<p>Which one is better for computer engineering?</p>
<p>Rochester is overall higher rated for U-grad Engineering by US News (saw the full rankings on a PDF online, can’t cite URL at the moment). UMass is ranked around 50th and Rochester is ranked around 25. Rochester is more in the league (for engineering specifically)with schools like RPI and VTech.</p>
<p>Look at your financial packages at both schools, and I’m sure that the difference isn’t that huge (like MIT vs either one), but Rochester has its advantages as a wealthier private school and UMass has… well lower tuition.</p>
<p>Here are the stats about undergrad engineering rankings, based solely on Peer Rankings (I don’t know how great this system is), but it seems to be generally informative:</p>
<p><a href=“http://polycentric.csupomona.edu/campus_news/usnews_engineering14th.pdf[/url]”>http://polycentric.csupomona.edu/campus_news/usnews_engineering14th.pdf</a></p>
<p>Actually, URochester is not here, unfortunately, as they probably don’t participate in this survey, but I still believe that URochester is up there with RPI</p>
<p>Here is the American Society for Engineering Education report page for [url=<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/3964/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Rochester]Rochester[/url”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/3964/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Rochester]Rochester[/url</a>] and [url=<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/4045/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Massachusetts+Amherst]UMass[/url”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/4045/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Massachusetts+Amherst]UMass[/url</a>]. </p>
<p>You can see that Rochester takes in money for biomed but UMass doesn’t while UMass takes in money for polymers but Rochester doesn’t.</p>
<p>UMass has one of the stronger polymer engineering/materials science programs in the US. It’s really very good. </p>
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<p>I have never thought of U Rochester as a top engineering school. I don’t rank them in the top 25. In fact, I don’t rank them in the top 100. I’ve also never seen them ranked in the top 100 engineering programs in any survey. Are you sure they’re the school you’re thinking of, or do you perhaps have them confused with RIT, which I do rank in the top 100?</p>
<p>I used to hire a <em>lot</em> of engineers. I’d never thought of U Rochester as a resource for that. I’m interested in your thoughts.</p>
<p>I found this list - from this site - that has “stolen” all the US news engineering lists. UMass is ranked higher than both Rochesters. For what that’s worth and, if you read the methodology, it’s not worth much. </p>
<p>The rankings are solely peer reviews - deans and 2 senior faculty at each school - on a 5 point scale. So Rochester has a 2.7, RIT a 2.8 and UMass a 3.0. So what exactly is this a measure of? Certainly not undergraduate educational quality. More of a beauty contest with a built-in error they don’t disclose - and which has to be substantial. (I can’t fathom how one could say with any accuracy that number 39 is actually not number 53 or vice versa, let alone that this actually measures quality in a meaningful sense.)</p>
<p>The rankings of individual sections in the overall department are even sketchier, based on number of mentions. </p>
<p>This is why I look at research grants: to see what a school specializes in and then to see how their graduate program is considered (particularly in those strengths).</p>
<p>I don’t think that research grants actually matter that much, now looking at it. Yes, they do signify that the program is strong, but at the same time, many of those grants go towards funding Ph.D. students, who come at an expense of about $50,000 per year per student. If each professor advises 6 Ph.D. students, they would need a lot of money (even if they became teaching assistants).</p>
<p>However, I believe that going into a school with a strong graduate program can be helpful for an undergraduate who strongly considers grad school. The most important part of a grad school application is the research experience and those students with significant research experience are from schools where there are good departments and they are subsequently are obviously favored in the process. Even if the research opportunities are scarce/non-existant, REUs and internships can make up for thier absense pretty well.</p>
<p>Research grants are an imperfect measure but they indicate the commitment of the school to that department and perhaps the quality of at least some of the faculty. It also means you may have more research opportunities.</p>