Grad School Rankings – Which ones to use?

I often hear prospective grad school applicants worry about rankings. Here’s a guide on how to use university rankings effectively

• Decide your goals. Do you aim primarily for a research career or a career in industry? Look for rankings specific to those goals. (For example: Universities in NY can be an excellent choice if you are looking for jobs in consulting/finance, even if there might be higher-ranked universities in other states. Similarly, California is ideal for careers in the CS industry.)
• Do not look at overall rankings from any of the sources. These rankings focus primarily on undergraduate programs and are likely to provide a false impression of grad schools.
• Based on whether you see yourself in industry (Times Employability and QS Employment) or research (USNews Graduate School rankings – department-wise), choose your specific rankings.
• If you plan to go into research, remember that your PI is much more important than university rankings. There are several PIs who are extremely well known in their respective fields and/or are excellent researchers/guides but are not from a highly ranked university. If your PI is well known in your field and you develop a great relationship with them, it could be much more rewarding than being in a highly ranked school.

Here are the links to the rankings I talked about:

• US News Graduate School Department wise rankings
• QS Graduate employability ranking
• Times employability rankings

Direct link for Civil Engineering students! (perks for following a CivEng grad): USNews Graduate School – Civil Engineering Rankings