For the admission in Masters Program, what is more important, ranking/reputation* of the University or the strength of the research group in the field (say, Machine Learning) you wish to apply ?
I have been told that the advisor and the research group is the most important criteria for PhD admission . So, I researched about research groups in various Universities. I found out that, sometimes a less prestigious university had a great research group in a particular field and a few times reputed university had a weak research group. So, I am confused whether the prestige of a university matter more than a strong research group in
- Industry (Job after masters )
- Research (Apply for a PhD after the masters
For example, UT Austin has a strong reputation in computer science. However, it seems to me that their machine learning groupis small. So, in situations like this what should a master's applicant do ? Go for UT Austin because of its reputation or decline the offer because of lack of strong research group in ML.
*The ranking/reputation here is the US news Grad Schools ranking in the field of computer science.