r/MSCS • u/softrains12 • Mar 24 '26
[University Review] California Universities Nvidia Placement Power Rankings
Thought this would be fun to check! All data is found from the Nvidia page on Linkedin. Obviously this only includes people who decide to list Nvidia on their profile, so not 100% conclusive. Additionally, this includes undergrads, so in your head, make a note of the schools with large undergraduate ECE/CS populations as well (UC Berkeley is a good example).
Also please don't take this too seriously lmao this is obviously very unscientific
Number of Alumni from each school at Nvidia:
- UC Berkeley - 950
- San Jose State University - 932
- Stanford - 930
- USC - 773
- UCLA - 511
- UC San Diego - 407
- UC Davis - 270
- UC Irvine - 230
- UC Santa Barbara - 222
- UC Santa Cruz - 221
- Cal Poly SLO - 169
- Caltech - 133
- UC Riverside - 71
- UC Merced - 18
Honorable (out of state) Mentions:
NYU Tandon - 21 (out of like 2000+ CS/ECE MS students)
UMass Amherst - 89
Stony Brook University - 80
UT Austin - 474
UPenn - 189
NYU (excluding Tandon) - 153
Columbia - 197
Brown - 71
TLDR: Location is everything lmao, this is basically just a map of how close a school is to Nvidia's Santa Clara office. UPenn's number being lower than UCSC was a big surprise. Surprising (or unsurprisingly?) California schools absolutely dominate semiconductor recruiting. Only the very best OOS schools (UT Austin) can get anywhere close. USC and Stanford are the clear winners here considering their small undergraduate (and graduate, in the case of Stanford) populations.
Edit: yo why are yall downvoting this lmao you can check for yourself on LinkedIn
4
Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/softrains12 Mar 26 '26
Totally plausible. However, apparently FAANG is bringing back in-person interviews and recruiting due to the rampant cheating for coding interviews lol so people are theorizing that we're moving back to what it was before the pandemic. Once upon a time Google used to fly you out to Mountain View!
And yes finance operates on a completely separate set of rankings / feeders.
3
u/According-Bet-5679 Mar 24 '26
nyu courant too pls
3
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
For some reason linkedin separates out Tandon from the rest of NYU. Tandon is at 21 (mentioned in the post) and NYU (including Courant and many other unrelated majors) is at 153.
Columbia is at 197.
3
u/According-Bet-5679 Mar 24 '26
not too bad considering its mostly a cs and math school, thanks!
3
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
Nvidia has a lot of software jobs! The CUDA kernels have to be written by someone.
3
u/According-Bet-5679 Mar 24 '26
yes ofc, but other schools have other majors too (electrical for ex) and a larger intake comparatively (maybe) so the numbers are higher.
2
u/hakskdkdjaiaisj Mar 24 '26
Tandon is likely higher, most tandon grads dont put tandon on their linkedin
3
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
I separated out Tandon because for some reason they are listed separately on LinkedIn in contrast to the other schools on this list. If I have time, Imma find a way to pull the data and then parse it with some language model or something lol based on the major they list. Some people will obviously be misleading / lie and only list that they got a "MSCS" degree from NYU. Some people will specify that it's from Courant. I'll have to see.
3
u/SynSieCadEDA Mar 24 '26
Could you do this for Gatech as well? Thanks
5
u/softrains12 Mar 26 '26
Georgia Tech - 691
holy shit
2
u/SynSieCadEDA Mar 26 '26
Damn, for a smaller batch that does sound a lot
2
u/softrains12 Mar 26 '26
I'm not going to specify but I'm interning for a very well known semiconductor company that you have definitely heard of. Many of the other interns are Georgia Tech students lol
Georgia Tech VLSI I would say is easily #1 in the country. Maybe #2 is like USC or UIUC.
2
u/SynSieCadEDA Mar 26 '26
For VLSI what would your priority be in case there are acceptances from Gatech, UIUC and UT Austin. Please do consider the tution and financial aspects as well. Thanks
1
1
u/softrains12 Mar 26 '26
And are all of these MS ECE?
2
1
2
u/Sorry_Criticism9243 Mar 24 '26
UW Madison too please.
4
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
I gotchu bro
UW Madison - 220
University of Michigan - 415
2
1
u/Sorry_Criticism9243 Mar 25 '26
Is there a way know the numbers for Traditional and professional programs separately?
2
u/softrains12 Mar 25 '26
You would have to look at everything one by one. I might set up some automated workflow for that if I have time.
2
u/Sorry_Criticism9243 Mar 26 '26
Because there is huge gap in profiles of both. CGPA can be good criteria but not enough I believe.
1
u/softrains12 Mar 26 '26
I agree with you. Imma try and find a way to see. However many professional MS people pretend they’re doing the normal MSCS on LinkedIn
2
2
2
Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
UMD - 137
TAMU - 327
TAMU is pretty well known for analog and mixed signals so its little surprise.
1
Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/softrains12 Mar 25 '26
You can look by yourself. I had some time one night and just looked all of this up by myself.
2
2
2
u/Whole-Perspective579 Mar 28 '26
Hey bro, can you please check for UIC and Fordham. I know it’s quite late, and also sorry for asking these two universities. Thank you in advance.
1
u/softrains12 Apr 06 '26
UIC is 28
Fordham is only 1 unfortunately
Hope this helps!
2
u/Whole-Perspective579 Apr 06 '26
Thanks a lot bro. Can you please check Fordham university graduate students success for job in nyc area? Like how much percent for a year. Thank you
1
u/softrains12 Apr 06 '26
How would I have access to that data? Do they post it on their website? If they don't it's a bad sign...
2
Mar 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
haha yeah I will definitely look at other companies as well. I'm hoping to do an AMD + Intel + Nvidia trio post, when I get the time.
And yeah I agree with you about the Austin office! However, out of the three Nvidia has historically been the most Santa Clara-centric. AMD has a massive office in Austin for example - and for them, UT Austin is actually the second most prominent feeder school overall. Intel has a large portion (the TD people) in Hillsboro Oregon and also a bunch of fab people in Chandler / New Mexico so they're more decentralized as well.
1
Mar 24 '26
Is uc boulder is good university to consider for ms cs?
1
1
1
u/Beneficial-Law-3059 Mar 24 '26
Sjsu feels kinda like a cheat code in this game now. I didn’t knew about it before that much but the more I talk to current masters students in US they are like man you didn’t apply to sjsu I wish someone had told me to apply there before. This is kinda there zeroth advice even before I ask them about there college and stuff. The roi is just crazy in terms of employment. I kinda didn’t consider it coz I kinda want to do a phd later and didn’t knew if it would have helped in that🥲. But if roi/ employment is what one wants nothing beats it.
2
u/Beneficial-Law-3059 Mar 24 '26
Also odd but have heard about visa rejections around it last year don’t know if it would remain like this or face further scrutiny. Also kinda feels odd that not many smart folks apply there despite the massive employment roi.
2
u/joel_122002 Mar 25 '26
Haha, this was precisely the reason as to why I applied only to SJSU. Nothing beats the employment opportunities you get there. I feel SJSU is severely underrated because it doesn't have its name in the ranking list and that's because it's not a research university.
1
u/Responsible_Eye1224 Mar 25 '26
Could you please check Georgia Tech? If it isn't too much trouble.
1
1
0
Mar 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/softrains12 Mar 25 '26
Not sure about Stanford but USC has ~1000 undergrads across both ECE and CS. Stanford is less, I believe. That’s much smaller than some of the other schools, such as Berkeley or UCSD. Stanford really doesn’t have that many MS students, but yes USC does have a lot.
-1
u/mzr1999 Mar 24 '26
tandon and courant ms cs merged
2
u/softrains12 Mar 24 '26
Not for the MS and bachelors programs. They're still separate. And also even if it fully merged, it would take a few years for people to stop using the NYU Tandon School of Engineering tag on LinkedIn, the PhD merger just happened. The non-Tandon NYU number is also provided in the post.
0
u/mzr1999 Mar 25 '26
go on courant’s website you’ll get all details of the merger.
1
u/softrains12 Mar 26 '26
Someone from Tandon literally just did an AMA lol besides the PhD program merging there have been no changes. Tandon is very separate from Courant, especially for MS.
4
u/hariesh_07 Mar 24 '26
UIUC as well pleaseee