cooldw57

We all sort of know that for undergrads, usnews overall ranking > major ranking. And for grad school (phD), major ranking > College ranking > overall undergrad ranking. But what about Master students?

So hypothetically, you got into CS master programs from the following school:

Penn (undergrad overall: 5, Graduate SEAS overall: 25, Computer Science: 20)
USC (undergrad overall: 27, Engineering grad school: 7, Computer Science: 20)
U of Washington (undergrad overall: 7, Engineering grad school: 21, Computer Science: 7)

So among the three schools, Penn has an excellent undergrad, USC's grad school overall ranking is on par with CalTech, U of Washington's computer science department is top notch.

If you are to exclude tuition differences, weather/location concerns, alumni support etc, what school would you choose for pure job hunting purpose?

And what about future MBA application? What would the Admission Office prefer?

If you want to substitute some of the schools for something you know more about, feel free, for example replace UPenn with Columbia, or replace USC with U of Michigan if you like. The idea is to discuss schools excel in certain major vs engineering college vs overall school reputation.

cooldw57

no replies? bump

unalove

People on forums for primarily PhD candidates emphasize the choice of a good fit (good faculty in your areas of interest, and advisor who cares about you) over a name or a rank. It could be argued that these names and ranks are falsely generated as well as misleading, because the person on the street will assume that Harvard has the best CS program, but the person most likely to hire you because of your CS masters' degree will know that U of W is where it's at. (The same is true for schools like Vanderbilt and education or Chicago and economics or University of Iowa and creative writing).

My mom chose a grad program solely based on its name, and she was miserable there. It sounds like you put too much work into obtaining a masters' degree not to think closely about individual programs and less about rank.

collegehelp

I would choose schools that excel in both the major and overall rep.
For, comp sci:
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Stanford
MIT
UC Berkeley
Yale
Caltech
Princeton
Brown
Georgia Tech
Penn
Columbia

snooker1

For undergrad, go with the school that's best overall (more likely to get better internships, more stimulating environment, stronger student body, stronger networking connections, you may change your major). For grad school, go with the stronger individual department.

leejwwc

Keep in mind that schools with better overall reputation (impt. for undergrad) also tend to have more reputable departments (impt. for grad).

cooldw57

@snooker1:

That's the problem actually. Should MS or M.Eng students look at individual department ranking the same way as phD students? All these department rankings with funding per professor and research quality don't matter much for master students, especially for courses-track MS programs. To some extent, I believe MS students might have to turn to undergrad ranking because that's closer to reality (courses only, not much research, industry focused rather than academics focused).

@collegehelp:

Does that mean USC's overall reputation plus its individual CS department isn't as prestigious as GeorgiaTech, Penn and Columbia? I could understand the Penn/Columbia comparison, but GaTech trails behind USC in undergrad usnews ranking, and their grad CS program isn't as good as USC either

MaverickB

This is an year old thread but I am having the same problem.
I got admitted in MS CS in USC, Penn and Penn State. I can't pick among'em.
Penn State might have lower rankings among the three but it is cheaper and it is still fairly reputed. Btw, their engineering school is ranked way-higher than Penn.
What to do? Please help.
Even if I put aside the money,
which reputation is better- Penn as a whole or Viterbi School of Engineer for CS major?