<p>The score is not “diluted” that much because each university on that list has hundreds of projects going on. To even make the list, you need to publish hundreds of papers. Besides, the Sciencewatch ranking is just one example proving that some of the smaller engineering schools with fewer faculty than a mega-school like Berkeley or Illinois — schools such as Caltech, Yale, Princeton — are actually at the very top in terms of quality. There are other statistics that show that the quality can be very high, even when quantity (number of profs) isn’t as high as a mega-school like Berkeley. For example, if you looked at the placement of undergraduates into the top graduate schools of engineering, you might be surprised to see that smaller engineering programs like Swarthmore, Princeton, Yale, Caltech and Harvey Mudd are at the very top of the list whereas Berkeley, Illinois etc are very far behind. </p>
<p>Bottom line is, as I said before, don’t go by the attitude of the average Joe on the Street who thinks Berkeley, or some large school like it, is the be all end all of engineering schools. Instead, talk to students and professors, and you’ll get a better understanding of what makes an undergraduate engineering program like Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Yale or Princeton so great.</p>