best undergraduate engineering school

College Search & Selection
61

<p>Again, I never said 50% of Michigan student got into MIT. I said 50% of Michigan student at MIT material. If they applied to MIT, some would be accepted, most would at least be considered.</p>

<p>Also, typically, a drop-out is a person who simply cannot handle a particular institution. A B/B+ student cannot be described as a "droup out". Obviously, Michigan is not as tough as CalTech. Michigan offers a better quality of life and a more well-rounded education. MIT is also very tough, but they at least have a pass/fail first year and some grade inflation. Also, MIT is not quite as insane as CalTech. But Michigan is as tough as Cal and Cornell. </p>

<p>No, American Pie 1, 2 or American wedding do not in any way depict Michigan. Of the characters in the movie, only three of them go to Michigan...all of which are quite bright. One even say he got a 780 on his SAT verbal! LOL The others end up at Michigan State and other schools around the state of Michigan. But those movies are intended to be slapstick comedies. One cannot read into those movies seriously. They are fun to watch, no more...no less. I think the screenplay writer and the director went to Michigan, so that is why the university is mentioned.</p>

<p>You state that if I consider Michigan students with 3.5 GPAs as geniuses, I cannot call in student at Harvard a moron. I am not sure I follow you. 50% of Michigan's student's graduate in the top 1% of their class and only the top 25% of Michigan's student's have 3.5+ GPAs. That means that only half of the students who graduated at the top 1% of thgeir High School class will get a 3.5 GPA. My statement about knowing moron's who graduated from Harvard is not exaggerated. I have known some pretty dumb people who attended Harvard. Obviously, you feel that even the smartest students at Michigan are dumber than the dumbest people at Harvard, but that is not the case.</p>

<p>Finally, Michigan's undergraduate student body is accomplished enough for Michigan to be considered a top 10-15 university, even if Michigan did not have a graduate school. In fact, Michigan's graduate school is not merely ranked among the top 10-15...it is more like top 4 or 5. When I say that Michigan is regarded as a top 10-15 university, I was referring to its undergraduate education. I remember reading in Barron's or Fiske that 70% of Michigan's undergraduate students had acceptances into at least one Ivy League. I personally had acceptances into 4 Ivy League schools and almost everybody I knew had acceptances into similar schools. It is true that Michigan has a high acceptance rate, but most of those students are quite good. The university of Chicago and Johns Hopkins are similar in that regard.</p>

62

<p>Alexandre, what will you suggest if you have to choose among Georgia Tech, UIUC or UMich for computer science? </p>

<p>How is University of Michigan ranked in terms of Computer Science ?</p>

63

<p>Lildude_ravi, of the three schools you mention, I would say that UIUC is probably the best in Computer Science. I would say Michigan is second and Georgia Tech is third. But do not decide solely on the ranking of the Computer Science departments. You should look at the university as a whole, both in terms of academics and in terms of life in general.</p>

64

<p>Have you heard of a paper titled "A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities"? Here is the link:
<a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf&lt;/a>
It is not specifically about engineering schools but might be relevant to overall preference. The author affiliations are Harvard, U Penn, and Boston U. They surveyed undergraduate students to find out which school they chose when they were accepted at both. I would welcome comments. </p>

<p>I don't understand the math methods but it looks to me like schools with notable PhD-granting engineering programs would rank as follows among undergrads (out of about 100 colleges studied):
3 Stanford
4 Cal Tech
5 MIT
6 Princeton
8 Columbia
12 U Penn
15 Notre Dame
16 Cornell
17 Rice
19 Duke
20 U Virginia
21 Northwestern
23 Berkeley
24 Georgia Tech
38 U Texas
42 U Michigan
45 U Illinois
46 Carnegie Mellon
66 Lehigh
69 RPI
79 U Wisc
92 Penn St
95 U Wash
96 U Rochester</p>

<p>Things I noticed-
The publics don't fare as well in overall preference despite financial advantages. I would say the engineering prefs and overall prefs wouldn't exactly coincide. Maybe the sample was skewed. </p>

<p>I would bump up engineering at Cornell, Northwestern, Berkeley, Mich, GTech, and Illinois for sure. Rice is pretty high - and has low tuition. I think Cornell and Rice were rated in the top three eng schools according to student surveys on studentsreview.com. These 30 or so would probably all be great places to study engineering. It is like a popularity contest...popularity and quality are not the same. I am still concerned about the relatively low professors interesting and accessible rating at MIT and Cal Tech in Princeton Review.</p>

<p>How do you interpret this? How should overall preference relate to Engineering specifically? Is it relevant to choosing an engineering school?</p>

65

<p>This ranking is pretty weak. It is a ranking based on the opinion of 15-18 year old students. Cornell at 17 does not do the school justice. Cal at #23 is a joke. Michigan all the way down at #42 is pathetic. As a rule, any rating that fluctuates significantly from year to year is pretty shady. Universities that are over 100 years old, which have thousands of professors and 10s of thousands of students do not change overnight. In fact, they barely change over the course of 10 years. It takes decades for a university to really change.</p>

<p>My favourite ratings (I am not too fond of rankings since I cannot see how one can differentiate between #3 and #6 and #11 etc...) of all are the peer assesment score of the USNWR and the Fiske academic ratings. At least ratings do not force the experts to rank schools, merely to assign a grade to them. Those are derived solely on the collective opinion of academics on the quality of undergraduate education...primarily, the final product that is forwarded to Graduate schools and the professional world; the college graduate.</p>

<p>According to the USNWR:</p>

<h1>1 receive a score of 4.9/5.0 (there is a 5-way tie for the top spot)</h1>

<p>Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton University
Stanford University
Yale University</p>

<h1>6 receives a score of 4.8/5.0</h1>

<p>University of California-Berkeley</p>

<h1>7 receive a score of 4.7/5.0 (there is a 2-way tie for the 7th spot)</h1>

<p>California Institute of Technology
Columbia University</p>

<h1>9 receive a score of 4.6/5.0 (there is a 6-way tie for the 9th spot)</h1>

<p>Cornell University
Duke University
Johns Hopkins University
University of Chicago
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Pennsylvania</p>

<h1>15 receives a score of 4.5/5.0</h1>

<p>Brown University</p>

<h1>16 receive a score of 4.4/5.0 (there is a 2-way tie for the 16th spot)</h1>

<p>Dartmouth College
Northwestern University</p>

<h1>18 receive a score of 4.3/5.0 (there is a 3-way tie for the 18th spot)</h1>

<p>Carnegie Mellon University
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Virginia</p>

<h1>21 receive a score of 4.2/5.0 (there is a 3-way tie for the 21st spot)</h1>

<p>Rice University
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>

<h1>24 receive a score of 4.1/5.0 (there is a 3-way tie for the 24th spot)</h1>

<p>University of Texas-Austin
Vanderbilt University
Washington University-St Louis</p>

<p>According to FISKE, the following 35 schools get a ***** academic rating:</p>

<p>LACs
Amherst College
Browdoin College
Carleton College
Grinnell College
Middlebury College
Pomona College
Smith College
Swarthmore College
Wesleyan University
Williams College</p>

<p>Public Universities:
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>

<p>Private Research Universities:
Brown University
California Institite of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
Yale University</p>

<p>Those two ratings are, in my opinion, the most accurate representation of America's best universities. And although they are compiled independently and separately, I think there is a striking resemblance between them.</p>

66

<p>Forget Princeton, they just released their numbers</p>

<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/05/q1/0201-apps.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/05/q1/0201-apps.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

67

<p>Alexandre,</p>

<p>The peer assessment of USNWR is also pretty weak. Basically the professors only count how many their peers/colleagues are in the corresponding school and they don't take the questionaire seriously. My professor once received such questionaire and he told me that he didn't wish to waste his time any more than 2 mins on those stuff. So, no Alexandre, I don't think USNWR peer assessment is a better gauge. On the other hand, the revealed preference ranking is done by four professors from 3-4 prestigious universities. If they could publish it as a paper, it definitely has some valid/strong reasoning to back them up. Have you ever published a paper? If you have, you know what it takes to publish such paper.</p>

<p>You keep maintaining that top 50% of Michigan are MIT material, com'on, people would get impression that most of the top 50% of Michigan may be admitted to MIT. Heck, they are not, as I said, I believe most top 50% of Michigan has been actually rejected by MIT before they enroll to Michigan. </p>

<p>I would repeat that if you think GPA 3.5+ are geniuses then you are not in place to claim any Harvard student moron. Could I say that Michigan students with GPA < 3.5 as moron? Sorry, Alexandre, but I've been helping 2 of my ex-Michigan friends to catch up with the graduate classes at MIT. One of them got GPA 4.0 and the other one, If I'm not mistaken got 3.9+. However it seems to me that their knowledge is 1 year behind the typical MIT/Caltech students. Of course, I've encountered many stupid MIT students who are not as good as these ex-Michigan students, but they need to catch up in terms of knowledge to stay competitive in the graduate classes. FYI, typical MIT/Caltech students would have taken some if not many graduate classes in their senior year, hence it's comprehensible that they need to catch up with the class. However, they told me that MIT was much more rigorous than Michigan as expected. I think you're the only Michigan grad who think Michigan is as difficult as MIT where the fact says otherwise.</p>

<p>Even if your statement that 70% of Michigan students are accepted to at least one of the lower Ivies is correct, you still couldn't imply that it has the position equal standing with the lower Ivies. My guess is about 30% of the lower Ivies students are admitted to HYPSMC and the other 70% has more than one offer from the lower Ivies, while 30% of Michigan students are the unfiltered water. This composition alone is enough to kick out Michigan from the league. </p>

<p>You always maintain that Michigan engineering is as difficult as MIT or Berkeley, which is quite laughable. Please, if you don't know much about engineering, what is difficult and what is not, I suggest you keep your your statement as your opinion rather than your claim. People in the know would giggle to see Michigan in the list of toughest engineering schools.</p>

68

<p>My friends in california (very knowledgeble with numerous friends/relatives in stanford, caltech, berkeley) tell me that even workload of Stanford is laughable compared to that of Caltech (especially Caltech EE!!). They say Berkeley engineering and Stanford engineering are almost similar caliber academically. </p>

<p>I don't know much about MIT, but I don't think it will be any easier than Caltech.</p>

69

<p>hopemanjkjk, your information is quite accurate, except that Berkeley workload is heavier than Stanford. MIT workload slightly easier to handle than Caltech.</p>

70

<p>MIT and Caltech are by FAR the best. After that, its Stanford, Princeton, and Cornell. Also, Cooper Union in NY is great (its also free and really competitive). The vast majority would agree that this list pretty much constitutes the elite engineering schools (some would argue that perhaps Berkeley belongs in this group, but I'm not sure).</p>

71

<p>jwblue, you can bet that Berkeley belongs to this group and shadow Princeton for engineering :)</p>

72

<p>I'm a sophomore Mechanical Engineering student at Michigan, and I have to agree with Alexandre. Sometimes I feel like he is trolling too much for Michigan, but the rankings he cited are accurate. Michigan is not your typical state school. The people I met in my classes don't look like they are the best academically, but after that first round of exams, U will see how smart and hardworking these people are. I consider myself pretty intelligent, I was ranked in the top 2% of my high school, I was 8 for 9 in college admissions. A lot of times people(me included) look at SAT scores to determine the quality of the students, but Michigan is one of those colleges that don't really place a lot of weight on the SAT scores, so naturally the SAT averages is lower than a lot of the top privates. Also, Michigan has a lot of recruits in athletics, there are a lot of art, music students, this brings down the SAT average significantly. I had a 1350, and this is probably the lowest of everyone I know in engineering. The classes are ridiculously hard, and grading is harsh, I didn't think it was gonna be nearly this hard. 50% of the class gets Cs and Ds and Es. that gives about a 2.8 average grade in most classes. I think that other schools(graduate programs) know about the difficulty of michigan.</p>

73

<p>I understand jeffl.. engineering courses in general are so much harder than art & science. However, although quiet unbelievable, Caltech's difficulty is beyond-imagination. I know this guy who had very very good AMC score. He finished Calculus when he was freshman with A+ and got 5 on the AP BC test (He also had 5 in Physics, Chemistry, Biology). He was no.1 in his very big california public school, with SAT score of 1600/800/800/800. He was very proud of himself, and got in Caltech EA. For 4 years of high school, he never had a single trouble. Yet in Caltech, he found himself surrounded by kids who were math wizards, research maniacs (RSI, NAsa), science nerds, etc; he said most of them had hard time in the first year physics class.</p>

<p>His story scared the hell out of me, and Caltech quickly went off from my list =).</p>

74

<p>Rtksyg, you make it a habit of misquoting me. I never said Michigan was as tough as MIT or CalTech. It is not even close and I am glad it isn't. University education should be about more than just delving deeply into one's concentration. And I never claimed that Michigan Engineering was as good as MIT, Stanford, Cal or CalTech either. In fact, I always make it clear that the latter 4 are THE best Engineering education in the nation...if not the World. What I was saying is that Michigan has a talented student body, that its Engineering program is as respected as Cornell's, and that in terms of rigor, reputation and corporate recruitment, it is certainly on par with Cornell.</p>

<p>Secondly, I actually know several people who take part in the USNWR peer assessment servey. They spend a couple of days filling the forms. The Peer assessment score is an absolute good...relatively speaking. It obviously has its flaws, but it is the best that we have at the moment. So if the MIT professors your know spend a couple of minutes, I am sorry to say that they are probably not filling the same kind of survey. And yes, I am a published writer. I am published in the fields of History, Economics and Labor Relations. And no, it is not difficult to get published. A person can publish almost anything. But that raking above is no good. Any ranking that has Cal out of the top 6 or 7 is excrement. Same with any ranking that has Cornell and Michigan out of the top 15.</p>

75

<p>Alexandre,</p>

<p>Don't you realize that we are not discussing which engineering school is better here, but specifically which one is tougher (in terms of workload and difficulty level). I didn't even say that MIT engineering gives better education as a whole than Michigan. However, in terms of toughness of the course, I would argue that Berkeley and perhaps Cornell is tougher than Michigan, full stop, no other implication okay.</p>

<p>Also, my professor specifically said that it was USNWR ranking questionairre that he was filling up, no doubt about it. Anyway, saying that USNWR peer assessment score is a good gauge where the revealed preference ranking is not only shows your opinion on how the ranking is to be done. Firstly, the revealed preference ranking only shows how the schools perform when ranked by some certain objective measure. Whether you like it or not, it doesn't imply that it should be weaker than USNWR peer assessment score. Secondly, I don't know about you, but when I publish my paper, I would make sure that I will not be a laughing stock, specifically not to be laughed by people like you Alexandre :). Those people who published the paper have their own names and reputation attached to everything that they publish. I don't think you can easily trash theirs and claim yours to be valid. Notice that I don't suggest that the revealed preference ranking should be the absolute ranking used to decide which school is better.</p>

76

<p>Cal maybe is a little tougher than Michigan, although I have my doubts. I have known too many people who have studied at Cal and seeing their results, I cannot believe that it is toigher. I agree that Cal is a better Engineering program...but I do not believe that it is tougher.Cornell is definitely not tougher than Michigan. That is not even open for discussion.</p>

<p>As for the revealed preference ranking, it is a joke and your defending it makes you look pretty bad. I do not see you defending the Gourman report as avidly as you support the revealed preference ranking. I wonder why that is? At least the Gourman report supported by some sort of data.</p>

77

<p>Simple Alexandre, the revealed preference ranking is published by academics people from prestigious universities. On the other hand, I haven't seen academics who back Gourman report. I have much respect for academics people (because they don't do it with dollars in their heads) and hence my bias towards them.</p>

<p>Cal is definitely tougher than Michigan, Alexandre, I didn't say this to bellitle Michigan. No it is not part of my agenda. I'm telling you the truth here. I could also tell you which engineering (EE) program is tougher (not better mind you) by merely looking at the course names, curricula and text book used for the course. Berkeley curricula is on par with MIT's, but not Michigan. I don't receive any kudos for insulting your alma mater Alexandre, why should I purposely bad-mouth Michigan? I've never denied that Princeton engineering is no harder than Michigan, have I?</p>

78

<p>Rtksyg, where do you come up with that? So if professors from Chicago, Northwestern and Michigan decide to invent some ranking and they placed all three of those schools among the top 5 nationally, you would agree with the ranking just because it is compiled by academics? By the way, academics do not "back" revealed preferences. Revealed preferences is based on the opinion of inexperienced 15-18 year old high school students. On the other hand, many academics and institutions (such as NASA, the Pentagon, the Princeton Review among others) actually back Gourman.</p>

79

<p>Alexandre,</p>

<p>Don't you see my points? If such ranking you proposed ever comes out I would consider it with the same weight. Look, I don't say that the revealed preference ranking is how the ranking should look like. But if they take the opinion of the 15-18 year old high school as the basis of their ranking, it implies that their opinion worth some consideration. Similarly if you want to know which cell-phone is 'great' you will ask mostly teenager and not people of our age. On the other hand Gourman report seems vague to me. I haven't seen academics validation behind it. You surely know if the professors who publish the revealed pref. ranking couldn't give a solid reason why such ranking is made or why such methodology is used, they are ruining their academic career.</p>

80

<p>No Rtksyg, I am afraid I do not see your point. We are not talking about demand and supply. We are not talking about marketing or consumer demand. We are talking about intellectual institutions. Cornell, Chicago, Cal and Michigan all belong among the top 10 or 15 universities in the nation. No academic or corporate recruiter would argue that fact. But those schools aren't popular in the eyes of 15 to 18 year olds for various reasons. If you ask a 16 year old in Chicago to name you the best movie of all time or the best restaurant in town, you would probably get Troy and the Cheesecake Factory as your answers! Does it make it so? I don't think so.</p>

<p>As for Gourman, I agree that his rankings are highly suspicious. I was using him as an example of a clearly inacurate ranking...just as the Revealed Preferences ranking is completely inacurate. And yes, those professors involved with that ranking have ruined their careers as far as people paying attention to their university ranking abilities. </p>

<p>Clearly, you are biased. Ranking Cornell, Cal, Cicago and Michigan at #17, 23, 27 and 42 respectively is perfectly ok but ranking Michigan, Cal, Cornell and Chicago #3, 6,7, and 8 respectively is complety unacceptable to you. Like I always say, you have very mislplaced elitism. High standards are one thing. Blind and completely incorrect snobery is another.</p>