<p>I would “rank” the USNWR peer assessment slightly higher than the unsolicited, anonymous comments on internet forums, like this one In my experience, the department chairs, at least the good ones, do know how well their counterparts are doing. They compete for the same pool of funding and new talents every day. They also poach…</p>
<p>That said, for the OP, my vote is for “the least expensive ABET accredited program” as she put it. Just be aware that the higher ranked schools may turn out to be less expensive because they tend to provide more scholarships and financial aid, as well as more opportunities in well-paid co-op and internships.</p>
<p>nohook: Guest what? you also have joined this internet forum and therefore your comment also would be ranked below the UNSWR peer assessment, right?</p>
<p>You also said this: "In my experience, the department chairs, at least the good ones, do know how well their counterparts are doing. "</p>
<p>I would say: all the deans, department chairs also dont want their schools to be at the bottom or would be ranked lower than its peers, etc. So, guest what? they will lower their peers and will elevate themselves…it is human to be jelous and dont want to be put down…just like in the NBA, only number one counts and number two does not. Also, in the Super Bowl, the winner would win all the way while the number two would not count at all. THEREFORE, I still dont buy any assessment from those deans, dept chairs etc…</p>
<p>Anyone wanting to delve a little deeper into rankings of anything would be well served to read Malcom Gladwell’s excellent article linked below. It was published in the New Yorker.</p>
<p>My favorite part on institutional reputation is this:</p>
<p>Some years ago, similarly, a former chief justice of the Michigan supreme court, Thomas Brennan, sent a questionnaire to a hundred or so of his fellow-lawyers, asking them to rank a list of ten law schools in order of quality. They included a good sample of the big names. Harvard. Yale. University of Michigan. And some lesser-known schools. John Marshall. Thomas Cooley, Brennan wrote. As I recall, they ranked Penn States law school right about in the middle of the pack. Maybe fifth among the ten schools listed. Of course, Penn State doesnt have a law school.</p>
<p>I think of the USNWR and other rankings the same way I think of the SAT and GRE - a useful tool but hardly the best or most revealing. The rankings are an average, and no one is exactly average and so the rankings never exactly match any individual’s needs. But they are telling, and however inaccurate they may be the fact that they are the only real measures out there means that people use them - and that in turn gives them weight.</p>
<p>
ABET accreditation is crucial, and the name of the school will not matter a decade after graduation. Focus more on whether or not the school seems like a good match to your needs, but balancing budget versus ranking depends on your goals and the difference. I would not drop 50 spots in the rankings to save $5000 a year, but if you have no aspirations to academia or entrepreneurship then you can certainly do well with a modestly ranked school.</p>
<p>From a strictly financial standpoint, most schools offer salary estimates for recent graduates - compare the cost of attendance difference with the salary difference, and see how many years it would take to make up the difference. If it is more than 5 years it is questionable, and if it is more than 10 years it is probably as bad idea.</p>
<p>Curious that no one has mentioned using an engineering school’s Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam scores as a basis for evaluating an engineering program? That would seem like a fairly objective way to ascertain how well a school prepares its future engineers for the real world. Interested to hear the feedback from working engineers on this subject.
Along those lines, S2 is trying to decide betweeen his in-state flagship vs. an OOS school for civil engineering. Neither are “top ranked” programs by any means, but both seem to have decent reputations. Our in-state flagship states on their engineering school web site page that they have an average pass rate of 98% on the FE exam. Does anyone know if/where the general public can access the stats for the tests on a school by school basis to aid in making an educated decision on how different programs stack up? I’ve looked on NCEES.org’s web site and it is not readily evident that this information can be accessed by the general public.</p>
<p>I do not believe that statistical information about pass/fail rates are available, certainly not broken down by college. I suspect that your in-state flagship is polling their own students, but if it is self-reporting then the results will be skewed high - I believe the overall pass rate is only something like 80% for first-time takers. Until that information becomes objectively available, there is no use in talking about it as a measure of a school (although it would still only be a very limited measure!).</p>
<p>Well, that’s exactly what I meant. I thought I made that very clear.</p>
<p>Regarding the peer assessment, I don’t know if the faculty get to rate their own programs or not. Even if they did, and they all rated their own school a 5 and their own department among the top 10, wouldn’t that part of the data be pure noise?</p>
<p>You’ve got a $25,000 budget to buy a new car. You’ve been saving up for years to make this purchase, and you’re very excited about it.</p>
<p>Would you A). Buy your next car based on a [hypothetical] publication that ranked cars based on the pedigree of schools where the engineers that designed the cars graduated from, the grades/SAT scores that those engineers received in school, and the quality of the factories that the cars were built in?</p>
<p>Or B). Buy your next car based on a publication that ranked the cars based on objective qualities? (e.g. power, handling, braking, safety, interior quality, etc)</p>
<p>My guess is that most of you would choose B as it is the most logical choice. And it makes sense since you are ranking the output rather than the input, which in this case are seemingly irrelevant factors given the context of the situation. </p>
<p>However, when reading through USNWR national and regional rankings, you are actually getting a list of schools ranked using the method shown in option A). And this is exactly why college rankings should only be used to augment your search for a school and not be the primary driver in your decision.</p>
I certainly don’t share that opinion when it comes to screening candidates for hire, and neither do most hiring managers I know.</p>
<p>Among relatively equal candidates, the school and/or GPA matters significantly. As I said in an earlier post, the candidates I call either went to great schools, or went to good schools and had a great GPA. Nobody else gets an interview.</p>
<p>It is absolutely possible to go to a middling state school an do well in your career, but there are more opportunities made available to applicants from strong schools.</p>
<p>hebegebe,
Seriously?! That’s your filter? You just look for “great schools” and if they didn’t attend a great school they better have a great GPA.</p>
<p>Let me guess. You graduated from a “great school.” ;-)</p>
<p>IMHO, you’re doing a disservice to your company and missing a lot of great candidates. </p>
<p>Like our last hire… a vet who took web classes while in Afghanistan. He finished off his degree at a mediocre school. He’s one of the best guys we have… immediately grasping both the technical and business needs of a project. And zero self centered drama. They guy is all about the team. Best hire… EVER!</p>
<p>I applaud you for hiring the vet who took web classes in Afghanistan, and I applaud you for hiring the single mom that did well in school. Sounds like both worked out well in your company. </p>
<p>I have no doubt that there are far more outstanding people outside of the top schools than in all of them put together. The single most brilliant person I have ever known went to the “middling” state school where I did my undergrad. His parents had recommended that he instead attend a community college. </p>
<p>Again, that’s not the point. When I hire someone, I am only looking for <em>one</em> excellent person that can do the job and will mesh well in my organization. If 100+ people apply for my job, I am not going to contact all of them, even though there are probably diamonds in the rough among that pile. </p>
<p>After I filter out the people that don’t meet my requirements, I then sort by school and GPA, and “drive”. Among the people I contact, there are many that I still feel won’t fit my company (too egotistic, poor communication skills, etc.). But I inevitably find the person I need among this select group.</p>
<p>Why would a GPA (or even school) matter when hiring experienced engineers? In federal contracting, if a recruiter is too busy looking at GPA’s and school names from 10 years back, they will have a well understaffed contract…which the Feds will pull from you and give it to another contractor…</p>
<p>…who has a bunch of experienced engineers from 2+2 programs, military equivalent training and schools that you only hear about during the NCAA Basketball tourney.</p>
<p>Because among experienced engineers, particularly in computer science, there can be a 10x difference between a person that can do something well and someone who is outstanding. The GPA and school are just (imperfect) signals that can reveal the difference.</p>
<p>Well, if you feel that way and can pay them that…more power to you. In my niche industry, everybody gets paid within the same range for the same degree-level/experience/specific expertise.</p>
<p>Let us know how much you pay Mr./Miss. Outstanding based on their school/GPA of 10-15 years ago…so I can ask for $1 less from the employer across the street :-)</p>
May I ask what industry you are in, and ask you to confirm that you still regard the school and GPA as primary hiring factors a decade after graduation?</p>
<p>Since I never said they were the primary hiring factors, there is nothing to confirm. They are sorting mechanisms among candidates that are otherwise equal on paper.</p>
How many experienced engineers do you get that are “otherwise equal on paper” a decade after school, and by what criteria do you consider them equal? And again, what industry? What kind of work are these “otherwise equal” engineers being hired to do? I am having a hard time envisioning how this is a good idea, and it certainly conflicts with my experiences.</p>
<p>Are you an engineer yourself, or are you in HR?</p>
<p>With people who have been out of school for a few decades, one has to remember that even the “top schools” were significantly less selective than they are now. However, the ability, motivation, and discipline needed to complete an ABET-accredited engineering degree did effectively apply a secondary filter on the students (as it does now for engineering majors at less selective universities).</p>
<p>Note also that GPA screens applied to people who graduated a few decades ago may hold them to higher standards than newer graduates, due to [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com) .</p>
<p>I can see where you are going with this BUT still this is the U.S. of A where there are new companies born everyday. I know folks hate the following “cliche” but “At the end of the day”, some company will have petabytes of streaming data to manage and will need someone (quick fast and in a hurry) to write some MapReduce analytics in R. That same person may also have to access data in Accumulo that runs on Hadoop that runs CentOS.</p>
<p>When hiring departments are screening resumes, the “buzzwords” are NOT “Rutgers”, “Purdue”, “GPA 3.5”, “AP Credits”, “Computer Science” or “ABET”. They are searching on “Linux”, “Red Hat”, “Hadoop”, “MapReduce”, “Accumulo”, “Oracle”, “PMP”, etc.</p>
In my experience, the department chairs, at least the good ones, do know how well their counterparts are doing. They compete for the same pool of funding and new talents every day. They also poach…</p>