The undergraduate engineering program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is ranked 3rd in a poll conducted by US News & World Report, the national newsmagazine announced on September 12.

The U of I College of Engineering is tied for the position with the California Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley.  It is surpassed only by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"While there is always an element of subjectivity to these rankings, we are pleased that the US News scores are reflecting the quality we know exists here," said David E. Daniel, dean of the college.

In specific undergraduate engineering programs, Engineering at Illinois is ranked 2nd in civil, 5th in computer, 2nd in electrical, 3rd in environmental, and 1st in materials.

In the March 2002 “Best Graduate Schools” issue of US News, Engineering at Illinois was ranked 5th in the nation for its graduate programs.

In addition to the overall score for the College of Engineering, specific disciplines of graduate study were also ranked.  Engineering at Illinois programs ranked in the top five are civil engineering, 2nd; computer engineering, 5th; electrical engineering, 3rd, tied with Stanford; environmental engineering, 4th; materials engineering, 3rd; mechanical engineering, 5th; nuclear engineering, 5th, tied with Texas A&M; and computer science,* 5th.

"Of the approximately 200 engineering schools nationwide, only ten schools have more than one engineering program in the top five, and only four schools have eight* or more programs ranked in the top five," said Daniel. Those schools are MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Illinois.

Programs ranked in the top ten are aeronautical and astronautical engineering, 8th, tied with Princeton; chemical engineering,* 9th; and physics,* 9th.  The Department of Physics was ranked 1st in the subspecialty of condensed matter/low temperature physics.

* The Department of Computer Science and Department of Physics at the University of Illinois are in the College of Engineering; however, US News & World Report lists them in its "Science" rankings.  The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois is part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.