<p>" Also, their engineering programs have joint faculties with their physics, chemistry, and applied science programs which are no doubt top notches. I think it is very tough to get in."</p>
<p>I work with several engineering grad students in my PI’s laboratory at CCB. They know chemistry just as well as they know engineering. And yes, we’re ranked #1 for chemistry, physics, chemical physics, biophysics, and applied physics by several metrics. </p>
<p>SEAS is a very difficult place to get into.</p>
<p>"Second, if you look at the faculties at their engineering program. They are very small but all the professors are the most renowned in their field. I heard in the past, Harvard almost have no tenuring process. They only hire those already famous people from other universities. "</p>
<p>This is certainly not true in any area of cs, and I don’t think it’s true in many other engineering disciplines either.</p>
<p>Recently, I hear good things about Harvard Engineering. Apparently, the university has seen a dramatic rise in the number of applicants in engineering. Also, they seem to be a lot more serious about the field. According to their web-page, they have lower admits rates than any other school. Also, they claim the stats of the admits are extremely high. I appreciate any feedback and real experiences on this matter.</p>
<p>Yes, you are right. Harvard’s Engineering is expanding. They are building a new campus somewhere else. If you look at the Endowment, UCSB has 153 million dollar of Endowment. Harvard’s Engineering has 771 million dollars of Endowment. They are rapidly expanding and hiring star faculties. They typically just buy the famous people over. Seven of their current faculties were tenured faculties at MIT. Believe it or not, they were one of the best and most productive at MIT. Their engineering has the highest percentage of faculties being a member of the National Academy of Science or the National Academy of Engineering. These stats are available in US News. Their productivity ranked first and second (after Bell lab I think) respectively in 2009 and 2010 among all research institutions by ISI ranking. The current research, especially physical technology, the most important thing is funding and facility. Their funding is endless (because of many big alumni donors) and their nano facility is probably one of (if not) the best in the US. Years ago, Stanford wasn’t one of the best place for engineering, they came into power not too long ago. Harvard is doing the same. With Harvard’s name, reputation, funding, faculties, alumni, other excellent department, and the fact it’s Harvard, they can, if they care, sore into the top 5 within reachable years. And answering one thing regarding their CS programs. I don’t know what about the current faculty. Four of their alumni who did their Ph.D. in Applied Math (but ultimately did research in CS) won Turing Award. This is a very high percentage considering how many people actually graduated (they were a even smaller program). Howard Aiken was a professor in their Applied Math. Michael O’Rabin (Turing) is still a faculty there. Of course, they are small, and of course, they are not good at things they don’t have. You are right. They have the lowest acceptance rate. One thing is that, if you check out their website, Harvard Engineering has the highest percentage of international student, like 75% of the people in the department were not born in the US. This is the thing, I am an international student from Canada and I lived years in Asia. In the rest of the world, Harvard is the most famous university. There is no contest. The people, especially, come to Harvard. I know a few people who rejected MIT and Stanford’s Physics department to go to Harvard Chemistry even though they want to do Physics. This is the thing. International people all rush to Harvard because of the name. They Harvard takes many of them. This complicates the admission process and makes it very competitive as you can see the admission rate. As Harvard rises, more American students will apply (even though nowadays many apply), this will become more competitive. Just as Harvard Physics takes one third of the people as MIT physics.</p>
<p>lol, I know this is just ONE person, but I have a close friend that graduated from uc davis, worked at cisco for about 7 years, and now works at google. it happens.</p>
<p>Typically, technologies don’t really have a severe inclination to only recruit from big name schools like Harvard, Stanford. It is really those business, consulting, and finance companies that like to do that. Wall street loves people from Harvard. If you look at all the CEOs and Chairman of those big investment banks, a lot of them are Harvard graduates.</p>