pdoshi88

can you post the full rankings for Undergrad biomed engineering (You only posted up to #23)

Thanks a lot

feenotype

So UC-Berkeley is a better engineering school that Cal Tech? Really?

feenotype

It's also neat to see my school ranked. Yeah, it's right down there at the very bottom, but it's better than being unranked, right?

superwizard

So I compiled a list of the top four ranked engineering schools just for fun. Here it is:

MIT Stanford Berkeley Caltech

overall 1 2 2 4
aerospace 1 4 NA 5
biomedical 6 13 14 NA
chemical 1 4 2 6
civil 3 4 1 12
computer 1 2 4 10
electrical 1 3 2 7
environmental 5 1 2 9
industrial 12 6 5 NA
material 3 1 2 NA
mechanical 1 2 3 9
Physics NA NA 2 4

gobeavs

Why is Caltech top 4 overall if the only subcategory it is actually top 4 in is Physics? I know it's probably some statistical anomaly but that doesn't seem right. I mean, their average position in the ones they actually rank in is 7.3, and they don't even rank in 3 of the categories.

racnna

glad columbia and Rice moved up.

sakky

Well the differences are quite small. But, basically, yeah, I would say that Berkeley is a slightly better engineering school than is Caltech. Keep in mind that Caltech freely admits that it is more of a pure science school than an engineering school.

But the rankings don't fully capture just how desirable a particular school is for a prospective student. For example, one of THE most annoying aspects of Berkeley is the notion of the impacted major: some majors, including ALL of the engineering majors, have fewer available spaces than there are interested students. If you go to Caltech intending to major in a science and then decide once you're there that you'd rather major in engineering instead, you just go right ahead and switch. Nobody is going to stop you. Not so at Berkeley. Plenty of Berkeley students who decide they want to switch into engineering are denied from doing so. The reverse is also true: if you are a Berkeley engineering student and you decide that you want to switch into something else, you may be prevented from doing so because the individual non-engineering colleges at Berkeley may decide that they don't want to take you. The same is true even if you want to switch from one engineering major to another. If you come in as a ME student and decide that you'd rather major in EECS, you have to apply to switch, and you may not be approved. Hence, plenty of Berkeley students end up in majors that they don't really want.

In fairness to Berkeley, it should be said that Berkeley is not the only school with impacted majors. Plenty of other schools have the same problem. But the key takeaway is that Caltech does not. As a Caltech student, you can choose any major you want and switch at any time.

mathwiz

Because rankings are silly.

frasifrasi

Can anyone please post the entire list for undergraduate computer engineering/science (I was wondering where PSU was placed)?

Also, does anyone have a link to last year's ranking so we can compare to see which schools moved?

None

The engineering ranking only looks at peer assessment, which Berkeley always scores high in. If you look at overall rankings, Berkeley's peer assessment is 4.8, but it's overall ranking is around 20 or so. If the overall rankings only use peer assessment like the engineering ranking, then Berkeley would be above Penn, Duke, Caltech, Columbia, Chicago, and almost every other school.

Berkeley's overall peer assessment beats Caltech's by an even greater margin than the engineering ranking, but Caltech has always ranked above Berkeley overall. The USNWR engineering ranking uses a methodology very favorable to Berkeley. It doesn't mean Berkeley engineering is better.

chinaismine

Yeah, the undergrad computer science list would be great.

frasifrasi

or just the entire undergrad computer engineering...

lil_killer129

The undergraduate computer engineering ranking is up and sadly PSU isn't on the list.

Kharatos

There's no undergraduate ranking for Computer Science.

The entire list for each specialty was posted, if it stopped at a certain number, that's because that's all there is to that particular ranking.

20LEGEND

USNEWS 2008 Engineering Ranking Compilation