<p>In the end the students drive the system as others have said. So same syllabus, same text, different students results in different levels of difficulty. It is true at the same school for classes in and out of honors programs. Could be the same teacher also and the performance levels and expectations are different due to class makeup.</p>
<p>To those who find it hard to believe that a state school could be stronger than any ivy, the quality is very dependent on field of study. My husband teaches in an engineering department (not computer science), and if you look at the engineering rankings, you won't see many ivies among the top schools. It's been a long time since he graduated, but he still works closely with professors at his old school and he is familiar with their current course offerings. The quality and breadth of classes, and the prestige of the faculty, are not at the high level of his state school. While I would prefer not to specify the school, this observation is not unique to these particular institutions.</p>
<p>Many Ivies - such as Harvard haven't to date emphasized engineering. This is changing however.</p>
<p>Harvard is said to be in about thirtieth place in engineering, according to the ever-debatable national rankings, and that implies that it already outranks at least twenty state universities. Perhaps Harvard does not YET outrank my Big Ten alma mater in its strongest engineering specialties--and that is an issue of considerable interest to my son. But already Harvard tends to admit an entering freshman class every year that is MUCH better prepared in math on average and much better able to keep up with heavy loads of challenging reading than my alma mater does, even though my alma mater has grown more selective over time and has always attracted some strong in-state students with its low list price. </p>
<p>I'll let each of my children decide what their meaningful set of trade-offs is about where to apply and which offers of admission, if more than one is received, to accept. But as of today, I certainly wouldn't discourage a student with strong engineering interests from applying to Harvard, as Harvard has plenty of interesting features, and not-too-shabby engineering.</p>
<p>No, if you specified engineering, then most agree that state schools such as Michigan, Georgia Tech, etc. have better programs. Compare your husband's current school to MIT.</p>
<p>Obviously, MIT has a uniformly stronger student body, as well as top-notch departments in most engineering disciplines. However, there are plenty of engineering departments here and at other state schools which are ranked higher than those at MIT. For a student who has a specific field of interest within engineering, it would be worthwhile to investigate state schools.</p>
<p>Where does one look for rankings of undergraduate engineering departments? What is the basis for the rankings?</p>
<p>tokenadult,
I know a lot of engineers with huge experience in industry including my H., who indicated that engineering companies usually hire locally. For that reason, ranking of engineering departments appear not to be that important, unless the plan is to look for a job at national level.</p>
<p>That brings up an interesting question. How accessible to the general public by Web searching is the on-campus recruiting list at various engineering colleges? I get the impression that there are a few engineering colleges that have employers come from all over the world to recruit on campus, and that might be a glimpse at what private industry thinks is the quality (and difficulty, the concern of the OP in this thread) of various programs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How accessible to the general public by Web searching is the on-campus recruiting list at various engineering colleges?
[/quote]
Usually not very. Typically you need an ID and password to log onto the website in order to view the listings. Some colleges have "brag" sheets of where recent grads have found jobs, but its more hit-or-miss to find these.</p>
<p>On difficulty, Engineering in general, could be the most difficult major no matter where you go. More difficult than, for example, bio or other science based pre-med major. I am using these examples just because I am familiar somewhat with Engineering and Bio. I have read also, that MIT is very difficult, somebody advised not to go there for pre-med because of chances of not getting high enough GPA to go to Med. school.
I would also look how much resources are devoted to engineering at particular college. For example, Case Western is known to devote more resources to engineering and pre-med. So, assumption is that engineering must be good there, I also heard - very difficult.
I understand that this type of research is not very structured or "scientific".</p>
<p>Miami, do not think the evidence bears out your comment about MIT. S has many friends in med school who graduated from MIT; the key difference appears to be that they can major in virtually anything since the MIT core essentially prepares a student for the med school pre-req's. The UROP program is another factor- starting as Freshman, students can work on a wide range of research projects for either $ or course credit, and so the pre-med piece that tends to trip up students (i.e. what have you done that demonstrates interest in medicine beyond the classroom) is almost automatic at MIT.</p>
<p>You can work in a chem lab develping composite materials for artifical limbs; a linguistics lab working on simulated speech for stroke victims; the very famous media lab trying to understand the connection between vision and writing, etc. There are hundreds of well funded research projects going on at MIT every day and it is easy to connect with one or two of them while you are an undergrad.</p>
<p>Not to hijack the thread... but the kids we knew at MIT have done exceptionally well in med school admissions- many of them having spent four years exploring other academic interests besides "pre-med". I can't think of a reason to avoid MIT if you're interested in medicine- the place lives and breathes the scientific method and has phenomenal resources available to undergrads.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Where does one look for rankings of undergraduate engineering departments?
[/quote]
Check out the U.S. New & World Report rankings for engineering.
Undergraduate:Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News and World Report
In addition to the overall rankings, the list on the right has rankings by specialty (the list of schools where the highest degree is a doctorate will be the most accurate.)
There is another U.S. News list for engineering graduate schools; the rankings are similar.</p>
<p>
[quote]
engineering companies usually hire locally
[/quote]
This is definitely not true for the top engineering schools. Out of the many hundreds of companies recruiting here, only a handful are local. The rest come from all over the country. Employers are well aware of the rankings above. They recruit at all the top engineering schools, and specifically target departments that are strong in their area of need. The top companies recruit at the top departments and are familiar with the rankings of various fields within engineering.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How accessible to the general public by Web searching is the on-campus recruiting list at various engineering colleges?
[/quote]
Most schools hold a large engineering recruitment fair in the fall, and a smaller one in the spring. I just checked our university website and the list of recruiters from earlier in the semester has been removed. I would recommend emailing the career office of schools you are considering for this information; I'm sure they would be happy to share it. You should contact the engineering career office, rather than the university career office (these are often separate units.)</p>
<p>With all due respect to the other Ivies, one university in the Ivy League -- Cornell -- has an engineering school that routinely appears on lists of the top 10 engineering schools in the country.</p>
<p>But then, Cornell has always been the "different" Ivy.</p>
<p>I mean I would imagine. It would be ironic to think that you have to meet all of these requirements and the schooling would be the same as any other school. MIT is known for its engineering department throughout the world. It is also the most heavily funded engineering school in the united states. I mean in general, the information in a class is the same. I mean its not like they are teaching different information. Calculus is Calculus. But I would think that top schools would require you know way more than is required of anyone else. They should also be moving at a faster pace. Then again, you have politicans who graduate from these ivy league, business and law schools. Then it makes you question everything you know about life and learning at that point, lol.</p>
<p>Generally, big corporations come to big engineering schools for talent. Now that excludes MIT because that is just in a league of its own. But like LSU for example, you have a career fair and you have 300 different companies that are looking for engineers. Alot has to do with geographic location. I mean LSU obviously has every oil company known to man, because that is what makes up the economy in this area. As will texas and other oil producing states. I guess recruiting has alot to do with where you live. I mean here is a list of companies that are large contributors to the school.</p>
<p>At the PLATINUM level:
IBM</p>
<p>At the SILVER level:
Ernst & Young
Fluor
Halliburton
Shell Oil Company</p>
<p>At the BRONZE level:
Baton Rouge Army Recruiting
Capital One
Chevron
CITGO Petroleum Corporation
DuPont
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
ExxonMobil
GEC
JCPenney
Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC
Odebrecht Construction, Inc.
Papa Murphy's
Schlumberger
Target
The Dow Chemical Company
Vector Marketing</p>
<p>Now that by no means represents the entirety of the recruiting program, that is just the companies who are top donators. They get excellent returns in recruiting. But generally you have to have an ID and log in to see the full list, which is quite insane to say the least. It is crazy how many companies are looking for engineers these days.</p>
<p>I mean the real list is 300 companies long, you have alot of local engineering companies, then you have all of the oil companies. Then you have companies like IBM and Microsoft thrown in there. So there is a large assortment. But generally, if you major in engineering here, its either working off shore, working at a chemical, refinery, or nuclear plant, or working for a construction company. National defense is really big here to, alot of people go to work for the government on military projects. But you won't see google or anything like that over here, lol.</p>
<p>You will see Intel and companies like northrop grumman, and CAT. I just don't see anyone from a southern school like LSU going to work for microsoft or the others big tech companies. Its oil, chemical, construction, ships, engines, turbines, i think that about sums it up.</p>
<p>When considering any school, especially those majoring in engineering. Definately look at the companies that recruit there. This will increase your chances of getting into the industry you want.</p>
<p>I went to an Ivy, and have taken classes at a state flagship. I knew the education was different when one of my teachers at the state school kept apologizing for "the heavy reading load." His definition of heavy reading was 3-4 chapters a week. At Brown, the typical reading load for many classes was a book a week, plus a few scholarly articles. </p>
<p>I am sure that there are some very rigorous classes offered at state schools. My example is an anecdote only, but it was revealing to me at the time.</p>