<p>Wondering what degree would carry more weight for engineering. While Berkeley is ranked higher in terms of engineering, Princeton is ranked significantly higher overall. Plus princeton has the ivy league name attached to it.</p>
<p>If you're at the top of the class and applying to top grad schools, Berkeley carries more weight because everyone is familiar with the rigor of their program. If you're a below average student, which of course about half the class must be, I think the Princeton degree would be better.</p>
<p>Wait, are we talking about undergrad or grad programs...? Berkeley, definitely, for grad...</p>
<p>They are both great schools so I do not think it really matters.</p>
<p>Im talking undergrad. What if you were interested in going into something other than engineering after you graduate like consulting, investment banking, or patent law</p>
<p>Then I think either would really be okay, especially if you're considering something other than engineering as a future career. See which campus you feel most at home with; they're very, very different environments.</p>
<p>If you're looking at the financial path... i-banking and such... go to Princeton.</p>
<p>Princeton has a financial engineering major. Does anyone know what its focus is on. Do you go into financial fields after you get that like a bussiness major would</p>
<p>When you're talking about engineering prestige, Berkeley is at a different level than Princeton. BUT, on the average Princeton engineering grads are perhaps better than Berkeley engineering grads.</p>
<p>Hence,
undergrad?? --> go to Princeton
grad?? --> go to Berkeley</p>
<p>If financing is not a problem, that should be pretty obvious, isn't it? :)</p>
<p>Nope. Business at Princeton? For example, if you actually want to study business, then why would you go to Princeton? There are some reasons to go to Berkeley, god forbid. Some people like good weather, for instance. and the Bay Area.</p>
<p>The financial engineer major is in the engineering department</p>
<p>Going to berkeley for engineering if you're interested in i-banking/consulting over pton may not be a good idea. This has nothing to do with "prestige" as both are top notch colleges. It has to do with grade deflation. Berkeley is a much more rigorous school than pton engineering and as i-banks are paranoid about high GPA's, it is to your benefit to go to pton and get a better GPA. Furthermore, unless you love engineering, you may be miserable at berkeley because they will make you work a lot harder. Just go with pton.</p>
<p>IMHO, don't go into engineering if you want to persue finance in the future. Just apply to Haas and pton's econ./fin. eng. programs and go with either one of them. Furthermore, it is very advantageous to be highly social in college; excellent people skills are essential for business and college can help you build your people skills. Being a biz. major gives you the time to work on this.</p>
<p>Well, I don't know if I would say that Ibanks are paranoid about high GPA's. I know plenty of MIT engineers who have gotten Ibanking offers, and plenty of them have quite mediocre GPA's. It is MIT, after all.</p>
<p>I also don't know if applying to Haas is a valid option, in the context of this thread. You can only apply to Haas at the end of your college sophomore year, which means that you have to spend your first 2 years of college completing the Haas prereqs with no guarantee that you will actually get into Haas. The latest stats indicate that about 40% of those Berkeley lowerclassmen who apply to Haas don't get in. And that's talking about only those that apply. Plenty of people don't even apply because they know they won't get in. For example, if you get less than a 3.0 (which plenty of Berkeley students do), you're not going to waste your time applying to Haas because you know you're not getting in.</p>
<p>Hence, the point is, if you choose Berkeley right out of high school hoping to get into Haas, you run the substantial risk of not making it into Haas and being forced to major in something else.</p>
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Well, I don't know if I would say that Ibanks are paranoid about high GPA's. I know plenty of MIT engineers who have gotten Ibanking offers, and plenty of them have quite mediocre GPA's. It is MIT, after all.
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<p>MIT is an exception. It doesn't represent the general trend. High GPA isn't a necessity but it is one of the main factors. Furthermore, it isn't very difficult to pull a very high GPA as a business major. </p>
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I also don't know if applying to Haas is a valid option, in the context of this thread. You can only apply to Haas at the end of your college sophomore year, which means that you have to spend your first 2 years of college completing the Haas prereqs with no guarantee that you will actually get into Haas.
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<p>Going to berkeley and taking pre-biz and other non-engineering courses (avoiding the advanced math/physics/chem courses), getting a 3.5+ (very reasonable) will give you a very good (if not guaranteed) chance of making it into Haas. Going to berkeley and majoring in engineering is a very unpredictable case. Many smart people who've worked hard have even flunked out top engineering programs. The nature of engineering vs. business is drastically different. Even if someone works hard and is smart, they may not get over a 3.0 in which recruitment into i-banking will be very hard. Not everyone has state of the art "networking capability". </p>
<p>Bottomline, major in bizness if you want in to banking/consulting.</p>
<p>At this point im not sure if I want to be an engineer, or move to consulting or something else later. I decided to apply for engineering because its harder to transfer into engineerning than out of it. I dont want to apply for bussiness and then decide I want to be an engineer and not be able to transfer into engineering. Also to I-Banks recruit at Princeton even though Princeton doesnt offer a bussiness major.</p>
<p>If you enjoy engineering and math/science-related stuff, there is no reason not to major in it. </p>
<p>And threads like these really are pointless. If you have the luxury of choosing Berkeley or Princeton, than I am quite sure the choice will have very little impact on your life. Both are top-notch, world-reknowned schools. Visit them both, talk to current students, and take it from there. Make the decision based on what your overall impression is of each school and wher eyou feel you'd be happier. As others have said, they are very different schools...but from a prestige standpoint, either one would be great.</p>
<p>I do agree with those that say Princeton is probably better for I-Banking. Chances are the you won't get the job anyway (is it's statistically difficult from any location), but sure, it will be easier from Princeton than almost all other schools. When I mentioned pure business, I was just showing one example of why someone <em>gasp</em> might <em>gasp</em> prefer Berkeley to Princeton <em>double gasp</em>. If I all I was concerned about was I-Banking, sure, I'd choose Princeton over Berkeley, and there are plenty of reasons why someone would prefer Princeton to Berkeley. My post was just showing that it's not "obvious" for everybody.</p>
<p>I agree with live- .</p>
<p>yet another engineering thread wallowing in talk of how to qualify for something other than engineering. </p>
<p>Back to OP:
"Wondering what degree would carry more weight for engineering."</p>
<p>Berkeley, IMO.</p>
<p>I haven't met an engineer who gives a hoot about the Ivy League, to be honest. Most engineers go to state schools, and a lot of them are darned good.</p>
<p>I am interested in Engineering, however, dont want to be limited to low level engineering jobs. I believe private schools that have strong programs in various fields would put you in a better position to extend beyond your engineering degree. Besides, so many engineers complain about becoming obsolete or going into different fields. Now if you were planning to go strictly engineering then I believe state schools are good. However, I want options outside of engineering. Im only 18. So what makes more sense, going to a university that is only strong in engineering like Purdue or Illinois, or going to a school is more well-rounded in terms of strengths such as the ivys.</p>
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MIT is an exception. It doesn't represent the general trend.
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<p>I wouldn't even say that it's really an exception. I've known Berkeley people who've majored in the liberal arts with modest grades who nevertheless got a number of bulge-bracket banking offers. </p>
<p>From what I've seen, the biggest determinant of who gets banking is your personal charisma. In other words - 'the look' and 'the talk'. If you have that certain smoothness, then you can get banking offers. This is why I think that college athletes tend to enjoy unusual success in banking. GPA is a consideration, but only a minor one. </p>
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Furthermore, it isn't very difficult to pull a very high GPA as a business major.
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<p>I grant that it's easier than engineering. But given the cutthroat behavior of students to at least get into Haas, I wouldn't say that it's easy to get high grades in pre-biz at Berkeley. </p>
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Going to berkeley and taking pre-biz and other non-engineering courses (avoiding the advanced math/physics/chem courses), getting a 3.5+ (very reasonable) will give you a very good (if not guaranteed) chance of making it into Haas.
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<p>"Very reasonable"? I'm afraid I must disagree. Prebiz is arguably one of the most cutthroat things you can do at Berkeley, precisely because everybody knows what the stakes are. You don't do well in your pre-biz courses, you won't get into Haas. </p>
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Even if someone works hard and is smart, they may not get over a 3.0 in which recruitment into i-banking will be very hard. Not everyone has state of the art "networking capability".
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<p>I know a guy who almost flunked out of Berkeley chemical engineering, nevertheless is in investment banking right now. I also know a number of Haas students with near-perfect grades who nonetheless couldn't get a single baning offer. Again, I think it has more to do with personal charisma and networking than your grades or what you majored in. </p>
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Bottomline, major in bizness if you want in to banking/consulting.
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<p>It seems to me that plenty of HYPS students get into banking, despite none of them majoring in business, for the simple reason that you can't major in business at HYPS. Nor did they all major in econ either. I've seen Art History and English majors get into banking. </p>
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yet another engineering thread wallowing in talk of how to qualify for something other than engineering.
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<p>Well, I think it is a legitimate topic of inquiry when you consider the fact that plenty of engineering students at even the best engineering schools like MIT opt for non-engineering jobs. </p>
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I haven't met an engineer who gives a hoot about the Ivy League, to be honest. Most engineers go to state schools, and a lot of them are darned good
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<p>See, there is that attitude again that I have seen from plenty of people. Even the "worst" Ivy engineering program is still ranked far above average. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of engineering programs out there, most of them being no-name programs. Even the engineering coming out of, say, Brown, is going to a higher-ranked program than the engineers coming out of some no-name state school. </p>
<p>Let's be perfectly honest. Most engineering programs out there are nowhere near as good as even the worst Ivy engineering program.</p>