Physics HEP-ex program ranking?

[muons]

Hi everybody... I've got some acceptances now and I'm wondering the ranking for the following schools in HEP experiment (I am interested mainly in running analysis to search for new physics... I don't like hardware stuff that much)

Here's the list:

Cornell, U Mich, Johns Hopkins, Rochester, Columbia, Boston U, Rutgers U (they offered fellowship, the rests are TA)

I have a general idea about the ranking, just from searching around it seems to me that:

U Mich ~ Cornell > Johns Hopkins, Rochester, Columbia > Boston U, Rutgers U

Cornell seems to have a large CMS group with many active researchers (and also an ivy).

Other than just hunches... I have no idea what the actual rankings are... Of course, rankings don't mean everything as I'll be visiting schools and talking to different professors... but from the people I talked to, their researches all seem to be quite similar (Higgs, SUSY and other things...). I have no real idea of how good the faculties in each school really are. So far I'm leaning toward Cornell but how would you rank those school (based on high energy experiment, not just physics in general).

Thanks for the help! Once I find out for real which schools are obviously 2nd tier in the list, I'll reject the offer to let more people in...

Edited March 6, 2010 by muons

[AlexthePhysicsMaster]

I would say UMich, Cornell, and Columbia are the top tier for HEP-ex. Cornell is the most reputable overall, though UMich is known for particle physics. I would say:

Cornell, UMich, Columbia > JHU, Rochester, Rutgers > Boston.

Cornell definitely has the best name, but I don't know how it's particle physics is; while UMich's name is slightly less impressive, but it's well-known for particle physics. Columbia is somewhere in between.

In short, I would reject everywhere but the first three, and then go from there based on visits. Best of luck!