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I’m guessing you’re still in high school and don’t quite realize how often students change their majors. It’s been estimated that between 60% and 70% of students change their majors at least once. Choosing a school based on a major can be a very risky move.</p>
<p>Take coastin’s example of Penn State vs. Harvard for engineering, for example. Quite aside from the debatable differences of quality (they’re #17 and #26 for undergrad eng; Harvard has 19 members in the National Academy of Engineering compared to PSU’s 9), what are the odds of switching out of engineering? I don’t have the stats for Penn State, but I do have those for Johns Hopkins. Over the course of four years, BME loses 20% of its students, electrical engineering loses 34% of its students, mechanical engineering loses 47% of its students, environmental engineering loses 50% of its students, etc. That’s total loss, mind you – the seniors include students who switched into engineering at some point, so who knows how many engineering freshmen actually dropped out?</p>
<p>I would not choose a school based on a ranking, whether undergraduate or graduate/departmental. I would, however, choose schools that are good fits and strong across the board in a number of areas.</p>