Which graduate school out of these?

It’s too hard to answer, with the information you have given. Every student has to choose the school that best serves his or her educational goals and temperament. Without know knowing what your friend plans to study it is difficult to know what school might be best for him or or. Also, without having intimate knowledge of the four schools in question and your friend, I think it would be very difficult for someone to answer questions regarding the relative benefits of one school over the other, in terms of on-campus jobs and graduate assistantships opportunities. And as to job prospects after MS? Obviously, just because one goes to school in Kansas or New York doesn’t mean that one is limited to the job prospects either of those areas.

Choosing the right college or university is a big and important decision for anyone. Choosing a school when it involves moving to another country is an even bigger decision. I think this is all research your friend has to do. It is his life. He needs to steer his own ship.

What does he want to study? I wouldn’t go to Binghamton, for example, for tropical studies.

Where is he from? Binghamton is a cool town, but has unpleasant winters. If he is from Finland, that may be OK. If he is from Tahiti, it may be a problem.

More information needed/

SUNY Binghamton is a great school and don’t worry about the winter. It’s not that bad. Plus they have some amazing events on campus.

Out of those, SUNY Binghamtom leaps off the page. It’s the only one in the Northeast, which is closest to major cultural hubs in the country.

Now, college towns are generally a bit better about being open to people from different cultures, but still, the South and West are more conservative and I have heard from people there, they are much less friendly to anyone who isn’t a standard-issue American. Plus there is less going on, culturally speaking, and people think anything different is pretty weird.

Yeah. Tell him to go to the Northeast if he can afford it.

Okay. I just got in writing from him what his interests are. Description follows below.

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville: MS in Industrial Engineering. He is required to take three additional courses; two on statistics and one on graduate level English writing.
Kansas State University: MS in Operations Research in Industrial Engineering department.
Oklahoma State University: MS in Industrial Engineering.
State University of New York, Binghamton: MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

He said his concentration is Operations Research, but added it is in Industrial Engineering. Now, this I don’t know what he means by concentration. Leave it.
Where can he find this information? Where should he look to? Perhaps whom to ask? Anyone from these universities?

SUNY Binghamtom has the most recognition value and panache. The degree will be seen as better that those of the state U“s, unfair or not.

It is one of the four flagship U’s of the NYS pubic system.

edit; ...as better than that of the other state U’s…

KSU has the actual program he is looking for by the sounds of it. The other 3 have no mention of the Operations Research which he wants to concentrate in. If the other 3 don’t have a focus on Operations Research, I would say he should go to KSU since it has exactly what he is looking for program wise.

ummm… @gailcalled—I think there’s another edit you want, unless of course, you think that everyone majors in sex ed in the NYS university system.

@wundayatta: Ouch!

@shimba Your friend should go to each schools websites to start. For example, this is the page for graduate school at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

The drop down menu under “Future Students” has a section on “funding your degree” which gives information on graduate teaching assistantships, as you mentioned that is some of the information your friend is interested in; and there is also a section specifically for internationals students there too.

All the websites of the schools listed should have similar information available.

I agree with the general consensus here that SUNY-Binghamton is the most prestigious, but one dimension everyone is missing: is there a reason for a your friend to prefer a research university?

If your friend is interested in serious research, SUNY-Binghamton is a respected research institution. Those other schools I don’t know much about, but I suspect they aren’t taken anywhere near as seriously in that regard, since there is really only a handful of public schools that are. But, on the flip side, research schools often aren’t the best teaching schools, which is something for a foreign student to consider.