they are all heavy-hitters as far as research goes. Even so, this is a club and clubs like to keep their membership exclusive. But I would say that any member of this group is a solid research university and they would have equivalent rigor and scholarship. So it boils down to specific details and fit for an individual student as well as which university will accept you. As a long time undergraduate advisor, I think it is important for a graduate student to make sure that he/she is not entering a program where expectations are too high. In a less competitive program, the student might be able to take a bit more time, and with nurturing, be more successful. After all one’s research career in the long run really depends on what you do and not where you got your degree. For a Masters, it will be your job performance and your institution will only really be an issue in getting your first job, if at all.</p>
<p>Thank you @xraymancs. This was a very insightful and helpful posting for me. You have identified for me 2 key points: Look to membership in AAU as a sign of rigor; and choose a best-fit based on where you can be nurtured in this learning phase, since the research or application phase will last a lifetime and this is the only opportunity to learn. In some respects, this argues against a research powerhouse- especially at the Master’s level.</p>
<p>Thank you. I think I learned something!</p>
<p>I hope it helped the OP as well. It looks like his intuition to go to U of Iowa may have been well-founded.</p>
<p>@ItsJustSchool I did not mean to say that only AAU schools are good for graduate degrees. It is just another indicator to be put in the mix. I can think of a number of non-AAU schools who have up-and-coming physics programs and which might be a good choice. The same goes for engineering.</p>