The Best Universities: Computer Science

Computer Science majors compete for the best jobs in America, according to Careercast.com, which included seven computing positions in its list. Software engineering topped it.

It should come as no surprise, then, that universities around the world are engaged in tough competition to lure the world's smartest people into their programs. The Academic Ranking of World Universities, a division of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's graduate school of education, recently ranked the world's best universities in computer science, based according to their academic or research performance in each subject field. ARWU notes ranking indicators include alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals and Turing Awards, highly cited researchers, papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). A new measure was introduced this year that includes the percentage of papers published in the top 20 percent of journals of each field.

Here they are:

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• 12. Weizmann Institute of Science - Israel

• 11. California Institute of Technology

• 10. University of Toronto - Canada

• 9. The University of Texas at Austin

  Littlefield Fountain at UT-Austin.

• 8. University of California, Los Angeles

• 7. Cornell University - Ithaca, N.Y.

• 6. Carnegie Mellon - Pittsburg, Penn.

• 5. Harvard University - Cambridge, Mass.

• 4. Princeton University - Princeton, N.J.

• 3. University of California, Berkeley

• 2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, Mass.

• 1. Stanford University - Stanford, Calif.

Disagree with this methodology? That's fair. Maybe the U.S. News and World Report's ranking makes more sense to you.

Don't see your program? Click here to see the top 200 computer science programs in the world.

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Comments

[Vicky Maheshwari]

02:59 AM on 01/14/2013

Very Informative! Candidates willing to learn Computer Science and confused that which of the top universities of world to take admission can surely clear their doubts here.

[methodman]

05:49 PM on 01/10/2013

Computer programming requires analogy building. Too many of us blow finding examples for doing that and shoving them into conversations. I think it is easy to view the work most colleges are doing so it is not as important as understanding how to access things. I subscribe to Safari Online books and If I don't understand something at a $399 fee I am not going to understand it any better for an $18000 fee. The college experience would be nice but I am too old to pay for that. but I still get the schooling. and need to care about the same things as most wanna be programmers.

[methodman]

05:43 PM on 01/10/2013

This article is grounds for an argument ( a good thing--I like to argue-- intelligent and smart are not the same as dumb and not intelligent. In fact intelligent and not intelligent are confusing because they are not opposites. Intelligent smart means that a prominent setting is chosen. Not intelligent an example is in my Sequencing program when I choose my output and I can have it sent to my midi gear. I can choose to have it sent between several sound cards. Now I have VST's on my computer. Most of these programs don't offer that as a selection from the drivers options but they expect me to choose none. none is (not having sound) none is (I want to use my VST ) but that is an example of a non intelligent program.

[folgers11]

03:24 PM on 01/10/2013

San Jose State might not be the most prestigious university, but their graduates are all over Silicon Valley.

[img005]

07:32 PM on 01/09/2013

Stanford? Really? Whatever good has ever come out of that dump? I strongly suggest that HP get some competent staff who know what they are talking about.

[greetings101]

07:40 PM on 01/09/2013

You're kidding, right? Have you looked at the composition of the startups in silicon valley, or even apple and google?

[realpragmatist]

10:52 PM on 01/09/2013

I know a student some 15 years back who has a 4.0 CGPA in Masters in Computer Science with no Computer Science background before that (but Dean's List in Professional Accounting) and 2200 in GRE (no coaching except for working with Barron's GRE book). She got full academic scholarship for Phd in Computer Science in both the Universities that she applied to, but did not want to spend $50 for the application for Phd at Stanford University at that time. That was its reputation for competitive students and Pentagon like entry requirements.
If she had applied and could have joined (she feared a 100% rejection chance at Stanford), she would have been a peer of Sergey Brinn and Larry Page - looking back!
BTW, she was the best Computer Programmer (first C and C++ and then Java) that I have ever met. She joined product development in the Silicon Valley and did very well after that.
Point is, the reputation and the caliber of students in the Stanford Computer Science program is world-renowned.

[dwill123]

06:45 PM on 01/09/2013

No University of Pennsylvania???

[realpragmatist]

03:33 PM on 01/09/2013

It has been known for ever that MIT is the best for Computer Science and Engineering, not just in America, but also throughout the world. Ask even a foreign Phd student in Computer Science from S.Korea, China, or India. Probably Cambridge (UK) comes close in some of the Engineering areas.
Cal (Berkeley) is probably second, definitely in the top three with Stanford.These three are unparalleled for their reputation through many many years in Engineering and Computer Science, especially for graduate school.
Princeton and Harvard are a surprise personally for me.
Please feel free to comment and disagree with me.

[ricchh]

04:11 PM on 01/09/2013

Harvard and Princeton are probably not in the top thirty in computer science. No one goes to those schools for computer science. MIT, Cal Tech are better than Stanford.

[ricchh]

11:26 AM on 01/09/2013

No Columbia? Probably one of the best Computer science departments in the world, with the most Nobel prize winners in the world.

[teddy salad]

07:14 PM on 01/09/2013

bs

[realpragmatist]

10:43 PM on 01/09/2013

Most Nobel Prize winners list: Harvard first; second and third are Berkeley and University of Chicago, with Princeton fourth. I am saying from memory, but I think I am correct.

[ricchh]

10:05 AM on 01/10/2013

If you are referring to only computer science, you maybe correct, I don't know. As far as overall Nobel Prize winners, the top three schools in the world are Columbia, Chicago, and Cambridge. I don't think Harvard, Berkeley, and Princeton are in the top ten.