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Ranking of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Schools

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The rankings below have been generated using the priorities you set. You can change your priorities or get rankings for a different field.

About the rankings »

The box plots in the "Rank" column show the uncertainty in each program's ranking. Learn more.
Hover over table headers to see more details.
Data sources and weights for each item are listed at the bottom of the page.
Better values are shown in green. Worse values are shown in red.
Learn more about the ranking algorithm.

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Your Ranking of Mechanical Engineering PhD Programs

Programs 1–30

Rank	Program	Survey Quality	Research Product	Student Outcomes	Profes Devel
1-4	Brown University Engineering: Solid Mechanics	1-4	1-2	27-88	17
1-7	California Institute of Technology Applied Mechanics	1-3	1-5	1-18	12
1-9	Northwestern University Mechanical Engineering	2-5	2-7	7-40	15
1-11	Princeton University Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	3-10	3-12	5-34	16
3-16	University of California-Santa Barbara Mechanical Engineering	6-15	4-18	9-49	17
3-18	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Mechanical Engineering	4-11	4-20	41-75	18
3-17	Stanford University Mechanical Engineering	2-5	2-9	20-56	13
3-23	University of California-Berkeley Mechanical Engineering	5-14	5-22	39-77	18
4-28	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Mechanical Engineering	10-34	13-52	3-29	18
4-26	Johns Hopkins University Mechanical Engineering	7-20	4-20	40-82	17
5-30	University of California-San Diego Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	8-23	5-19	56-94	18
5-30	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mechanical Engineering	7-19	11-37	40-85	18
6-33	Cornell University Mechanical Engineering	9-28	5-25	51-91	18
5-37	Yale University Mechanical Engineering	16-47	7-31	15-70	18
6-35	Florida State University Mechanical Engineering	14-45	17-63	1-17	16
Rank	Program	Survey Quality	Research Product	Student Outcomes	Profes Devel
6-39	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Theoretical and Applied Mechanics	7-27	5-25	18-58	14
7-37	Duke University Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science	13-37	14-46	8-36	17
8-39	University of Pennsylvania Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics	15-40	14-50	10-48	17
10-37	California Institute of Technology Mechanical Engineering	7-18	7-24	5-42	12
9-40	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Mechanical Engineering	6-21	5-23	17-56	13
8-42	Arizona State University Mechanical Engineering	17-49	20-64	4-41	18
11-46	University of Colorado at Boulder Mechanical Engineering	13-40	11-43	22-65	17
12-46	Rice University Mechanical Engineering	19-44	24-62	35-78	18
11-46	Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Mechanical Engineering	11-33	17-63	44-80	18
11-55	University of South Carolina-Columbia Mechanical Engineering	17-50	15-54	27-73	17
11-48	University of Washington-Seattle Campus Mechanical Engineering	21-54	21-71	13-48	18
11-48	Washington State University Mechanical Engineering	30-63	53-103	1-16	18
12-50	Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Mechanical Engineering	18-51	26-80	9-44	18
12-54	University of Iowa Mechanical Engineering	19-52	13-45	41-80	18
13-53	University of Rochester Mechanical Engineering	15-45	8-29	41-89	16

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Item Descriptions

Rank: A range indicating how this program ranked in 500 simulated rankings based on your priorities. Programs are sorted by their median rank. Learn more.
NRC survey-based quality measure (Survey Quality): The NRC's measurements of overall program quality are based on 20 key variables (19 in the humanities) such as GRE scores, student support and faculty publications. To calculate the survey-based quality measure, evaluators in each field identified the variables that they considered to be the most important indicators of program quality. Learn more. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Overall research productivity (Research Product): This variable shows a composite measure of research productivity, based on publications per faculty member, citations per publication, percent of faculty holding grants, and awards per faculty member. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Student support and outcomes (Student Outcomes): This variable is a composite of other measures of student support and outcomes, including 6-year or 8-year graduation rates (for non-humanities programs and humanities programs, respectively), time to degree, job placement within academia, percentage of first-year students with full financial support, and whether a program collects data about the employment outcomes of its graduates. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Professional development (Profes Devel): This measure indicates the number of professional-development opportunities and oversight mechanisms for graduate students. In a 2006 questionnaire, programs indicated how many, out of a possible 18, resources existed for the support of doctoral students or doctoral education. Your weight = 5. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)

Data Sources

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System: IPEDS is an annual, comprehensive set of surveys of all colleges and universities in the United States. The surveys are conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Learn more
National Research Council: The National Research Council conducts periodic assessments of doctoral programs in the United States. Our data comes from the most recent assessment in 2010. Learn more
Survey of Earned Doctorates: The NSF/NIH/NEH/USED/USDA/NASA Survey of Earned Doctorates is an annual survey of all new recipients of doctorates from US universities at graduation. The average of the response rates for the 2000–2004 surveys was 92%. Learn more
Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: The Survey is an annual assessment of the number and characteristics of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in science, engineering, and health-related fields It is conducted by the National Science Foundation. Learn more

* Value is missing. The value shown is based on the average for other programs in the same field. Learn more.

The graduate school rankings on PhDs.org have been made possible by grants from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
The National Postdoctoral Association and The Center for Science and the Media have served as the project's fiscal sponsors.