<p>Just wondering, what if rankings didn't separate engineering schools based off whether their highest degree offered is a PhD or MS?</p>
<p>How would YOU guys rank the schools? For example, how would solid engineering M.S. schools such as Cal Poly SLO, harvey mudd, rose hulman, olin etc etc, rank on a list that included schools such as MIT, stanford, down to UCSB, etc... would the MS schools be able to scratch the top 5, 10, or 20, etc?</p>
<p>(I know i didnt present any ranking criteria....so i understand if this question cant be answered lol)</p>
<p>I admire that you’d want to come up with some original criteria. But that would be too hard to actually do on your own. So the real answer is it’s very hard to measure…but here’s a fake answer :)</p>
<p>If you really want to know in the context of a respected ranking, even though I personally do not like it or its method, you can look at US News.</p>
<p>Listen to how the US News does the rankings. They just take the average peer assessment by professors at other schools when they respond to the survey.
So basically a bunch of guys saying, “oh yeah MIT, Stanford, USCB, they’re great for engineering, of course, I’ll give this one a 4, this one a 5 completely arbitrarily” It’s hardly an objective measure of the strength of the programs, and hardly a science.</p>
<p>Now you may not be thinking of US News rankings, but they’re all probably too lazy to make an actual formula like US News does for the overall rankings. </p>
<p>So if you’re going with them, you can just look at the peer assessment scores and compare them right there. They don’t actually ask them a different question, it’s just ‘rank the program from 1-5’. Just go on the USNWR website. Harvey Mudd and RHIT, at the top, have a 4.5 which is equivalent to GA Tech on the other one. </p>
<p>I just wanted to point out that they make it seem like an important ranking when actually you should base very little of it, especially if you’re saying a 30 ranked program is better than a 40 because of a few professors that created a .1 difference in the ranking.</p>
<p>but dont they ask professors from each category (either phd or ms schools) to only assess other schools in the same category? Is a stanford professor giving a peer assessment on rose hulman?</p>
<p>irregardless, i didnt really post this to get an accurate/objective response.</p>
<p>rather, i’m more interested in what YOU guys think an all-inclusive ranking would look like. this can be purely based on each of your individual general perception of the schools…maybe how you view their their overall programs, their quality of professors, quality of student body (competitive or slackers?), etc etc…</p>
<p>just curious what you guys think.</p>
<p>I think factors such as:</p>
<p>1) How much dough the school has to spend on undergrad education
2) Quality of undergrad teaching
3) Location of the school, is it near or far from home
4) Tuition cost
5) Depth and breadth of technical electives</p>
<p>…all matter a lot more than where a school places on some rank. A degree from MIT, Caltech, Stanford, or Cornell, may move your job application to the top of the pile for your very first out-of-college job, but after that you’re on your own.</p>
<p>for the record, i am already currently in grad school… so i am not making this thread to get an idea of where i want to go…</p>
<p>i just thought this would be an interesting topic</p>
<p>bump…you bastards…lol jk</p>