<p>bone, take a guess what university above would be ranked in the top 4 in terms of Number of National Academy of Engineering Members per Engineering Student…</p>
<p>What, are you a Princeton student/alumnus? I am entitled to my opinion, and it is an opinion that tons of other people share.</p>
<p>They gve superb math and applied math program. So you would imagine they have a quality engineering program, but they aren’t at the level of Cornell and they, in my opinion, are overrated.</p>
<p>well, bone, thanks for telling us that it is your OPINION…</p>
<p>good to know…</p>
<p>but again, please tell us how they rank top engineering programs in this country based on the number of investment bankers that the school produces…WHICH IS SOMETHING THAT YOU CLAIM…</p>
<p>looking forward to your answer on this…</p>
<p>I believe I put the word opinion in an earlier post too (I count 2 previous posts where I state it was an opinion).</p>
<p>Regardless, one small way that investment banking would help is that one of the factors going into the rankings is alumni giving rate. If a higher percentage of alumni are going to the ultra-lucrative careers, then a higher percentage of them can actually afford to give back. Do I have a statistical analysis to prove that there is a correlation between larger percentages of rich alumni and higher giving rate? No. But you could easily see how if more alumni are going into jobs that net them millions of dollars that more of them are likely to give back some of it. If this was calculated only based on the giving rate from alumni who are in engineering jobs, then it would be a much more valid statistic.</p>
<p>A few other ways that Princeton could get artificially inflated: Retention rate is 20% of the score. This is one of the criticisms of the rankings because it favors the extremely selective schools, meanwhile, state schools get penalized because they admit more students due to the fact that they are serving entire states and have larger departments. While I am on that topic, I can mention that another 15% of the score comes from program selectivity, which again, artificially inflates the scores of Ivies. This is magnified here because there are a lot of people who apply to Ivies simply because they are Ivies even if they have no real shot of getting in, which drives down the acceptance rate. Many experts have argued that these couple of statistics aren’t really very useful in indicating the quality of a program since there are so many factors not related to school quality that also affect them that it makes them unreliable. I tend to agree with that camp.</p>
<p>Basically, that is 40% of the total score for Princeton that gets artificially increased by factors that don’t really have to do with the quality of the program or can be watered down by other factors. In fact, Princeton is a wonderful example of some of the weaknesses of the US News rankings and why they cannot be used as the sole indicator of program quality, as has been discussed in the news, on this forum, and in the engineering community ad nauseum.</p>
<p>Now, Princeton has a good program, and that is why I don’t think it would fall far if the rankings were adjusted some. I personally consider being ranked in the 20’s to be good. However, while it is an elite school, it really is not an elite engineering program.</p>
<p>Source: [How</a> We Calculate the College Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html?PageNr=1]How”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html?PageNr=1)</p>
<p>"Regarding Princeton University</p>
<p>last time I looked, having the 12th ranked department in the country would not be considered to be a “weak” department…"</p>
<p>I don’t know about Princeton. I’ve looked hard and long at their graduate school for their plasma dynamics laboratory (which is probably the top MPD group in the country) but all of the other programs don’t really strike me as so strong. I would not consider them a top undergraduate program since their strengths appear in particular elite specialized groups rather than a core engineering education.</p>
<p>Two LACs with good engineering programs that I know of are Bucknell and Lafayette, both in Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>“If you removed the effect of investment banking and other similar careers from the equation, I bet Princeton’s rank would fall significantly (my guess would be in the low to mid 20’s range).”-Boneh3ad</p>
<p>I actually would agree with this statement. They type of student that is drawn to ivy leagues FOR ENGINEERING is of a different breed. It is difficult to put my finger on it but I’d say than quite often it can be attributed to a perceived sense of accomplishment of graduating from an Ivy League and even though you major is in engineering (not a particular strength) you can fall back on the Ivy status carrying yourself. It is either that or one’s passion are the “pure” elements of engineering… like engineering sciences, though there are arguably better institutions for that as well.</p>
<p>The point is, if you are going to be such a “good” student to be admitted to an Ivy why go there when you could go to other schools that have much more rigorous and better curriculums? It doesn’t pass the “squint check” as we say.</p>
<p>The exception to this, as I state are these very specific superb groups at these places. However you don’t just apply through the front door to get in these groups and they are pretty damn good at figuring out who is real and who is not. These are the kernels or the programs… arguably the most elite of the elite groups in the country. Princeton physics lab is one of those. Of course, this lab probably has close to zero interactions with undergrads based upon the extreme level of their work. </p>
<p>I would be very skeptical of hiring an undergrad from Princeton with an engineering degree. I would be very impressed with a grad from Princeton’s plasma lab. I think other employers (at top companies) are not naive either and feel the same way. Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if engineering undergrads at Princeton trended toward ibanking and financial “engineering”.</p>
<p>That’s just my take on it.</p>
<p>Also, yeah, sounds like JohnAdams12 either is a Prince or is limited in his exposure to real engineers.</p>
<p>And I’m going to widen the scope from LACs to “damn cool, small, and awesome engineering institutions with intellectual vibes” (in no particular order):</p>
<p>Olin College
Caltech
CU Boulder
Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>I don’t know if I would consider CU Boulder to be fit the “small” part of “damn cool, small, and awesome engineering institutions with intellectual vibes”… ;-)</p>
<p>bone, you were asked to list the metrics used in ranking the engineering departments of universiities.</p>
<p>please don’t tell us that annual giving rate for the whole university is used for these rankings of engineering departments.</p>
<p>please don’t tell us this</p>
<p>again, please supply the metrics used in the rankings of engineering departments</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>“I don’t know if I would consider CU Boulder to be fit the “small” part of “damn cool, small, and awesome engineering institutions with intellectual vibes”… ;-)”</p>
<p>Lol. Okay, yeah you’re right. I guess they are kind of big, eh? For some reason though I am under the impression that the engineering depts are fairly close-knit… though this may only be for the space sciences/engineering… thoughts?</p>
<p>“please don’t tell us that annual giving rate for the whole university is used for these rankings of engineering departments.
please don’t tell us this
again, please supply the metrics used in the rankings of engineering departments
thanks”</p>
<p>dude, what are you smoking? i don’t know how to decrypt your messages on this board. are you joking or are you serious? what are you trying to say?</p>
<p>also: good engineers use metrics. great engineers use metrics to get the results they want. lol.
but yeah, there are some things that even still cannot be perfectly quantified or weighted.</p>
<p>I know at UIUC, even in a huge engineering department, it didn’t feel so huge. The department as a whole wasn’t as close-knit, but the actual Mechanical Engineering department was. I graduated with a whopping 150ish people or something like that (if I remember right) and I feel like I knew probably half of them well and was at least acquainted with most of them. Still… not small.</p>
<p>JohnAdams12:</p>
<p>The only thing I can find about the methodology for engineering as a whole is for the graduate rankings ([Engineering</a> Program Rankings Methodology - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-graduate-schools/2009/04/22/engineering-program-rankings-methodology.html?s_cid=related-links:TOP]Engineering”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-graduate-schools/2009/04/22/engineering-program-rankings-methodology.html?s_cid=related-links:TOP)) but that doesn’t apply assuming that we were talking about undergraduate programs (as I was).</p>
<p>I am actually quite surprised to see that Princeton’s graduate program is ranked lower than its undergraduate program (assuming that the #12 you cited is accurate since I don’t have access to the full latest rankings). I would argue that their graduate program was better, as I tend to share views with rocketDA it seems.</p>
<p>boneh3ad,
i’m starting to think that we are CC twins. i mean, i am slightly older (2006 vs 2008) but you are more accomplished (1463 vs 1511 posts). all in all, though, our views seem to be quite similar.
i miss you, brotha… :P</p>
<p>Yeah, I get a ton of posts because I had a several month period there where we were troubleshooting our wind tunnel and having a hell of a time doing it, so I would have to take frequent breaks before I broke something out of frustration, and those breaks frequently resulted in perusing these boards. Now I am hooked. It is like a drug.</p>
<p>Alas, today, we finally found quiet flow, and not even this guy’s belligerent attitude can sully my wonderful mood!</p>
<p>bone, there we go, we are getting someplace…so at least we have the methodology of the graduate school engineering rankings:</p>
<p>[Engineering</a> Program Rankings Methodology - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-graduate-schools/2009/04/22/engineering-program-rankings-methodology.html?s_cid=related-links:TOP]Engineering”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-graduate-schools/2009/04/22/engineering-program-rankings-methodology.html?s_cid=related-links:TOP)</p>
<p>Engineering Program Rankings Methodology
How we rank graduate engineering programs</p>
<p>By Robert Morse , Sam Flanigan
Posted April 22, 2009
Programs at 198 engineering schools that grant doctoral degrees were surveyed; 189 responded. Data were collected in fall 2008 and early 2009. Rankings for 189 schools that provided the data needed were calculated based on a weighted average of the 10 indicators described below. All schools are listed in the online directory.</p>
<p>Quality Assessment (weighted by .40)</p>
<p>Peer Assessment Score (.25) In the fall of 2008, engineering school deans and deans of graduate studies at engineering schools were asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark “don’t know.” A school’s score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of “don’t know” counted neither for nor against a school. About 55 percent of those surveyed responded.</p>
<p>Recruiter Assessment Score (.15) In the fall of 2008, corporate recruiters and company contacts who hire from previously ranked programs were asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark “don’t know.” A school’s score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of “don’t know” counted neither for nor against a school. About 28 percent of those surveyed responded. For the purpose of calculating this year’s rankings, the two most recent years’ recruiters’ survey results were averaged and were weighted by .15.</p>
<p>Student Selectivity (weighted by .10)</p>
<p>Mean GRE Quantitative Scores (.0675) The mean quantitative score of the Graduate Record Examination for master’s and doctoral students entering in the fall of 2008.</p>
<p>Acceptance Rate (.0325) The proportion of applicants to the master’s and doctoral programs who were offered admission for fall 2008.</p>
<p>Faculty Resources (weighted by .25)</p>
<p>Student to Faculty Ratio The ratio of full-time doctoral students to full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty (.075) and full-time master’s students to full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty (.0375) in the fall of 2008.</p>
<p>Percent of Faculty in the National Academy of Engineering (.075) The proportion of full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty who were members of the National Academy of Engineering in the fall of 2008.</p>
<p>Doctoral Degrees Awarded (.0625) The total number of doctoral degrees granted in the 2008 school year.</p>
<p>Research Activity (weighted by .25)</p>
<p>Total Research Expenditures (.15) The total externally funded engineering research expenditures. These expenditures refer to separately funded research, public and private, conducted by the school and are averaged over the 2007 and 2008 fiscal years. The definition for research expenditures is set by the American Society for Engineering Education.</p>
<p>Average Research Expenditures Per Faculty Member (.10) The average amount of externally funded engineering research expenditures per full-time faculty member averaged over the 2007 and 2008 fiscal years.</p>
<p>Overall Rank: Data were standardized about their means, and standardized scores were weighted, totaled, and rescaled so that the top-scoring school received 100; others received their percentage of the top score.</p>
<p>Specialty Rankings: These rankings are based solely on assessments by department heads in each specialty area. Department heads in their specialty area rated the other schools that offered a doctoral degree in the specialty on a 5-point scale. Those schools with the highest average scores appear here. Names of department heads and the names of their respective engineering schools that grant a doctoral degree in that specific area came from the American Society for Engineering Education.</p>
<p>Specialty rankings were out of 55 schools with aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering; 89 schools with bioengineering/biomedical engineering; 125 with chemical engineering; 143 with civil engineering; 142 with computer engineering; 170 with electrical/electronic/communications engineering; 94 with environmental/environmental health engineering; 73 with industrial manufacturing engineering; 90 with materials engineering; 164 with mechanical engineering; 25 with nuclear engineering; 26 with petroleum engineering.</p>
<p>bone, you can find the full USNWR Undergraduate Engineering rankings here, thanks to the US Naval Academy:</p>
<p><a href=“Login - www.usna.com”>US Naval Academy Alumni Association & Foundation - www.usna.com;
<p>**and here we have **</p>
<p>[Methodology:</a> Best Undergrad Engineering Programs - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/methodology-best-undergrad-engineering-programs.html]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/methodology-best-undergrad-engineering-programs.html)</p>
<p>Methodology: Best Undergrad Engineering Programs</p>
<p>Posted August 19, 2009</p>
<p>The U.S. News rankings of undergraduate engineering programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology are based solely on the peer judgments of deans and senior faculty who rated each program they are familiar with on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Engineering school deans and faculty members (two at each engineering program) were surveyed for this ranking in spring 2009.</p>
<p>We have separate rankings for undergraduate engineering programs at colleges that offer doctoral degrees in engineering and for engineering programs at colleges whose terminal degree in engineering is a bachelor’s or master’s. Research at the graduate level often influences the undergraduate curriculum, and schools with doctoral programs in engineering tend to have the widest possible range of offerings. Students who prefer a program focused on undergraduates can consult the list of top programs at schools whose terminal degree is the bachelor’s or master’s. Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed returned ratings of the group whose terminal degree in engineering is a bachelor’s or master’s; 55 percent did so for the doctoral group.</p>
<p>We also asked for nominations of the best engineering programs in specialty areas; those receiving the most mentions in each appear here ranked in descending order. The rankings of the best engineering programs in a specialty also are based solely on the spring 2009 peer survey. Schools offering any courses in that specialty are eligible to be ranked in that specialty.</p>
<p>And what do you know, in the graduate rankings, which do not have any of those criteria, Princeton is ranked lower. It still has selectivity, which I personally am not a fan of, but at least its importance is downplayed. It does get rid of things like alumni giving rate, which is where my iBanking comment came from.</p>
<p>Essentially, it looks like the 40% of the scores for undergrad schools that I complained about has been reduced to about 10% in the graduate rankings. Not surprisingly (for me anyway), Princeton fell down to 17 from 12.</p>
<p>Now, like I said, 17 is still a good, if not very good ranking. It most likely reflects the handful of elite labs that Princeton has like rocketDA’s celebrated plasma lab that bring the program up combined with the relative weakness* of a lot of the other programs.</p>
<p>I would still caution anyone against using the rankings as a sole indicator of program strength, as they are inherently subjective and prone to error. There are so many factors that go into program quality that trying to assign a number to describe it all is doomed to be full of holes. The same thing happened with the concept of an IQ.</p>
<p>Sort of on a tangent, there is actually a pretty good book titled “The Mismeasure of Man” by Stephen Jay Gould that has a very interesting section about the attempts to quantify intelligence with a single number.</p>
<p>*I use relative weakness here to indicate the quality of these other programs as compared with those elite labs mentioned before and the programs at the schools that most consider to be better. I do not use it to try and claim that the programs themselves are weak on an absolute scale.</p>
<p>EDIT after seeing JA’s latest post:
Personally, I don’t believe that using only peer evaluation is good for anything other than placing schools into their relative tiers, and exactly where those tiers fall is up for debate. In my opinion, regardless of where those tier lines are drawn, Princeton belongs in the tier below Cornell.</p>
<p>I can also say that considering the sheer amount of money you have to pay to go to Princeton, you can get an engineering education at plenty of better programs for less money.</p>
<p>bone, I’m sorry, but aren’t we talking about undergraduate engineering rankings here since we are discussing a student going to undergraduate school?</p>
<p>Yeah but the first, probably 80% of that post was directed at your first post of that last trio. I started typing it before you finished posting the other 2, so I didn’t see them until after I hit submit. Then I added that EDIT to reply to your undergraduate post.</p>
<p>To that I said that peer rankings alone are really only useful in putting schools into their approximate location, and even that is imperfect. Some schools will always be underrated and some will always be overrated, that is just life.</p>
<p>It is kind of like you can ask a lot of people what the top 5 ice cream flavors are and then tabulate the results. The same few (chocolate, vanilla) will always be at the top. There will always be a few that come in roughly the same area after to top couple (strawberry), and then there will be a smattering of other flavors below them. In the end it comes down to the varying and biased opinions of a bunch of people. Some people may not have even tried all the flavors.</p>
<p>Another example: NCAA AP football polls. The same couple teams are always going to be near the top because they are popular and have a history of quality. Then there is a group that sometimes have good programs and are popular at the time. Then there is the bottom of the top 25 where it is just about who is popular at the time and there is no way to tell how accurate that ranking really is. In the end, it comes down to the opinions of a bunch of sports writers who have their own biases and opinions.</p>
<p>The same concept works with only going by peer rankings for schools. The same few (MIT, Stanford) are always going to be up near the top, there will be a few that are always mixed up right behind them (CalTech, UIUC, GaTech, Michigan, etc), and then there is a smattering of other schools that fall into somewhat ambiguous tiers behind them. In the end, it comes down to the opinions of some “experts” who each have their own biases and none of whom actually have experience with every school on the list.</p>
<p>There really is no way to rank schools based on peer rankings alone. The only way to do it is by using objective statistics, but as of yet, all of the methods that attempt to quantify different metrics are imperfect at best and must be taken with a grain of salt. They are a decent measure of rough quality but are not infallible. I, along with more than just a few other people, think that one of those schools that is overrated happens to be Princeton.</p>