<p>Yes, it makes sense. ISI is hardly “narrow” - it is the global standard for evaluating scientific research impact. </p>
<p>I think you are simply confusing quantity with quality. Of course Berkeley, Purdue, Michigan, MIT, Georgia Tech etc have a ton of engineering research. </p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean that Caltech, etc don’t have a higher quality of research – which is probably one of the things that is more important to the average undergraduate. </p>
<p>Also, Berkeley and MIT are also great places – you should consider that they may very well be #11 and #12 on the ISI list. To use a related example showing how good they are, a completely different source, Academic Analytics, had the following 2007 rankings in biomedical/computer/general/mechanical engineering:</p>
<p>Yale: Biomedical engineering #8, Computer engineering #10, General engineering #5, Mechanical engineering #3
Princeton: Computer engineering #1, Mechanical engineering #9, others not top 10
UCSB: Biomedical engineering #2, Computer engineering #7, others not top 10
Stanford: Computer engineering #4, General engineering #2, Mechanical engineering #5, biomedical not top 10
MIT: Mechanical engineering #4, others not top 10
Cornell: Computer engineering #2, others not top 10
Caltech: Computer engineering #2, Mechanical engineering #1, others not top 10
UC Berkeley: General engineering #3, Mechanical engineering #2, others not top 10
Michigan, UPenn: Not in top 10 in these fields</p>