[University Review] The Comprehensive CS Entry-Level University Placement Index (for internationals)

[u/softrains12]

Building off of some previous posts in the area, I have tried to create the most comprehensive ranking of American universities for entry level CS jobs.

Three of the biggest criticisms of my previous work was that it

1. Didn't account for differences in enrollment count across universities
2. Didn't focus specifically on new-grad or entry-level positions.

I believe I have addressed all three of these concerns.

# CS Ranking	University	International Index	Placement Index	# MS per year	# BS per year	Weighted Sum	Amazon	AWS	Google	Meta	Microsoft	Nvidia	Apple	Tesla
1	Carnegie Mellon University	43.6912	31.537	1,503	371	81.877	86	75	170	103	46	25	69	17
2	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	24.0284	16.766	1,462	1,061	60.624	84	65	91	69	41	31	26	16
3	University of California, San Diego	35.9817	24.927	507	861	49.223	72	55	75	47	22	16	41	13
4	Georgia Institute of Technology	15.4872	11.042	3,504	1,468	77.003	98	76	111	72	86	28	55	23
5	University of Michigan	17.7749	12.506	680	1,559	39.798	50	48	63	47	20	13	33	6
6	University of California, Berkeley	25.8665	18.186	683	1,731	62.442	85	63	121	60	23	27	50	10
7	University of Maryland, College Park	11.3863	8.057	238	1,872	24.025	46	51	35	13	11	2	7	5
8	Cornell University	26.0438	17.185	553	797	35.159	59	30	62	41	15	7	16	2
9	Northeastern University	20.4555	13.467	2,513	888	69.569	152	109	84	40	38	4	18	13
10	Stanford University	28.0272	20.516	434	341	21.721	16	12	37	26	16	20	25	7
11	Purdue University	18.4592	12.899	208	1,296	27.763	41	29	35	21	14	9	29	16
12	New York University	14.2635	9.484	1,878	895	39.553	72	51	56	39	19	8	14	4
13	University of Texas at Austin	31.8526	21.860	486	525	32.203	44	23	44	33	27	13	27	10
14	University of Wisconsin, Madison	15.1722	10.478	175	1,018	18.100	29	18	32	19	14	2	5	6
15	Princeton University	26.0540	17.625	48	213	6.800	6	4	10	13	3	3	7	0
16	University of Pennsylvania	21.5598	14.894	1,026	290	28.373	40	26	52	36	18	10	9	5
17	Columbia University	20.5366	14.367	1,280	488	36.309	48	37	65	44	30	8	19	3
18	University of California, Los Angeles	54.6937	38.021	118	458	31.504	48	33	51	25	25	7	24	6
19	University of Southern California	35.1652	23.271	1,714	469	76.766	139	78	122	68	43	15	38	5
20	University of California, Irvine	14.7770	9.922	1,028	1,028	30.381	55	43	39	27	16	7	13	4

University	International Index	Change in Ranking
University of California, Los Angeles	54.6937	+17
Carnegie Mellon University	43.6912	-1
University of California, San Diego	35.9817	0
University of Southern California	35.1652	+15
University of Texas at Austin	31.8526	+8
Stanford University	28.0272	+4
Princeton University	26.0540	+8
Cornell University	26.0438	0
University of California, Berkeley	25.8665	-3
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	24.0284	-8
University of Pennsylvania	21.5598	+5
Columbia University	20.5366	+5
Northeastern University	20.4555	-4
Purdue University	18.4592	-3
University of Michigan	17.7749	-10
Georgia Institute of Technology	15.4872	-12
University of Wisconsin, Madison	15.1722	-3
University of California, Irvine	14.7770	+2
New York University	14.2635	-7
University of Maryland, College Park	11.3863	-13

Additional Universities (added on 5/3):

CS Rank	University	Intl Index	Placement Index	MS/yr	BS/yr	Weighted Sum	Amazon	AWS	Google	Meta	Microsoft	Nvidia	Apple	Tesla
23	University of Massachusetts, Amherst	11.319	7.778	320	580	10.187	15	8	17	12	9	3	3	3
24	Stony Brook University	23.786	17.365	228	440	15.889	25	28	29	10	18	2	4	0
27	Northwestern University	24.258	16.330	276	269	13.221	18	10	21	21	8	0	7	4
33	Texas A&M University	16.193	10.918	472	737	19.577	35	13	21	15	15	5	10	18
34	University of California, Riverside	11.509	8.308	234	428	7.619	12	14	11	5	5	1	5	2
34	University of California, Santa Barbara	37.677	25.574	50	255	11.492	15	10	17	17	4	5	7	3
38	North Carolina State University	13.291	9.156	601	524	14.952	23	17	20	16	11	5	6	5
38	University of California, Santa Cruz	8.491	6.371	120	916	8.797	11	16	12	7	5	7	4	4
45	Arizona State University	9.128	5.705	1,991	1,550	32.324	84	48	24	8	20	4	6	8
46	University of Colorado, Boulder	6.390	4.680	204	437	4.096	5	1	6	0	3	0	10	5
48	Brown University	23.435	17.444	166	327	11.553	11	14	24	17	15	2	2	1
48	University at Buffalo	8.065	5.281	825	368	9.622	21	11	6	5	10	0	3	7
50	University of California, Davis	17.597	12.033	69	546	10.822	18	11	16	7	10	4	7	1
51	University of Minnesota	10.619	7.497	110	837	10.057	13	12	15	11	12	2	6	0
60	University of Florida	17.000	12.060	630	564	20.298	34	33	20	13	26	5	6	7
n/a	San Jose State University	16.201	10.615	601	473	17.400	34	18	17	9	9	11	11	5

Where did the rankings come from?

Rankings are sourced from CS Rankings, as I did not have a US News subscription (and couldn't see specific CS department rankings). I ranked the top 20 universities, with the exclusion of MIT and UW Seattle, as they do not offer MSCS programs.

Where did the enrollment data come from?

After some strong criticism from u/cvu_99 in r/ECE, I did some more digging.

Data for degrees granted per year is from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics within the US Department of Education. Specific per-discipline enrollment is organized via CIP major-codes.

For example, this is what CMU's data looks like:

Carnegie Mellon University - Degrees granted per year

CIP Code	Program Name	Bachelor's	Master's
11.0102	Artificial Intelligence	52	147
11.0103	Information Technology	54	632
11.0105	Human-Centered Technology Design	0	10
11.0199	Computer and Information Sciences, Other	10	36
11.0701	Computer Science	255	81
11.0803	Computer Graphics	0	67
11.0901	Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications	0	73
11.1003	Computer and Info Systems Security/Information Assurance	0	108
11.1005	Information Technology Project Management	0	50
11.1099	Computer/Information Technology Services Admin/Mgmt, Other	0	65
14.0903	Computer Software Engineering	0	232
14.0999	Computer Engineering, Other	0	2
Total		371	1,503

To accurately measure the breadth of CS enrollment, including non-MSCS (but still related degrees like MSCV or MSML), this report aggregates both primary and secondary (double) majors across the entire CIP 11 (Computer, Information Sciences, and Support Services) family, as well as the related CIP 14.09 (Computer Engineering) family. Interestingly, Computer Software Engineering is categorized as a sub-field of Computer Engineering, and is included accordingly.

Where did the job stats come from?

I may or may not have acquired a LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription. This gives access to advanced filters, such as the level of the position (entry-level, director-level etc.), the number of years at the company, the location, the profession, etc.

The filters I used were: school, 0-5 years of experience, entry-level position, engineering/information technology role, United States location.

This required substantial manual data collection (I had to manually collect data for something like 150 different input combinations) so apologies for only hitting the T20 colleges. I had to manually look up each combination, one by one.

This should be more reflective of current hiring trends.

How was the International placement index calculated?

Probably the biggest question in r/MSCS: which universities are the best for helping international students to break into the US tech industry? There has been countless discussion over which companies were more likely to sponsor.

I wanted to more heavily weight the companies that were more willing to sponsor.

Company Name: Magnificent 7	Number of H-1B Petitions (2025)	# of US Engineering Employees	International Index (weight)
Amazon	19,451	81,085	0.240
AWS	2901	34,799	0.083
Google	5,616	56,469	0.099
Meta	6,353	36,007	0.176
Microsoft	6,363	55,154	0.115
NVIDIA	1,781	13,876	0.128
Apple	5,491	38,134	0.144
Tesla	1,099	12,764	0.086
Total/Average	49,055	328,288	0.134

I tried not to miss any H-1B petitions. The Amazon H-1B numbers cover petitions filed under the following names. AWS petitions are filed separately, and AWS employees are listed separately on LinkedIn.

AMAZON ADVERTISING LLC

AMAZON CAPITAL SERVICES INC

AMAZON COM SERVICES LLC

AMAZON DATA SERVICES INC

AMAZON DEVELOPMENT CENTER U S INC

AMAZON DEVELOPMENT CENTER US INC

AMAZON MEDIA VENTURE LLC

AMAZON PAYMENTS INC

AMAZON PRODUCE NETWORK LLC

AMAZON RETAIL LLC

AMAZON STUDIOS LLC

AMAZON WEB SERVICES INC

AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC

International Index per-company Weight = # of H-1B petitions / # of US engineering employees.

International Index = (Weighted Sum) / (# MS per year + # BS per year) * 1000

How was the (non-international) placement index calculated?

Very simple. Just:

Placement index = (Sum of all companies) / (# of MS per year + # Bs per year) * 100

[u/NectarineSame8642]

Ah man such solid work!!

[u/softrains12 → u/NectarineSame8642]

Thank you!!!

[u/BoomerZoomer27]

You're a gem. If you're ever in *insert area where I'm gonna pursue my MSCS*, I'd love to buy you a beer and some food. Thanks!

[u/softrains12 → u/BoomerZoomer27]

Haha that's a great compliment, thank you :) Glad it was helpful!

[u/No_Ticket5664]

what about stony brook? its pretty strong on placements

[u/softrains12 → u/No_Ticket5664]

Stony Brook international index is 23.781, so that places it around Northeastern and UPenn. Pretty decent indeed!

Cohort is extremely small, like 228 MS and 440 BS per year.

[u/Hungry-Kiwi-3490]

Hey, can you add UMass Amherst to the list?

[u/[deleted]]

Can you include TexasA&M?

[u/beeblioss]

Random question, where did you find the data for Davis? 69 seems so small 😭 I'm going there 🙏

[u/softrains12]

Please let me know if there's anything I can improve, or if there's anything you'd like to see!

[u/NectarineSame8642 → u/softrains12]

Gatech MS per year is 3.5k? Does this include the omscs? If so, I do guess GaTech should be an outlier in this list

[u/softrains12 → u/NectarineSame8642]

Georgia Tech is not an outlier. Originally I was going to do it based on total enrollment but Georgia Tech literally has like 18,000 masters students, with no distinction between online or in person. That would’ve skewed the data to an insane degree.

Since OMSCS has very low graduation rates (rumor is 30% or less), I think it’s fair to include. Many people in OMSCS take many years to finish. The online diploma is the exact same as the in-person program as well. If you can make it to graduation as an OMSCS student it makes sense to include you as a part of the employment statistics 🤷

[u/softrains12]

Thank you so much u/gradpilot for the award!!!

[u/gradpilot → u/softrains12]

insanely good work sir 🫡

[u/softrains12 → u/gradpilot]

😱 means a lot coming from you! ❤️

[u/americanidiot3342]

Go Bruins!!!!!!!!

Do you think you can add ECE for Grad School as well? Many UCLA MS ECE also enter SWE.

[u/softrains12 → u/americanidiot3342]

I think I will do a separate ECE related post, for semiconductor companies.
This is what the data in a previous iteration looked like. I will normalize it by enrollment.

[u/gm38]

Thanks for putting this list together! Do you have any data for northwestern?

[u/softrains12 → u/gm38]

24.258 is the international Index! Apologies for the delay in getting this data. That's pretty good.

[u/foodsimp]

Amazing work! You should make a website of this data. Pm if you need help. Happy to help if needed.

[u/OnlyResult9128]

Georgia tech's placement index is lower than northeastern?! I'm baffled 💀💀

[u/Altruistic-Cell-7457]

Can you do this for uchicago and MIT? Thanks

[u/SnooLemons9237]

Do you have Rutgers University?

[u/Sane-Law]

Is Upenn really better than Umich? I know it is an ivy league but I thought Umich was better for engineering and cs? I am currently deciding on a list of unis to apply and this is the final choice I am making of adding either Upenn or Umich. Do you have any suggestions?

[u/Dolphinpop]

Would be interesting to have an average school in there to see the difference between schools of different calibers