Military Academies/SMCs ranked high for Engineering Programs

Citadel engineers are in great demand and have little trouble finding jobs.

Interesting that Army is above AF
 
IMHO ... the relative scale is not very useful. Very subjective as time2 points out. However, I think making the list at all is very impressive given the number of colleges in the nation. No bad choices.
 
US News's criteria includes "expert opinion," weighted at 20%. Which reminds me of a story a professor shared when I was in graduate business school, to show the role reputation plays in rankings such as this.

A group of researchers sent a survey to 100 business-school deans, asking them to rank the top 10 MBA programs in the country. The deans chose from a set list. The winner: Harvard (no surprise). The runner-up: Stanford (no surprise again). Third place: Princeton. Except Princeton doesn't have an MBA program! The researchers included it in the list to make their point, and if anyone should have noticed, it's business-school deans! 'Nuf said.
 
Understand the faults of these surveys. US News makes no attempt to claim objectivity for the Engineering school rankings and states they are based purely on peer rankings from among the colleges surveyed - reputation. Let's face it, selecting a college in the end must be an individual's subjective decision, but it helps to have these colleges visible in rankings. And, it is nice to see military schools receiving recognition from other college academicians. For those of us attending back in the era of VN and especially the years following that war, we recall the anti-military sentiment especially from the campus crowd. Just my thoughts.
 
Understand the faults of these surveys. US News makes no attempt to claim objectivity for the Engineering school rankings and states they are based purely on peer rankings from among the colleges surveyed - reputation.

If there's one aspect in which USNA is truly superior, it's student-professor engagement (true also for the other SAs, I'm sure). We see this when professors give mids their personal phone number, return to the Yard after hours and on weekends to tutor mids, take personal responsibility for mids truly learning the material. Student-teacher ratios under 20-1 don't hurt either. Rankings are amorphous, nebulous and fluid. Student-teacher engagement is tangible, observable and invaluable. That, more than anything else, is what sets USNA and the other SAs apart academically.
 
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