Universities and their rankings

Q. Which universities can/should I apply to?

A. Generally the universities are divided into the following categories:

Ivy league: these are considered to be the most prestigious universities. Stanford, MIT are some of the examples. You can get the complete list of Ivy league universities on Wikipedia. Also check out the individual pages of the universities to get their status. These are considered very costly but have the highest reputation in the world.

State Universities: These are the ones which are equivalent of Government colleges in India. Again you can find their list on Wikipedia and individual wiki pages. These universities have good funding from the Federal Government. So the fees is less than Ivy league and private ones.. They have a big campus with good research work going on.

Public Ivy: This is another term used but informally. The universities are not stated as Public Ivy but are considered lower than Ivy ones but above normal public standards. You can consider these to be ranked in between the Ivy and Public/State universities.

Private: The rest of the universities are private ones. This means that these universities have very less or no funding from the Federal Government. As you might find some of these universities are also good ranked and reputed.

Q. Where can I find the most accurate rankings?

A. As mentioned earlier don’t depend completely on the rankings. The rankings will just give you a brief idea about the university. Its not the perfect measure of the quality of that University. There are many other factors that count when one chooses a particular university.

Q. How to get a good list of universities?

A. Remember to look for rankings of computer science and not computer engineering. Generally, it is mentioned under sciences and not under engineering. To get the best idea about universities and their rankings checkout the following links:

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/?SearchDomain=2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings

http://www.infozee.com/channels/ms/usa/computer-engineering-rankings.htm

http://www.greguide.com/comps.html

http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/us-universities-rankings/

http://suggestor.yournextleap.com/?sr=home

A few things to be kept in mind before taking a look at these rankings:

1. Do not trust the ranking 100%. Take it with a pinch of salt..

2. They are generally ranked considering the PhD programs of the universities. So the quality of MS program is similar but not exact.

3. For Microsoft link, you get to know even the ranking of Professors which is very useful. You get their full details with regards to Citations and Papers.

4. You can also change the importance of parameters required for Ranking on the Microsoft site. That proves quite useful.