Most websites like US News and Princeton Review do not give specific details about the individual programs. The Electrical Engineering group in the US News rankings effectively groups 500+ programs available across the universities together. I do not believe that these rankings are reliable for this reason. There may be Universities that actually specialize in a given program but are not high up in these ranking. I would appreciate it if someone could give me information about the best places to do specific programs. I am looking for Graduate programs in the field of Electronics or Computer Science Engineering. Some of the Programs I am interested in are – Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, Information Security, DSP, Image Processing, Robotics. However, I’m flexible as far as the program is concerned and would appreciate information on other programs as well.
MIT is the obvious choice but for a less obvious but still great school try Michigan Technological university.
try University of California, Santa Barbara. They are one of the best research schools out there. In fact they won’t admit you unless you apply for a Ph.D. You can always bail and go for a Master’s instead. That’s how serious they are about their grad students. They are big in nano technology research and robotics. I have taken several classes in robotics here and they are all rigorous. I think UCSB ranks like number 17 in terms of engineering research. I used to be a computer engineering major here but it was too hard so I switched out to mechanical engineering, where I studied robotics as well. The school is so good at independent research that several graduates end up starting their own research companies nearby. I even interned at a nearby nanotech firm.
Don’t overlook Cornell
You are right. Even the U.S. News premium service (which you would pay for) does not appear to give you this level of granularity.
For really specific breakdowns, like AI, Nanotechnology, etc., you may need to find trade publications that have looked for this. For example, a while back Small Times magazine had an article on universities that teach nanotechnology. They concluded that the University at Albany (State University of New York) had the best program, by their criteria.
Another strategy is to work backwards — go to the web sites of top univerisities and see what they say about their programs. If they have been ranked highly in some survey, they are likely to highlight that survey on their program web site.
As I am a Georgia Tech graduate student, and I can tell you that they within electrical engineering they have a really strong course lineup in DSP.