Best science and engineering schools

College Search & Selection
21

<p>Yes, but IBclass, when I listed GT and CMU, I clearly stated that they are strong only in Engineering. Admittedly, they are not as strong in the Sciences.</p>

22

<p>You act as if there’s a huge difference there. Outside of the top 10 for each discipline, the score differences that determine the rankings are quite small, and therefore a rating difference dr becomes small as the rankings become larger. I’d argue that:</p>

<p>a) the arithmetic mean is a poor way to average the rankings. Let’s take it to the extreme here: say school 1 has program A ranked at #1 and program B ranked at #60 and school 2 has A and B both ranked at 30. Is it fair to say that they’re equivalent schools?
b) the difference between an arithmetic mean of 26 and 38 is almost negligible - 0.1 to 0.2 points at most. Your argument was that Duke was superior to these schools in the sciences, but 0.1 to 0.2 points is just not noticeable.</p>

23

<p>

Of course. I wasn’t advocating that they be removed. In fact, my original post did not mention those schools at all and merely added to your suggestions. </p>

<p>I saw no harm in adding a school that’s in the top 25 for science/engineering (and everything else), which certainly fits my conception of “very good,” let alone a school whose performance in the Putnam competition and production of Goldwater scholars is behind only 2-4 universities (Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, MIT). Apparently others did – for reasons that are beyond me.</p>

24

<p>USNWR Rankings in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Math, Computer Science</p>

<p>Duke #12, #43, #29, #34, #21, #20</p>

<p>I have to say that those numbers overall aren’t very impressive for a so called top ten school.</p>

25

<p>[United</a> States National Research Council rankings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Research_Council_rankings]United”>United States National Research Council rankings - Wikipedia)</p>

26

<p>eatalot,
If you are going to put Duke up there for sciences, you should have thrown in Cornell, Wisconsin, Michigan (all have much better averages) just to be consistent. Even Northwestern should have made your list (bio: 29, chem: 8, math: 18, physics 26). </p>

<p>hey IBclass06,
If you can do the averages for more schools and let us see the list, I think it will surprise many people.</p>

27

<p>sam lee, check my post #25</p>

28

<p>^thanks!
NRC averages:
Biological Sciences</p>

<hr>

<p>1 Stanford
2 MIT
3 Harvard
4 UC San Diego
5 UC Berkeley
6 Yale
7 Washington
8 Columbia
9 Wisconsin
10 Duke
11 Chicago
12 Cal Tech
13 Washington St Louis
14 Penn
15 Johns Hopkins
16 UCLA
17 Michigan
18 Northwestern
19 Cornell
20 UC Davis
21 Utah
22 SUNY Stony Brook
23 North Carolina
24 Brandeis
25 Texas</p>

29

<p>Engineering</p>

<hr>

<p>1 MIT
2 UC Berkeley
3 Stanford
4 Cal Tech
5 Princeton
6 Cornell
7 Illinois
8 Michigan
9 UC San Diego
10 Purdue
11 Minnesota
12 Texas
13 Northwestern
14 UC Santa Barbara
15 Carnegie Mellon
16 Wisconsin
17 Penn
18 Georgia Tech
19 UCLA
20 Penn State
21 Washington
22 Rice
23 UC Davis
24 Case Western
25 Johns Hopkins</p>

30

<p>Phys Sciences & Math</p>

<hr>

<p>1 UC Berkeley
2 MIT
3 Cal Tech
4 Princeton
5 Harvard
6 Cornell
7 Chicago
8 Stanford
9 UC San Diego
10 Washington
11 Texas
12 Yale
13 UCLA
14 Columbia
15 Illinois
16 Wisconsin
17 Brown
18 Rice
19 Carnegie Mellon
20 Johns Hopkins
21 Maryland
22 Purdue
23 Penn State
24 Michigan
25 Northwestern</p>

31

<p>Those NRC rankings are old, but things change slowly so they are useful. New ones coming out this year!</p>

32

<p>Those NRC rankings are for graduate schools, useless for undergrad prep, since they ignore some of the best schools that don’t have graduate programs.

</p>

<p>Here is a ranking of undergrad schools that feed into those graduate programs:</p>

<p><a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html[/url]”>http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Note that this is not a ranking of four-year programs; it is a narrow view of future PhD producers, those feeding into the NRC-ranked schools, and doesn’t include engineering.</p>

33

<p>SamLee, when you say Washington, do you mean Washington U in St. Louis?</p>

34

<p>

</h1>

<p>Nice…let’s look at Alex’s top 5 for comparison…with Earth science substituted for Gelology.</p>

<p>Stanford: #1, #1, #1, #2, #2, #1 = AVG: 1.33
MIT: #2, #1, #1, #2, #2, #1 = AVG: 1.50
Berkeley: #2, #1, #3, #4, #2, #1 = AVG: 2.17
Caltech: #4, #1, #3, #1, #7, #11 = AVG: 4.5
Harvard: #4, #5, #3, #9, #2, #16 = AVG: 6.5</p>

35

<p>Good point UCBChemEGrad. That truly shows the very top science schools in this country.</p>

36

<p>From USNWR:</p>

<p>For Sciences:
JHU:
Bio: #6
Chem: #28
Computer Science: #28
Earth Science: #21
Physics: #20
Math: #21</p>

<p>For engineering:
JHU: Overall: #25
Environmental: #6
Biomedical: #1</p>

<p>^^ FYI: I only get access to the top 10 for the engineering and minor science fields, but I think it’s safe to assume JHU is probably at least top 20 to top 30 in most if not all of them.
There is not really a ranking here where JHU dips below the top 30 in either engineering or sciences…so…yeah. Lol.</p>

<p>I think the overall pairing of science and engineering is stronger at JHU than at, say, Rice or Duke.</p>

37

<p>SKE4892,</p>

<p>Washington = University of Washington (Seattle)</p>

38

<p>So, to answer what I take to be the OP’s question, best science AND engineering, I’d say:</p>

<ol>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Wisconsin</li>
<li>UIUC</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Texas</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
</ol>

39

<p>If you consider schools without graduate programs, insert Harvey Mudd as a 1.</p>

40

<p>bclintonk, I agree with your top 4, but Cornell, Michigan, Princeton, Texas, UIUC and Wisconsin should all be tied at #5.</p>