<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I basically wanted to know if the 'big name' schools like Duke, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Yale, Columbia, UChicago and Harvard are any good for engineering.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>UChicago doesn't offer Enginnering.</p>
<p>Northwestern is very good for Engineering. </p>
<p>Duke, Columbia, Harvard & Brown are pretty good. Note: Duke does have one of the best BME programs though.</p>
<p>I wouldn't recommend Dartmouth or Yale.</p>
<p>Harvard and Brown and Columbia aren't known for stellar engineering programs, of all things...</p>
<p>yeah def. northwestern has a great engineering program, with a lot of connections to firms in chicago. duke has a good biomedical engineering program (i know they're good in all things bio related), but i'm not too sure about the other disciplines.</p>
<p>Seconding Duke, Northwestern.</p>
<p>When you say "good engineering programs," though, Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UChicago, and Harvard don't really come to mind...</p>
<p>Going to Harvard for an engineering degree is like going to the Mayo Clinic for legal advice.</p>
<p>uchicago is pretty strong when it comes to physics however. yale & harvard both have VERY small engineering deparments. i believe the ME class @ yale is under 40 ppl. most of their engineering departments have about 10-25 people in them. brown is probably not very strong @ engineering.</p>
<p>besides if you go to duke you have a great basketball team to watch through march madness. uiuc definitely comes to mind as well, and northwestern although not that gr8 @ sports is still a big 10 school.</p>
<p>Of that list, Duke and Northwestern are "good" for engineering.
But not all types. Duke is mostly known for it's BME program, second only to Johns Hopkins. Northwestern is known for it's Materials Science program. Other good schools comparable to Duke and Northwestern and maybe slightly better are UIUC, UMich, Cornell, CMU, etc.</p>
<p>"Big name" engineering schools are the not the same as your general "big name schools" like Harvard, Yale, etc.</p>
<p>The top schools are more like: MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UMich, USC, Caltech, CMU, Purdue.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, no, none of the schools you listed are known for being "the top" in engineering, although Northwestern was the best of those you mentioned.</p>
<p>Matthew,</p>
<p>Actually, USC has no top-10 department (according to US News) and isn't that known in engineering circle (it's peer assessment is only 3.7/5.0). What's funny is it is ranked like 7th in the "overall" graduate ranking in the US News. If you research more and pay particular attention to the ranking's methodology, you can probably figure out this oddity.</p>
<p>cherrybarry,</p>
<p>While you are right about Duke, Northwestern is more balanced than you probably think. Its IE is top-5, CE+ME are top-10, and BME,ChemE,EnvE are top-15. So Northwestern is actually pretty good in almost all types, except CompE/EE (by no means terrible however; ranked like top-30). Since CompE/EE are what come into people's mind when they think of engineering, that's probably where you got the impression that NU isn't good at "all types".</p>
<p>What are you insinuating about USC, Sam? Are they "buying" their ranking or something? I personally don't understand how USC can be so highly ranked so I'm interested in your assessement....</p>
<p>I have some ideas but I didn't put all the criteria they used into things like spreadsheet and do a sensitivity analysis. So I can't fully explain why it's ranked so high. Instead of giving my own opinion, let me list how USC is ranked among the 10 indicators and you can decide for yourself if the overall rank is justified. The (number) right after each indicator is the weight of that indicator.</p>
<p>Peer Assessment (0.25): 24th
Recruiter Assessment (0.15): 24th
GRE score (0.0675): 40th
Acceptance rate (.0325):77th
2004 students/faculty (0.075): 2nd
Total graduate engineering student enrollment (0.0375?): 2nd
2004 faculty membership in Nat'l Academy of Engg (0.075): 5th
2004 engineering research expenditure (0.15): 7th
2004 engineering reserach expenditure per faculty member (0.1): 1st
PhDs granted 2003-04 (0.0625): 20th</p>
<p>As you can see, USC gets a huge boost from research expenditure in 2004. Also, it has high number of students (in terms of total and per faculty member) which, to me, seems absurd to be used as one of the indicators. </p>
<p>The departmental rankings, in which USC has no department in the top10, is based solely on peer assessment (assessed by department heads) score.</p>
<p>Point well taken. Scratch USC off the list I mentioned above. I'm not from California or the West Coast so I don't really know too much about those schools except the reputation of Berkeley, Caltech, and Stanford.</p>
<p>USC is more like a safety school. They are very liberal with financial aid.</p>
<p>for intls??</p>
<p>
And those scholarships worth half tuition and upwards require a personal interview.</p>
<p>ahh yes - my mistake</p>
<p>i meant scholarships actually! i am aware of the personal interview reqt. but i'm assuming that it'll be in my home country (india)</p>
<p>
[quote]
UChicago doesn't offer Enginnering.
[/quote]
If they had engineering, I definitely would be going there.</p>
<p>Guys, don't follow just the rankings. I too used to think of USC as a low-down school, but upon comparing my visit of USC's facilities with those of Purdue, Virginia Tech, MIT, and UVa, I found the school much better than I expected. If you look at the rankings, Harvard is ranked something like 22nd or 23rd in engineering (not sure exactly), but in reality it should be near the bottom of the list. You must also take other factors into consideration. Purdue is ranked highly, but I really hated the campus and the location as a whole (my personal opinion there). USC is a really good school for engineering. It is certainly known within the engineering circles.</p>
<p>And Sam, may I remind you that USC's film school is within the top 10 in the country. Many say it is #1, but I'm not going to argue that little detail.</p>
<p>Many "big-name", top 10-15 universities have excellent Engineering programs:</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology
Cornell University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</p>
<p>Couple other good ones include:</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University
Rice University</p>
<p>Well, I live in LA, of course I know USC has a reputated film school. I am also an engineer, so I also happen to know enough to look at engineering ranking with critical eyes. Not to mention I have quite a few coworkers that went to USC..but I am not gonna get into the details. ;)</p>