Quality Scoring Propels the Department of Computer Science Rankings Upward

 

The Department of Computer Science’s (CS) graduate program ranks among the top tier institutions in the United States according to a recent study. PhDs.org, an independent website not affiliated with the National Research Council (NRC), created the study by incorporating data from the NRC assessment into its Graduate School Guide.  Graduate School Guide users are able to assign weights to the program characteristics measured by the NRC, National Science Foundation, and the National Center for Education Statistics, and rank graduate programs according to their own priorities. 

NRC scores are based on two measures of quality and they generate 500 different rankings to simulate the effects of different sets of evaluators and ranking programs in different years. In the case of the NRC’s ranking of graduate-school programs, there were 20 factors including faculty characteristics (e.g., publications and citations, number of awards) and the students (GRE scores, percent with fellowships) as well as broader features of the doctoral programs (average time to complete a degree, diversity and gender measures). In this area, the CS program at Stony Brook’s Range of Rankings is 8-45 based on survey-based quality rankings out of 127 CS programs, ranking it in the 11th position.

A customized view of http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/computer-science using the “Quick Start” feature for large institutions, reveals scores based on diversity, student employment post-graduation, and student ranking. For Stony Brook, there are several positive takeaways for the Department of Computer Science in these areas:

  • Dream Jobs after Graduation - An interesting comparison in this category is the percentage of jobs for Stony Brook University CS students as compared to Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon. A total of 88% of Stony Brook’s graduates secure jobs after graduation while only 79% at Carnegie Mellon and 86% of Stanford’s students secure job opportunities.
  • GRE Scores That Can’t Be Beat! - Required for admission, the quantitative Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores can be between 200 and 800. CS Students arrive on campus with an impressive average GRE score of 796. In comparison, MIT’s students average a GRE score of 772 and Columbia University CS students have an average GRE of 788.
  • Embracing Diversity – With the focus in the United States on STEM education for school-age girls and young women, the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook is proud of their rankings in this area. The Department’s diversity data is within the positive range of 10-32, which surpasses the diversity scores of University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University, Cornell University, and Harvard University, to name a few.

About Computer Science Department at Stony Brook University (SBU)
The Department of Computer Science at SBU attributes interdisciplinary collaboration and research recognition for its advancement as the University’s largest and strongest unit. The Department boasts internationally renowned faculty who have made significant contributions in computer systems, visual computing, cybersecurity, networking, intelligent computing, algorithms, and verification.