<p>There may be a thread on this already, but what do you all find to be the best engineering schools?</p>
<p>Just take the top 10 of Us News :)</p>
<p>That's too easy, I want to hear people's personal opinions, though.</p>
<p>What type of engineering?</p>
<p>Biomedical, Chemical, Aeronautical (which is a lot less common), Electrical . . .</p>
<p>But also engineering in general.</p>
<p>There are so many excellent Engineering schools:</p>
<p>THE RESEARCH MECCAS:</p>
<h1>1 California Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>1 Stanford University</h1>
<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley</h1>
<h1>5 Carnegie Mellon University</h1>
<h1>5 Cornell University</h1>
<h1>5 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign</h1>
<h1>5 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</h1>
<h1>5 Georgia Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>10 Johns Hopkins University</h1>
<h1>10 Northwestern University</h1>
<h1>10 Princeton University</h1>
<h1>10 Purdue University</h1>
<h1>10 University of Texas-Austin</h1>
<h1>10 University of Wisconsin-Madison</h1>
<p>THE NON-RESEARCH MECCAS:</p>
<h1>1 Harvey Mudd College</h1>
<h1>1 Rice University</h1>
<h1>1 Rose Hulman Institute</h1>
<h1>4 Cooper Union</h1>
<h1>5 CalPoly San Luis Obispo</h1>
<h1>5 US Air Force Academy</h1>
<h1>5 US Military Academy</h1>
<h1>5 US Naval Academy</h1>
<p>Some schools have excellent departments in one field in Engineering, even if they don't have great colleges of Engineering. For example, the University of Delaware and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities have amazing Chemical Engineering departments. Boston University, Case Western, Duke, Penn and UCSD are all excellent in BME.</p>
<p>I would classify Rice among the research universities. The NRC rankings place them in the top 40 regarding faculty research output and their ability to educate researchers.</p>
<p>"Some schools have excellent departments in one field in Engineering, even if they don't have great colleges of Engineering. For example, the University of Delaware and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities have amazing Chemical Engineering departments. Boston University, Case Western, Duke, Penn and UCSD are all excellent in BME."</p>
<p>I believe UCSD has the 11th ranked engineering department in the country. So im not sure how that is not classified as a great college for engineering. You are correct about its BME, i believe its ranked 2nd in the country. The rest of the schools you posted about not being great are significantly lower in the US News rankings.</p>
<p>UCCrhis, according to the ranking of undergraduate Engineering programs, UCSD is #22, not #11. That's not to say that UCSD isn't an amazing Engineering school, but its real strength lies in the BME field.</p>
<p>For undergraduate engineering UCSD is #22. Usually when evaluating a program, and its prestige, it is usually its graduate/doctoral ranking that takes precedent, where UCSD is ranked 11th. According to the graduate ranking by US News which, in my oppinion is the most respected and universally accepted ranking for Engineering in the US, the top 15 programs are:</p>
<p>MIT
Stanford
UC Berkeley
Georgia Institute of Tech
UIUC
Michigan
USC
Cal Tech
Carnegie Mellon
Purdue
UCSD
Cornell
University of Texas-Austin
Texas A&M
UCLA</p>
<p>I agree clearly UCSD's strength and prestige in engineering is in Bio-Engineering.
Its amazing how many of the top 15 grad engineering programs for engineering are in California. Stanford, UC Berkeley, Caltech, UCSD, UCLA</p>
<p>this is definetly biased but:</p>
<p>MIT
Stanford
University of Michigan
University of Texas at austin(best electrical engineering program)</p>
<p>Kettering University is very good</p>
<p>any thoughts on ucla for ee?</p>
<p>ucchris,</p>
<p>If you examine it more closely, you should notice "prestige" isn't a big factor. USC and UCSD have rather low prestige ratings but they are ranked where they are because the ranking is more a factor of % profs with NAE memberships and research $ per faculty. In USC case, most of the NAE members are in the EE department, their highest ranked department in the US News (still not top-10 though based on prestige which I think is kinda odd also). I don't think a good EE department automatically translates into good "overall" engineering school. The ranking also favors those that have higher number of expensive projects. That favors schools with more focus on biomedical or EE research; that favors USC (EE) or UCSD (BME). FYI: USC has no department ranked in the top-10. Schools with sizable, say, enviornmental engineering department suffer since grants/funding tend to be smaller in that area and therefore grants per faculty member would be small. It doesn't mean those projects aren't important or any less exciting but that's just not where most money go to. Theoretically, a small school that is able to get few $$ projects would be ranked quite well since the $ per faculty would be relatively large. Harvard is a close example. </p>
<p>It's the departmental rankings that reflects the prestige within the academia of that particular field.</p>
<p>I was argueing that ranking translates into prestige, not prestige into ranking. Only on college confidential would one argue that USC and UCSD are not prestigious, highly ranked schools, especially when it comes to engineering.</p>
<p>also by no meens would i dissagree with you however that a high ranking in one certain area translates into a exellent department or education. However, unfortuantly, when many students choose a university to attend, for undergraduate or graduate, they look at the rankings to help guide them in regards to the selection of their program. I would imagine both USC and UCSD engineering programs look quite promising, especially do to their high ranking, I believe 8 and 11 overall (doctoral granting universities) even if it is bolstered by their strenghts in electrical engineering and bio-engineering.</p>
<p>Nobody really looks at "overall" ranking when it comes to applying to graduate schools. The applicants, through their advisors and other exposures, generally have fairly good ideas where the good programs of the interested field are and they are generally reflected much better from the departmental rankings, not "overall" ranking. I went to graduate school myself and departmental ranking (US News or NRC; I also consulted with my advisor of course) was the one I looked at, not this "overall" ranking.</p>
<p>So does that mean USC's good if I want to major in EE (but not if I choose Chemical or Computers)?</p>
<p>I was not refering to the overal ranking of schools, i was refering to the graduate ranking of a department. And I disagree, I do believe that graduate applicants, such as myself, do look at a. departmental ranking and b. ranking of specific areas of focus in the department. Just to use one of those two would be, in my opinion foolish. When one is aplying to a graduate program, lets just say political science, one would first examine the graduate ranking of the deaprtment, then examine their specific area of interest, lets say comparative politics, and its ranking. I believe one would use both the overal strength of the department and strength in one specific field inside the department to evaluate what graduate school to attend. When it comes to engineering, i believe, obviously the area of interest inside of engineering, aka electrical or bio and its ranking is extremely important, but if the school is not respected in its overal engineering ranking, that clearly would effect some students decisions on attending the university, rightfully or not. Both the overal departments graduate ranking and rank of area of study inside the department should be used to help evaluate the overal programs quality and then specifically your area of study inside the department. Many individuals would choose a prestigious school or one whose overal engineering department is ranked far higher than another, even if the other schools area of study of the applicant, ie. electrical engineering or bio engineering, is ranked slightly higher in that one area. This may not be the correct way to select a school, but this practice is commonly executed in graduate studies and university selections. Lets say UCLA has the 12th best engineering department, in hindsight, and University of Alabama has the 35th ranked engineering department, in hindsight, but U of Alabama has the 9th best electrical engineering program and UCLA the 16th best electrical engineering program (all in hindsight), where would you go. Likely, even amongst most graduate students applying to attend graduate studies in electrical engineering, most would likely choose to attend UCLA, with some exceptions of course.</p>