Ranking of the CS Departments in the US

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

For those who are interested in applying to CS departments in the US:
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> CV?  Given my research interests, could you please help me with a list 
> (let's say top 20) CS departments in US that have research in those 
> areas?  I've been surfing the net but it's hard to tell from what you see 
> from their web pages(!).  Also the information on the posibilities of 
> getting funds would be a big help!!!

Hi, the weekly US magazine "US News and World Report" has an annual
survey to rank US grad schools in many fields. This magazine's website 
is at http://www.usnews.com . The following CS ranking was pulled from 
that site (Does anyone know of any VNese student from VN who were or 
are studying CS at any of these schools? I would love to make contact 
with them. Thank you):
                  Computer Science (from 1996)
                  The Top 25 

 Rank/School                                    Average reputation score
 1. Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.)                                 4.9
 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology                            4.9
 1. Stanford University                                              4.9
 1. University of California at Berkeley                             4.9
 5. Cornell University (N.Y.)                                        4.6
 6. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign                       4.5
 7. Princeton University                                             4.3
 7. University of Washington                                         4.3
 9. University of Texas at Austin                                    4.2
 10. University of Wisconsin at Madison                              4.1
 11. California Institute of Technology                              4.0
 12. Brown University (R.I.)                                         3.9
 12. University of California at Los Angeles                         3.9
 12. University of Maryland at College Park                          3.9
 12. Yale University                                                 3.9
 16. Harvard University                                              3.8
 16. Rice University (Texas)                                         3.8
 18. Columbia University (N.Y.)                                      3.7
 18. Georgia Institute of Technology                                 3.7
 18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor                             3.7
 18. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill                     3.7
 22. Purdue University at West Lafayette (Ind.)                      3.6
 22. University of Massachusetts at Amherst                          3.6
 22. University of Pennsylvania                                      3.6
 25. Duke University (N.C.)                                          3.5
 25. University of California at San Diego                           3.5

Another ranking can be found at 
http://cra.org/Statistics/NRCStudy/rankcs.html.
You can rank 108 CS departments in the US by any of 20 characteristics.
I found this damned ranking not as scientific as the US News ranking
(because it pushed my school's rank down two places). Nevertheless,
both web sites (usnews and cra.org) have a lot of information on 
grad schools in the US.

If you are interested in ranking in a very specific field, such as
Artificial Intelligence, try to post your question in a "grad" 
newsgroup. Also, go to Yahoo, go to that field, try to find a FAQ on 
that field. Chances are that you willfind the ranking in the FAQ.
For example, you can find the ranking for Artificial Intelligence
at 
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/faqs/ai/ai_general/
part1/faq-doc-4.html

I found this link by following Yahoo.

However, please keep in mind that finding a good advisor is *much* more
important than finding a good-reputation school.

Hope this helps,
Hai.