<p>top 7 privates:</p>
<p>MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Princeton</p>
<p>This has been a very helpful discussion. Thanks to all who posted so far. You don't get this kind of information and perspective from books, web sites, and counselors. The employability factor is certainly important and overlooked.</p>
<p>Any perspectives on the issues of faculty involvement with undergrads, accessibility, faculty making the subject interesting, quality of instruction? There is a poll on this board about the most important factors is selecting a college. The top three things in the poll are academic excellence in the major, prestige, good vibes/feel at home. How might these apply to engineering? What makes a great UNDERGRADUATE engineering education? What goes into "academic excellence" in the engineering major for someone who might want to go on to GRADUATE SCHOOLl? Does the school/faculty really make much difference? Or is it that some schools attract great students who would succeed regardless of the school? What are the "value added" factors? I am not sure there are answers to these questions but it helps to hear what others think.</p>
<p>If you go to any of the top 10 engineering schools and you come out with at least a 3.3 (this may need to be higher for some colleges (little easier), and lower for others (little harder to earn)), you will be in great shape for the job market, i think we can all agree on this</p>
<p>my $ 0.02</p>
<ol>
<li><p>getting a 3.3 is VERY HARD at a place like cornell or JHU, or just about any ABET engineering school for that matter. Its not like a liberal arts degree, just to put that in context</p></li>
<li><p>While a school with some name recognision is important for internships and job placement, most engineering school grads gets paid like any other engineer. The Colorado School of mines, for example will probably get you that 50k/yr job just like Cornell will. The key really is internships, research, and GPA.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Rtksyg, I think we had this debate before. In industry, Cornell and Michigan usually occupy the same space. For undergraduate engineering, I would say that MIT, Stanford, Cal and CalTech are the top 4 in no particular order. Illinois, Cornell, Michigan and CMU are the next 4 in no particular order.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>I couldn't remember the precise context of our discussion last time. However, in terms of employment and salary for engineering grads (with BS only), I believe that <em>on average</em>, MIT, Caltech, Stanford are in no particular order but higher than Berkeley (please don't debate me on this). Following closely are Berkeley and Cornell. Michigan would arguably come before CMU and UIUC.</p>
<p>Starting salaries are not telling since they are subject to geographic cost differentials and specific Engineering concentrations. But for what it's worth, Michigan undergraduate Engineers have a higher starting salary than Cornell undergraduate Engineers.</p>
<p>In 2003, the mean starting salary for undergaduates at Cornell Engineering was $49,500. The mean starting salary for undergaduates at Michigan Engineering in 2003 was $50,200</p>
<p>But like I said, this means very little. However, I know for a fact that Michigan is generally considered to be one of the top 5 or 6 undergraduate Engineering programs...on par with Cornell and UIUC.</p>
<p>Im an MIT grad with 25 years of experience in engineering and am a hiring manager for the worlds leading aerospace company. This is the deal: too many people on these boards are hyper-focused on a so-called top 5 or 10 undergraduate rating. It doesnt matter, folks. If you are in a top 100 program, youve excelled in school, and possess the other qualities that we are looking for, that is all that matters. We dont care if you went to MIT, the U of Florida, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Caltech .it doesnt factor into the decision. Here is my suggestion: get into to a good, solid undergraduate institution. A top 100 school would be great, but not required. Find a good school that is a fit for you and makes financial sense. Study hard and get good grades. Go to graduate school, and get at least a Masters. By that time, your interests will be more focused, and there will be specific grad schools that have the programs you want. Rankings will be largely meaningless at this point. Get into these programs. Again, do well. Make sure you love your field of study .this really is the most important thing. If you are chasing money, prestige and rankings, my prediction is you will be a failure in a career in engineering,</p>
<p>Amen... especially your last sentence.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>Sorry but even until now I would question the validity of 'mean' salary given by the Cornell Career report. You surely notice that the average response is less than 10%. Now I would believe that Michigan Engineering graduates more students than Cornell each year. And given my assumption that generally Cornell engineering students are more hardworking than Michigan Engineering students, I would argue that the real mean of starting salary of Cornell engineering grads is higher than Michigan's. My assumption is based on the fact that it's significantly harder to get into Cornell Engineering than into Michigan Engineering, also the curve distribution of Michigan admits has a significantly larger variance I believe.</p>
<p>This continues to be an interesting and illuminating discussion. Thanks. Where else can you get this kind of perspective? (rhetorical question). The post from ROGRACER and others have filled my head with other questions. ROGRACER, does your own success in the engineering field prove the value of an MIT education? Did MIT not contribute somehow in a special way to your development? Do most engineering jobs NOT REQUIRE the kind of high skill and ability associated with the elite engineering schools? Do the elite engineering schools not instill greater confidence? Do they not do a better job of exciting and motivating and inspiring students while they are there? Is it possible that you have forgotten what MIT did for you? Every student brings a great deal with them to their college. Do the elite engineering colleges not add anything of special value? How about role models and mentors and contacts? How about levels of expectation? How about personal attention and quality of instruction? How about the contributions of tradition and the intellectual community? Does the "brand name" say anything to prospective employers about the likely quality of the candidate? </p>
<p>I have no basis for disagreeing but I would be surprised if what you are saying is completely true. Help me understand.</p>
<p>The school to school variance in engineering salaries is small and has little to do with how hard the school is thought to be. There is more variance between majors than anything else. Engineering is a field where school name is far less important. Even MIT's reported salaries are not much different than any Big 10 school when COL is factored in.
Wisconsin had higher salaries than UM in several fields and vice versa. Purdue beat both in some fields but on average they were all close.</p>
<p>Rtkysg, I am not stating an opinion. As a person who sets corporate strategy for strategic recruiting I know exactly what corporations are currently doing. </p>
<p>The starting salaries I mentioned above are not mine. They are posted on the Cornell and Michigan websites. I doubt they are based on false or unreliable data.</p>
<p>And you are incorrect about the curve distribution variance. Michigan Engineering is known to be one of the toughest in the nation...certainly as tough as Cal, MIT, Stanford and Cornell. Finally, selectivity is meaningless. Cooper Union and Princeton are more selective than MIT and CalTech. It does not mean that they are the best at Engineering.</p>
<p>rogracer,</p>
<p>Sorry I don't buy your claim. Your company's policy would not certainly represent the policy of the rest leading companies. It's of no coincidence that you will find 'too' many Stanford grads in Google and Cisco, Caltech and MIT grads in Oracle, Michigan grads in Ford. Microsoft are famous to recruit mostly top ten school grads. NASA are also dominated by MIT, Caltech and Cornell grads. The grads from the top school would normally have an edge for employment. Nevertheless, it's not really clear whether they're good because of the schools or the schools just embolden their profiles (Notice that a good students, i.e. who gets into top schools, have tendency to become a good employee).</p>
<p>"If you are chasing money, prestige and rankings, my prediction is you will be a failure in a career in engineering,"</p>
<p>I also disagree with your last claim. If you lack visions, you would only end up being a senior engineer somewhere. This was definitely Sergey's view when he dropped out his PhD to build Google. Do you really believe that money is not a significant, if not the whole drive for his acts?</p>
<p>"The starting salaries I mentioned above are not mine. They are posted on the Cornell and Michigan websites. I doubt they are based on false or unreliable data."</p>
<p>Yes Alexandre, I've read it from Cornell report, but look at the response rate which is so low that it is not admissible for comparison.</p>
<p>"And you are incorrect about the curve distribution variance. Michigan Engineering is known to be one of the toughest in the nation...certainly as tough as Cal, MIT, Stanford and Cornell. Finally, selectivity is meaningless. Cooper Union and Princeton are more selective than MIT and CalTech. It does not mean that they are the best at Engineering."</p>
<p>No Alexandre, you're wrong, perhaps because you don't know much about Engineering. Michigan engineering is NOT regarded as one of the toughest in the States, certainly not as tough as Berkeley or MIT. FYI, MIT, Berkeley, Caltech, Cornell are also significantly tougher than Stanford in engineering. Cooper Union and Princeton Engineering is NOT as selective as MIT/Caltech. You must understand that top students in engineering generally would never apply to CU or Princeton.</p>
<p>Rtksyg, I can tell you picked NASA and Cisco at random. According to the facts, NASA top researchers and engineers come from MIT, CalTech, Michigan and Purdue. Cisco's top managers, Engineers and researchers come Stanford, Cal, Caltech, MIT, UIUC and Michigan. Cornell's strength is Materials and Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>And the starting salaries for Cornell and Michigan undergrads is actually based on a significant percentage of students who actually joined the workforce. Of Michigan's 1,000 undergraduate students who graduated last year, 400 went straight to graduate school and another 200 chose non-technical jobs (IBanking, Consulting etc...). Of the remaining 400 students who sought jobs in the technical domain, 250 shared their starting salaries. The statistics are very similar for Cornell. Of the 500 or so Cornell undergrads who graduate with Engineering degrees last year, only 150 or so sough jobs in Technical fields. So even if only 60 or 70 of them share their starting salaries, it is a telling number.</p>
<p>"According to the facts, NASA top researchers and engineers"</p>
<p>Ah Alexandre, you miss it again. Top researchers normally hold PhD degree. And I think we agree here to speak only for grads with BS only.</p>
<p>No, Alexandre. Small number is not a good measure, whatever the reason is. Especially since the more ambitious (and may be better) students would typically pursue Masters before they start working. Also if your stats about the percentage of students who continue their grad study is accurate, we can then take the graduate school admission stats for both school as a gauge. Now, do you really think the 500+ Michigan engineering students on the average have equal placement in graduate schools as the 300+ Cornell engineering students? Com'on !!</p>
<p>This is my opinion, having been in a previous life an engineering graduate of a "good" school and a practicing engineer: </p>
<p>There will be a (small number of ) elite jobs that will be available only to elite grads of elite schools. Some small consulting firms may only interview at 5-10 colleges, e.g.</p>
<p>For the bigger firms that hire nationally- which are a huge chunk of engineering jobs- I can't take any issue with rogracer's description. They hire people, from a large number of schools. Many of these people, at many of these schools, are just as smart and capable of doing their engineering job as many "elite" school graduates. </p>
<p>It was very sobering to find out that this guy next to me, from Notre Dame, or Illinois Institute of Technology, or U Illinois, or wherever, was better at doing this particular job than I was. I clearly learned there is no overall school-based supremacy in the workplace. Big engineering employers obviously know this as well.</p>
<p>Many, if not most, smaller engineering employers hire primarily regionally. They will recruit at many, if not all, of the engineering schools in their region, but fewer of the schools out of their region. They take graduates from the full range of schools in their region, and "prestige" is not a big factor.</p>
<p>Except for a very few jobs, at a very few firms: after you are hired, you will find yourself working with people who came from all kinds of different schools. After that, it is all up to you; what you actually do. School means virtually nothing at that point.</p>
<p>It is you who is incorrect. Michigan Engineering is arguably the toughest. You have a well documented bias against Michigan, partly out of your fixation with selectivity. But Michigan does not cater to the LCD. At Michigan, if you aren't brilliant, you will graduate with a 2.5 GPA. Only geniuses can manage 3.5+ GPAs. I may not be an engineer, but I an expert on universities nonetheless.</p>
<p>"At Michigan, if you aren't brilliant, you will graduate with a 2.5 GPA. Only geniuses can manage 3.5+ GPAs. I may not be an engineer, but I an expert on universities nonetheless."</p>
<p>Sorry Alexandre, even if you get 4.0/4.0 at Caltech or 5.0/5.0 at MIT you're not even close to the word 'genius'. One of my friend at Caltech could compute (2.35)^3 in 2 seconds with his brain with 3 decimal precision, well he's not even regarded as genius then, perhaps only a 'nerd' with exotic capability. Sorry but once again I would maintain that Michigan Engineering is not tough at all. Certainly 2.5 GPA at Michigan would not make you brilliant. If you were an engineering student at, let's say MIT, and you take the summer course at Michigan, then you would probably see how lax Michigan Engineering is.</p>