My son is a lower junior but is starting to think about MS programs that are strong in his field. Aside from USNWR do you have any suggestions for researching this. He isn’t bound to any region he’s just looking for a strong program.
USNWR is not a good way to do this. Am I to assume your son has decided on a field of research to pursue? If not, that should be the top priority before even remotely considering specific schools. By this I don’t mean just deciding on “______ engineering” as a field, but rather at least one of the major subfields within that larger field. There are usually at least a few.
Assuming he has done this, then the best way to proceed is to start looking at what the faculty at each school of interest study and whether he might be interested in joining any of their groups. Browsing academic journals in his chosen field would be a way to get a feel for the major areas of research within it and where the researchers are who are doing interesting work. Ultimately the goal is to identify potential graduate advisors and apply to those schools with research groups that interest him.
Thanks that is helpful and an approach that had not occurred to me being unfamiliar to the engineering world. He has mentioned interest in a couple of schools. From what you are saying it sounds like there really isn’t a single publication that sums up the strengths of different school’s programs from which more specific research can be done about faculty. He is studying civil engineering with his interest being in environmental engineering. Thanks again.
I would have him go talk to one of his favorite professors.