The best advice I can give is to go to school websites and look at their course catalog. Specifically, look at the professors teaching the core courses and whether the courses you'll be taking are the same courses that undergraduates and PhD students at the university take.
Many masters programs are what one of my professors calls "mercinary-masters". Their job is to bring in money in exchange for a piece of paper. You're taught by adjuncts, you take courses that are watered down from the courses that undergraduates take, some of the professors might not even have degrees related to computer science, etc. Your purpose is to subsidise the undergrads and PhD students and the main criteria for admission is whether they think you can get passing remarks to get the degree.
The US News rankings are for doctoral programs, not masters. The rankings are formulated very simplistically via a survey asking people, "how good is the program at School X". So, they aren't such a good source. Plus, with your background, some schools aren't going to want you. That isn't a dig at you - you're re-training and some schools only do PhDs (with masters for those who drop out) and other schools don't do conversion-style masters.
If you have more specific questions, I might be able to help. Still, the best advice I can give is to make sure that you're not getting segregated off into a special class of cash-cow masters students who are being given a watered-down experience in exchange for money. It's easy to look through course catalogs and who teaches the courses you'll be taking and look at the professor web pages and see where you're getting someone brought on board to teach a course and where you're getting faculty.
Many masters programs are what one of my professors calls "mercinary-masters". Their job is to bring in money in exchange for a piece of paper. You're taught by adjuncts, you take courses that are watered down from the courses that undergraduates take, some of the professors might not even have degrees related to computer science, etc. Your purpose is to subsidise the undergrads and PhD students and the main criteria for admission is whether they think you can get passing remarks to get the degree.
The US News rankings are for doctoral programs, not masters. The rankings are formulated very simplistically via a survey asking people, "how good is the program at School X". So, they aren't such a good source. Plus, with your background, some schools aren't going to want you. That isn't a dig at you - you're re-training and some schools only do PhDs (with masters for those who drop out) and other schools don't do conversion-style masters.
If you have more specific questions, I might be able to help. Still, the best advice I can give is to make sure that you're not getting segregated off into a special class of cash-cow masters students who are being given a watered-down experience in exchange for money. It's easy to look through course catalogs and who teaches the courses you'll be taking and look at the professor web pages and see where you're getting someone brought on board to teach a course and where you're getting faculty.