<p>Rankings serve their purpose. I made extensive use of the USNews Engineering Program rankings in building my list (you can see my post in the ‘first cut’ thread for more on that). Are they perfectly accurate? Probably not. However, I’ve found a strong correlation between these rankings and the opinions of practicing engineers I’ve talked to. There are exceptions; Colorado School of Mines is easily one of the top 10 most prestigious engineering schools in my area. But I think that any institution ranked in the top 25 (or whatever) is probably a pretty darn good program, and this seems like a pretty reasonable tool for quickly and easily building a list.</p>