How accurate are US News college rankings?

Take the rankings with a grain of salt. What they don't tell you is that hundreds of colleges opt out or refuse to be listed because they disagree with the process of the rankings. Many of these schools believe them to be very unscientific and subjective. There are many colleges that are not listed in the rankings , but in years past they may have been high on the list, because of that institution opting out.

U S News, Washington Monthly and Princeton Review all publish rankings. There are a few more rankings lists scattered around here and there. "Just take someone else's word for it." That's what rankings are, for many people. They give some people a good general idea, but, face it, their purpose is to sell magazines.

Manhattan College's Engineering program is accredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) as all the best engineering programs are. So have confidence that it's programs are fully accepted/recognized by the profession, industry and academia.

US News' College Rankings are fairly accurate, they are based on the OPINIONS of the writers and researchers of US News. So read them as such; you will not be mislead!

Rankings among schools change year to year, so look at previous years' rankings. Averages will give you the most accurate picture! Also, compare these rankings with other publications, there are tons of venues that compare and rank colleges & programs :)

Best of luck in your college search!

Washington Monthly has a much better system of ranking universities. Check them out.

MIT is certainly a great school, but below are the top 5 civil engineering school in the nation.

1. University of California–Berkeley

2. University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign

3. University of Texas–Austin

4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

5. Purdue University–West Lafayette

I think on a broad scale they are accurate. They've got the right schools in the top and the right ones in the middle and bottom. What is not accurate is the absolute number. You can rely on #1 being better than #100, and that distinction is real and important. I don't think however that you can rely on the difference between #4 and #7 being accurate.