Methodology · updated 11 October 2026
The scores are arguments with the numbers attached.
Word list
- Decision framework
- The rules for reading the order on the homepage. It is a weighting for one applicant, not a quality ladder of the six schools.
- Indices
- Five scores from 1 to 10: livability, job security, future proof, selectivity, and ROI. Each score compares these six programs only.
- Visa prior
- A planning range for OPT and for whether employers in that market sponsor. It is not an admission rate and not a promise.
- Future proof
- How directly the curriculum treats human-AI work, systems, and the mix of research, craft, and technical skill after 2026.
- Job security
- How usable the path is into product design, UX research, or product management: brand, network, internship, and where alumni land.
- All-in sketch
- Tuition plus a living estimate for the length of the degree. Not an invoice. Fees, flights, and aid sit outside it unless a line says so.
- Holds
- Where the program is strong for this decision.
- Costs you
- What you give up, or the risk you take, if you pick it.
- Full freight
- You pay the published tuition. Do not assume a scholarship or an assistantship will cut it.
Every index is relative to these six programs only. A 9 is not a universal grade. It means “near the top of this short list, with the caveat written under the bar.”
Official figures (tuition tables, published admit rates, employment reports, deadlines) are marked on each program page and linked. Estimates (city living bands, workload hours, visa ranges, search times where a school does not print one) are labeled Estimate or described as planning bands. If a number is not on this site, it is because the school did not publish it in a source we were willing to cite.
Livability
City-level quality of life for an international graduate student: rent, safety, transit, climate, and how livable the day is outside class.
What moves the score
- Housing cost and how hard a room is to find
- Safety on and near campus
- Transit versus needing a car
- Climate and daily friction
- Size of the international graduate community
Limit. This is not a crime index and not a happiness score. A low score can still be the right city if the job market pays for the friction.
Job security
Strength of a path into product design, UX research, or product management: brand, network, internship conversion, and where alumni actually land.
What moves the score
- Placement into PD, UXR, and PM rather than ‘a job’
- Alumni density inside hiring companies
- Whether an internship is built into the calendar
- How far the program name travels outside its city
Limit. School-wide employment rates are not UX placement rates. Michigan’s MSI figure, below, is called out for that reason.
Future Proof
How directly the curriculum treats human–AI interaction, systems, and the mix of research, craft, and technical fluency you will need after 2026.
What moves the score
- Human–AI and responsible-technology work in the core, not only a slide
- Room to go deep in craft, research, or PM
- Elective flexibility without an empty curriculum
- Technical neighbors (computing, data, engineering) you can actually take
Limit. A high score is not a promise that the syllabus you want is offered the term you need it. Read the current catalog before you rely on an elective.
Selectivity
Relative admissions difficulty across these six programs: published rates where they exist, cohort size, and how hard the typical admitted profile is.
What moves the score
- Published acceptance rate, if the school prints one
- Cohort size versus the breadth of the applicant pool
- Portfolio, video, and work-experience bar
- How much holistic review can override a thin academic record
Limit. Only Carnegie Mellon printed a rate we could cite (23% for the 2025–26 cycle). Other scores are relative judgments, not hidden percentages. Higher is harder, not better.
ROI
Total cost of attendance set against placement strength, time to a salary, and whether aid is real or theoretical.
What moves the score
- Tuition plus a honest living band
- Months until you can earn again
- Outcome quality in the roles you actually want
- Aid you can plan on, versus aid that exists for someone
Limit. ROI collapses if you are debt-averse and the only offers are unpaid, or if a fellowship you did not model arrives. Run your own budget on the bursar tables.
Visa chances
Visa ranges are editorial planning priors, not school statistics. No program on this list publishes an OPT-to-sponsorship rate. The range assumes a STEM-eligible I-20, a portfolio aimed at companies that have sponsored before, and a 2026 hiring market in which design studios sponsor less often than large tech and some product orgs. H-1B remains a lottery. Update your plan when policy or the market moves.
- STEM OPT eligibility, confirmed on the program page where the school states it, and flagged where you must check the I-20.
- Whether typical roles are design-studio roles (sponsor less) or PM and engineering-adjacent roles (sponsor more).
- City: Bay Area and Seattle have more sponsor-capable employers than Ann Arbor or Austin. They also have more applicants.
- Brand only insofar as it gets a resume read at a company that already has an immigration practice.
- A built-in internship (Georgia Tech) raises the prior relative to a one-year studio with no conversion path (UW), even when the city is less dense.
The ranges would all move down in a hiring freeze and up if a specific employer extends a return offer. They are not probabilities from a model with a sample size. Do not put them in a spreadsheet as if they were.
What we refused to invent
- Acceptance rates for Berkeley, Washington, Georgia Tech, Michigan, and UT Austin. Only CMU printed one we could cite: 23% for the 2025–26 cycle.
- A UX-only employment rate for Michigan. The 88% figure is the whole MSI, and the page says so.
- Salary medians that are not in a cited report. Berkeley’s $120,000 is the class of 2023. Michigan’s $91,000 is the class of 2025. The others do not get a made-up number.
- Reddit yield math, forum admit lists, and “I heard the rate is 8%.”
Sources, by kind
- Program sites for curriculum, deadlines, STEM language, cohort notes, and essay prompts.
- Bursar and registrar tables for tuition: CMU MHCI 2026–27, Georgia Tech Fall 2026, Berkeley I School 2026–27 budget, UW MHCI+D apply page, U-M Registrar 2026–27, UT Austin catalog Fall 2026–Spring 2027.
- Career offices: Berkeley MIMS career page and the 2026 Michigan MSI employment report.
- Living costs: official student budgets where the school prints them (Berkeley, UW academic-year figure, UT One Stop). Other cities use a labeled planning band.
Each brief lists its own links. Start at any program page or the decision framework.