However, I realized that I was way too late and this got me thinking that it would be nice if someone would create a page that would hold the application deadlines of the Top 50 Universities in the United States. This got me thinking what _were_ the Top 50 schools in the United States?
Well, there's always Google for help. So, searched for "Top 50 graduate schools United States" I came across the search result : http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankgrad.htm from the Educational and Social Science Library. They have a compilation of further links which you can check. I picked
- Customized Graduate Program Rankings - by phds.org: They boasted of giving me customized rankings based on the stream as well as a multitude of other personal choices [really cool] and they polled the National Research Council Data to finally factor me the results
- Top 20 Graduate Engineering Programs - The Princeton Review
- Graduate Schools Ranking - StudentsReview
- Now, I can put in my personal choices in the site provided by phds.org and get a list of Universities that fit my personal category for the broad subject of Computer Science.
- The Princeton Review would give me the Top 20 Graduate Engineering Programs - now these span across the Engineering discipline and they span across the Universities as well. This should give me an idea of the various types of courses and the granularity of the the same. [I just knew that I wanted to do my masters in Computer Science, which was my major during my Undergraduate Study]. These are based on certain criteria and the courses are within certain Universities ranked based on these factors.
- Put the name of the Universities I select based on intuition and some data analysis in StudentsReview - which will give a lot more personal opinions based on experience from the students studying there. [At least theoretically]
- Educational and Quality Measures
- Faculty Reputation and Activity Measures
- Program Size Measures
- Funding Measures
- Program Composition Measures
Educational and Quality Measures
- Program is effective in educating researchers: Well I sure hope so. However, I am still unsure as to what career I am planning to take out of my graduate course. A PhD will surely be on the cards, if I find something really interesting along the lines of my course. Else, I am looking to double up a business major and use that experience to form a career for myself. So, I would say that the "effectiveness" of the course in educating researchers should be fairly important, but is not the most pertinent factor me - so 3 [Medium]
- Program quality has improved recently: Very very important. What is actually making me study further is actually the plethora of technologies that are coming out there. Everything is expanding in terms of knowledge and technology. As I am interested in the latest technologies, the program course content and quality should definitely have been improved recently. I would rate this at 5 [High]
- The time required to earn a degree is low: I have been working for almost 2 years now. I would be lying to myself, if I say that the salary being credited at the beginning of every month in my bank account isn't soothing to my nerves. Furthermore, it scares the daylights out of me that I would be relying on a student's income during my student life. Consequently the turn around time for my degree is indeed important to me. However, NOT at the expense of learning time and research time. So, I would rate it a 4 [Medium/High]
Faculty Reputation and Activity Measures
- Scholarly quality of program faculty is high: My first reaction to this question was - Are you kidding me? Of course that's important. Else what's the credibility for the course? You would obviously want to study carpentry only from a skilled carpenter. However, on a little bit more rational thought [Yes, I am capable of that sometimes], I realized this was more like learning to paint. You need not always learn to paint under Pablo Picasso! For, he certainly did not learn painting under him. However, analyzing it a little bit more rationally [Ok, don't get shocked], I realized that the scholarly quality of the program faculty would lend itself to a lot of other factors - directly and indirectly. The obvious and the direct being my first rationale, and the indirect ones being that if you are interested in doing a research project headed by one of these professors, funding would never be a problem considering that they are famous figures within the scholar community! I am fully capable of weaving magic from what I study- so yeah I would rate it 4 [Medium/High], coz honestly I was more than impressed with some of the authors of my undergrad study!!
- A large percentage of the faculty has published recently: Now, this I think personally is related to the quality of the education as far as their keeping up with technology is concerned! Ok, there _is_ a probability that they are still publishing papers on old theory/technology. However it's justified the following way!! Any papers being published is a revelation of something new. Consequently, the professors are up on their toes and are actively participating in research, which amounts to a lot of things - research work, new technology/finding directly as far as your course is concerned. As far as the "meta" details like paying your course is concerned, that means that you have more opportunity as a research assistant even in doing something related to your course! Amounts to $$$ to paying your course fee :-)! So this gets 5 [High] for me.
- The average number of recent publications per faculty member is high: This is fairly important. The previous factor just ensured that there's active research. However, this ensures that there's active research by a majority of the faculty members. This would also ensure that there are more opportunities for you to dabble your hands in research. Helps in broadening your perspective during your graduate study. Also allows you to earn money from more sources in case you are not happy with doing research in database optimization. You can always shift to neural networks research, or computer graphics research :-P! Hmm, 5 [High]
- The average number of recent citations of faculty's work is high: More to do with the fact as to how relevant was the research. The higher it is, the more important was the research what the faculty member performed and achieved in result. Then again, recent citations would only mean that the technology / research outcome is NEW and prevalent. It does factor in for me, but then again, doesn't rate _the most pertinent_. Personally 4 [Medium/High]
- The distribution of publications per faculty member is uniform: Whilst this is ideally good, and ensures that there is funding spread uniformly across the faculty members are their corresponding individual area of expertise, you should also make sure that your specialization interest has a little bit extra publications, as that should ensure that there is slightly more RA seats available. While the dynamics of college finance does factor in and complicate things, I am a realist, tending towards optimist, so this wouldn't matter too much to me. 3 [Medium]
- The distribution of citations per faculty member is uniform: What this amounts to is that the relevance and importance of the publications are uniform across the faculty members. Not so much a factor for me, although ideally still High. I would say 3 [Medium]
- The percentage of faculty who are full professors: This basically amounts to the number of professors versus the number of non-research faculty members. The more, the better. Implies that there is more opportunity for RA. However, if you find that there are not many full time profs, then there is a chance that the college is using guest lectures as well in the form of teaching. This might be good if you are hoping to experience and listen and understand a lot more real-world lectures and experience as part of your graduate study and not just looking into the theoretical research aspect of the same. For e.g. this would be helpful if you are taking up some business courses and of course who better to explain stock-market dynamics than a Financial consultant for a stock-broker company? He would obviously _not_ be a full time professor. I am sure I am missing out on a lot of scenarios here. However, you choose the scenario that's applicable to you and find out from your University if that's the case so, and then decide :-)! Personally 4 [Medium/High]
Program Size Measures
- Faculty Size: Personally, I do not want too large a faculty, however, the only 2 options are "large" and "small". I would choose a larger faculty owing to personal reasons and choice along with the concept of "broadening my perspective" as a significant reason behind my pursuing the graduate degree. Now, the more the number of scholarly people I come across in the University, the better my chances are in learning something new daily :-)! So, I am demanding a seemingly large faculty. So 4 [Medium/High] for a Large faculty
- Number of Students in the program: Now, this is a crucial thing. I have done a majority of my studies in India. I am used to having a large class. To the tune of 60-70 students a class. However, I do know that some of the things that I learned well and cherished in school/college is when the class of medium and interspersed with a variety of students having various perspectives. Now, if I try and achieve that, Id want variety in my class, however I still don't want an overloaded class. So, 3 [Medium] for a Large Class
- The number of Ph.D.s granted recently is: The greater the number of PhDs, the better the chances of them staying back and taking up a teaching position in the college, furthermore, the better is the alumni in case they are serving the corporate research world :-)! 4 [Medium/High]
Funding Measures
- A large percentage of faculty have research support: This is definitely good. Because it means that the faculty are not only interested in having research assistants, they are most probably going to have the funding for the same :-)! Rated 4 [Medium/High]
- A large percentage of recent Ph.D.s were supported by research assistantships: Definitely important considering that I am interested in looking towards RA as a major source of bread earning policy 5 [High]
- A large percentage of recent Ph.D.s were supported by teaching assistantships: Definitely important considering that I LOVE teaching and this is a major source of moolah. 5 [High]
Program Composition Measures
- The percentage of female students in the program is high: Not really a factor for me, however personally I think it should be more or less the same. Considering 2-3 facts. Females bring a totally different perspective to any task at hand. An all-male population can definitely solve something, however with even ONE female component involved, the solution is a lot clearer and well, it's a lot more wholesome, for some reason I still haven't put my finger in. So, the percentage of female students in the program should definitely NOT be NULL! So, 3 [Medium]
- A large percentage of recent Ph.D.s were granted to women: Doesn't matter one bit Rated 0 [No Importance]
- A large percentage of recent Ph.D.s were granted to underrepresented minorities: Doesn't matter one bit Rated 0 [No Importance]
- A large percentage of recent Ph.D.s were granted to U.S. citizens and permanent residents: Hmm, this might be something that is of interest to me. Being an international student, I'd rather have that recent PhDs were granted impartially at least independent of nationality! - So 3 [Medium] that only a SMALL percentage was awarded to US Citizens/Permanent Residents
Continuing, I had now a dedicated page which I can always refer to whenever I want to find out more information about the University and the courses offered by it :-)!
Coming next: Step 2 and analysis of the Top 20 Engineering Courses by The Princeton Review
How did you come up with your Top University choices? Feel free to let me know in the comments...
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