The Princeton Review branches out in its rankings

Adding to the slew of college rankings out there, The Princeton Review, in collaboration with GamePro Magazine, has selected the top 50 undergraduate game-design programs. Never mind the best engineering departments or the best-value colleges, game design is where it’s at. The criteria were intensive; schools were asked such questions as “What game design-relevant skills does your program teach?” and “What percentage of graduates have taken a job in some aspect of game development at the time of or before graduating?”

Find out who made the cut after the jump.

At the top of the collegiate game development world reigns University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Division, which boasts big names in gaming such as Jenova Chen and Justin Hall, who have all made games or run their own game studios. DigiPen Institute of Technology and Drexel University keep USC company, along with Becker College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Art Institute of Vancouver, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively.

MIT has an interesting program in that it does not offer a major, minor, or even a concentration in the field, but rather provides the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab for students to collaborate with other schools to create games.

Princeton students interested in game design may consider pursuing a certificate in Applications of Computing, which offers a digital media track. The program recommends that students take COS 426: Computer Graphics, COS 429: Computer Vision, COS 436: Human Computer Interface Technology, or COS 479: Pervasive Information Systems.

By Cerena Chen, staff writer for News