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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	Regres Quality	Survey Quality	Student Outcomes	Jobs at Grad	Diversity	Tuition Remis	1st Yr Support
1-5	California Institute of Technology Applied Mechanics	19-93	1-3	1-18	79%	2-9	83%	100%
1-5	Northwestern University Mechanical Engineering	3-6	2-5	7-40	72%	41-85	83%	100%
1-6	Brown University Engineering: Solid Mechanics	5-24	1-4	27-88	85%	44-97	83%	100%
1-6	Princeton University Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	5-10	3-10	5-34	81%	21-45	83%	100%
4-12	California Institute of Technology Mechanical Engineering	7-18	7-18	5-42	79%	16-40	83%	100%
3-10	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mechanical Engineering	1-3	7-19	40-85	73%	65-105	83%	100%
4-13	University of California-Berkeley Mechanical Engineering	1-3	5-14	39-77	61%	39-76	83%	85%
5-14	University of California-Santa Barbara Mechanical Engineering	6-15	6-15	9-49	75%	40-87	83%	95%
5-14	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Mechanical Engineering	1-6	4-11	41-75	61%	29-61	83%	76%
5-15	Stanford University Mechanical Engineering	2-6	2-5	20-56	73%	48-95	17%	84%
6-17	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Mechanical Engineering	15-32	6-21	17-56	84%	40-85	83%	100%
7-20	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Mechanical Engineering	9-19	10-34	3-29	75%	54-100	83%	100%
9-20	University of California-San Diego Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	7-17	8-23	56-94	73%	26-57	83%	95%
10-21	Duke University Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science	12-25	13-37	8-36	81%	30-74	83%	87%
9-21	Rice University Mechanical Engineering	20-52	19-44	35-78	89%	5-14	83%	100%
Rank	Program	Regres Quality	Survey Quality	Student Outcomes	Jobs at Grad	Diversity	Tuition Remis	1st Yr Support
10-22	University of Colorado at Boulder Mechanical Engineering	9-19	13-40	22-65	84%	46-89	83%	92%
9-22	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Theoretical and Applied Mechanics	25-55	7-27	18-58	84%	69-113	83%	100%
12-25	Johns Hopkins University Mechanical Engineering	10-24	7-20	40-82	76%	75-110	83%	65%
14-29	Cornell University Mechanical Engineering	14-29	9-28	51-91	76%	44-90	83%	83%
14-31	Florida State University Mechanical Engineering	46-101	14-45	1-17	67%	7-20	83%	100%
16-36	Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Mechanical Engineering	5-18	11-33	44-80	60%	80-112	83%	81%
17-36	Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Mechanical Engineering	12-28	18-51	9-44	66%	89-116	83%	100%
17-35	Purdue University-Main Campus Mechanical Engineering	6-19	17-45	57-88	78%	43-90	83%	65%
18-43	Arizona State University Mechanical Engineering	34-74	17-49	4-41	65%	14-32	83%	100%
18-40	Drexel University Mechanical Engineering	35-79	23-54	4-36	78%	36-74	83%	92%
19-46	Washington State University Mechanical Engineering	31-88	30-63	1-16	71%	17-40	70%*	100%
20-43	University of Pennsylvania Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics	25-54	15-40	10-48	55%	60-108	83%	100%
19-46	University of Rochester Mechanical Engineering	27-73	15-45	41-89	73%	36-88	83%	100%
20-46	University of Maryland-College Park Mechanical Engineering	12-55	12-36	75-105	74%	59-104	83%	83%
21-55	Tufts University Mechanical Engineering	30-63	38-80	2-41	71%	31-71	83%	100%

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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 regression-based quality measure (Regres 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 regression-based quality measure, the relative importance, or weight, of a variable was set by the extent that it correlated with programs viewed most favorably by evaluators in each field. Learn more. Your weight = 3. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
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)
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 = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Placement Rate (Jobs at Grad): This variable shows the percentage of students with definite plans at graduation (either a job or a postdoctoral position), based on data from the student questionnaire. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: SED, 2000–2004)
Diversity in the academic environment (Diversity): This variable shows a composite measure of diversity generated by the National Research Council. It includes data on percent of faculty and students from underrepresented minorities, percent of female faculty and students, and percent of international faculty and students. The relative importance of these variables was determined by the direct assessments of some 50 faculty in each field. Your weight = 1. Larger values are better. (Source: NRC, 2010)
Tuition Remission (Tuition Remis): This variable shows the median percentage of tuition remission reported by program graduates over the period 2000-2004. Your weight = 2. Larger values are better. (Source: SED, 2000–2004)
First Year Support (1st Yr Support): This variable shows the percentage of first-year full-time doctoral students who were given full financial support. In a 2006 questionnaire, programs reported the type of support received by all full-time graduate students in fall 2005. Data for students in each year of enrollment were reported separately. The reported value was calculated as the number of first-year students who received full support (from any source), divided by the total number of first-year students. Your weight = 2. 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.