<p>can anyone make a comparison between columbia and penn engineering? overall strength, strength of specific departments? job opportunities?</p>
<p>They’re both good, but even within the Ivy League they aren’t the best: top honors go to Cornell. And beyond that, of course, MIT/Caltech.</p>
<p>What, specifically, do you want to major in? Penn has one of the best biomedical engineering departments in the country (top 5 - really incredible, on the level of Hopkins or MIT), and its computer science is fairly strong. The rest of the offerings are good, but not super-star level.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Columbia.</p>
<p>Columbia engineering is, like Penn’s, “decent” but certainly not on par with the rest of the University.</p>
<p>^this is a misinformed opinion. Columbia engineering is definitely on par with the rest of the university, maybe even superior. Engineers get great resources, tend to do very well (as well if not better) than the college kids in college classes - sciences, social science and humanities. Columbia 2002 once had a statistic that the seas gpa in college classes was higher than the cc gpa in college classes. Engineers do just as well, probably slightly better than college students at getting into wall street jobs. Med school and law school placement would be comparable. Ilovebagels is applying the penn stereotype to columbia, even though it is not applicable. As schools, their philosophy and the type of student each attracts is closer to one another than either compared to MIT or Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>I think what ilovebagels meant - or what I mean, anyway - is that the actual departments related to engineering are not on the same level as the rest of the fields studied at the university, which are generally world-class.</p>
<p>The students themselves are a selective group - as they are at Penn. In general, engineering admissions are very numbers-based, as opposed to the more mercurial system in place for students entering CC or CAS. I believe that SEAS students at both schools have very high SAT and SAT II averages, at least in math and science.</p>
<p>whoops, double post. The server was too slow.</p>
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from the rankings i remember seeing, Fu was top 20 nationally. i think Penn was closer to 40th. so i definitely wouldn’t compare Columbia and Penn engineering in that context.</p>
<p>what is the admit rate of UPenn SEAS ?
UPenn overall rate was 17% so UPenn SEAS is around 25 %</p>
<p>Admit rate doesn’t really matter; engineering students are more or less self-selective, and the admit rates at engineering schools tend to be higher than at other places. MIT’s admit rate is around 12% and Caltech’s is 17%, but they’re still on par with Ivy League and other schools with admissions around 7-8%.</p>
<p>In any event, I think Columbia’s engineering is ranked higher, but which is “better” depends on what you want to study and what would be a good fit for you. At this point, the differences are relatively negligible in academics, and you should consider other factors.</p>
<p>The last time engineering departments were aggregated and ranked comprehensively, Penn was ranked much higher - 17th, compared to Columbia’s 30th. The difference in terms of actual points was also very great. It’s not the kind of thing that would have changed so significantly.</p>
<p>^nope, what’s the source?</p>
<p>[Search</a> - Best Engineering Schools - Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/eng/search/page+2]Search”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/eng/search/page+2)</p>
<p>according to usnews for grad programs, Columbia 21, Penn 30. For undergrad rankings I’m pretty sure it was Columbia 25, Penn ~30.</p>
<p>^^ Why are we invoking US news? arent’ there countless discussions on how useless the rankings are?</p>
<p>It’s columbia vs. Penn. Look at the environment, the academics will be fabulous at both places.</p>
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<p>The NRC rankings. Penn came out on top because they were ranked 5th for biomedical engineering, and Columbia’s program was ranked above 40th.</p>
<p>However, I agree with Cerberus that in general, the instruction should be excellent at both institutions.</p>
<p>^I knew it, those rankings are over 12 years old, genius. The reason you quote them, is because they are the only rankings which suit you even though they are completely outdated and thus irrelevant. Nice try muertea, can’t fool us on here. </p>
<p>Most current rankings don’t really work in Penn’s favor. But I tell anyone choosing between the two that rankings don’t matter for anything, don’t even bother looking at any rankings between these two schools.</p>
<p>“I knew it, those rankings are over 12 years old, genius. The reason you quote them, is because they are the only rankings which suit you even though they are completely outdated and thus irrelevant. Nice try muertea, can’t fool us on here.”</p>
<p>Yeah I think admissionsgeek or someone else equally perceptive already claimed those rankings were from like 1995. Columbia BME is off the charts right now. </p>
<p>Btw, on an unrelated note, I typed MBA instead of BME above before correcting it. Weird. Freudian slip, anyone?</p>
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<p>No other rankings are nearly as comprehensive or respected; most universities STILL refer to these rankings, despite their age.</p>
<p>However, I will stop posting them if you find them irrelevant. They still seem to hold true, though: Penn’s BME is currently ranked #7, right behind MIT at #6 - according to US News.</p>