March 30, 2007

Purdue graduate engineering programs ranked high among peer institutions

Leah Jamieson
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"We anticipated a dip in this year's rankings," said Leah Jamieson, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering. "The guidelines for data that we submit to U.S. News are open to interpretation, and we made a decision to respond with a more literal approach this year and in the future.

"Some universities use a broader interpretation. We made this decision with the full understanding that a drop in our ranking would be a likely short-term result."

The data for determining the nation's best institutions of higher education come from questionnaires sent to all accredited four-year colleges and universities. The magazine then determines its ranking based on several measures that fall into seven broad categories: peer assessment, recruiter assessment, standardized test scores, applicant acceptance rates, the ratio of doctoral students to faculty, research expenditures and research spending per faculty member.

Individual Purdue engineering program specialties that ranked among the top 25 are:

*  Aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering, No. 6

* Biomedical engineering, No. 24, tied with Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, University of California-Davis and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

* Chemical engineering, No. 14, tied with Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology

*  Civil engineering, No. 7, tied with the University of Michigan

* Computer engineering, No. 11, tied with Cornell University

*  Electrical engineering, No. 10, tied with Princeton University and the University of Texas-Austin

* Environmental engineering, No. 16, tied with the University of Iowa and the University of Washington

*  Industrial and manufacturing engineering, No. 6, tied with Northwestern University

* Materials engineering, No. 14, tied with Ohio State University

*  Mechanical engineering, No. 7, tied with the Georgia Institute of Technology

*  Nuclear engineering, No. 8

In a sub-category of the survey, company recruiters ranked the College of Engineering 10th nationally, tied with the University of Texas-Austin and Princeton University. 

U.S. News & World Report ranked Purdue's College of Engineering undergraduate program No. 8 in the nation last August.

With more than 8,500 graduate and undergraduate students, Purdue's engineering program is among the largest in the United States. It includes 14 academic programs: aeronautics and astronautics, agricultural and biological, biomedical, chemical, civil, construction engineering and management, electrical and computer, engineering education, engineering professional education, industrial, interdisciplinary, materials, mechanical and nuclear. Also, the college houses programs such as Engineering Projects in Community Service, the Minority Engineering Program, the Women in Engineering Program and the Indiana Space Grant Consortium.

In the past five years, the College of Engineering has opened new education and research facilities, such as the Biomedical Engineering Building, the Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research and Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering. Its new initiatives include the Department of Engineering Education and a new division for environmental and ecological engineering.

Writer: Cynthia Sequin, (765) 494-4192, csequin@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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