<p>hey there! these are the top two engineering programs i was accepted into, and i was wondering if anyone could provide advice regarding advantages/disadvantages of both programs (academics, research, social life, etc.) any info is greatly appreciated!
btw i'm slightly leaning towards chemical engineering, but it's pretty tentative right now.</p>
<p>If you’re leaning towards chemical engineering, it’s Princeton all the way because Duke doesn’t have a ChemE program.</p>
<p>I’d choose Princeton anyway. It’s strong in all engineering disciplines and has smaller renowned programs. Duke is known primarily for biomedical engineering…which IMHO is too limiting for an undergraduate degree (everyone seems to be doing it and there are not as many employment opportunities for BME just yet)</p>
<p>“hey there! these are the top two engineering programs i was accepted into…”</p>
<p>That’s too bad. There are better schools for engineering. Oh well. I guess it’s Princeton by default.</p>
<p>^Novi, can you try to be more helpful and not so snide.</p>
<p>Below you will find the results of the National Research Council (NRC) study on Graduate programs, which are the most extensive rankings made in the last 15 years and were released Sept 2010.</p>
<p>Lets take a look at where Princeton and Duke Engineering are in terms of the recent NRC Rankings for departmental Engineering:</p>
<p>CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
1—Cal Tech
2—MIT
3—Berkeley
4—UC Santa Barbara
5—UT Austin
6—Princeton
7—U. of Minnesota
8—Stanford
9—U. of Michigan
10–U. of Wisconsin
.
.
.</p>
<p>========================</p>
<p>CIVIL ENGINEERING
1—Berkeley
2—UT Austin
3—MIT
4—Princeton
5—Yale
6—Stanford
7—U. of Illinois Urbana
8—Georgia Tech
9—Purdue
10–Northwestern
.
.
.</p>
<p>===================</p>
<p>COMPUTER SCIENCE
1—Stanford
2—Princeton
3—MIT
4—Berkeley
5—Carnegie Mellon
6—Cornell
7—Harvard
8—UC Santa Barbara
9—Penn
10–UCLA
.
.
.</p>
<p>========================</p>
<p>ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
1—Stanford
2—Princeton
3—Harvard
4—UC Santa Barbara
5—U. of Illinois Urbana
6—Cal Tech
7—Georgia Tech
8—UCLA
9—U. of Michigan
10–MIT
.
.
.</p>
<p>======================</p>
<p>MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
1—MIT
2—Stanford
3—Berkeley
4—U. of Michigan
5—Brown
6—Northwestern
7—UC Santa Barbara
8—Georgia Tech
9—Princeton
10–U. of Maryland
.
.
.</p>
<p>=====================</p>
<p>BIOENGINEERING*
1 — UCSD
2 — Caltech
3 — UC Berkeley
4 — UC SF
5 — MIT
6 — Univ. of Wash
7 — Duke
8 — Boston Univ.
9 — Michigan
10 – Yale.
.
.
.</p>
<p>***Princeton’**s Bioengineering is offered through its Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering ,which is ranked 6th.</p>
<p>=========================</p>
<p>AEROSPACE ENGINEERING**
1 — Stanford
2 — Caltech
3 — Michigan
4 — Univ. of Colorado
5 — MIT
5 — Minnesota
7 — Georgia Tech
8 — Univ. Maryland CP
9 — Purdue
10 – Cornell
.
.
.</p>
<p>**Princeton’s Aerospace Engineering is offered through its Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, which is ranked 9th.</p>
<p>thanks japanoko, but i’m applying for undergrad, and i think these rankings are for graduate programs. are they approximately the same for undergrad too?</p>
<p>I this sort of comparison of departmental rankings at the undergraduate level is meaningless because Duke doesn’t even offer half of those engineering majors. Duke offers 4 concentrations in Engineering: Civil, Mechanical, Biomedical and Electrical and Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>If you want to do BME, then its Duke hands down as it has the 2nd BME program in the country after JHU.
If you want to do Chemical Engineering, then go to Princeton because Duke doesn’t even offer that major.
If you want to do ECE or Mechanical, Princeton is slightly better but you probably should decide on other characteristics.</p>
<p>Engineering aside, here are some individual pros of going to Duke or Princeton. Both are very undergraduate focused schools with beautiful campuses and tremendous amounts of school spirit and alumni loyalty.</p>
<p>PRINCETON
1.) slightly higher prestige overall
2.) faculty is more renowned
3.) close access to NYC and Philly
4.) students are slightly more talented (means stiffer competition though)</p>
<p>DUKE
1.) grade inflation (relative to Princeton)
2.) world-class athletics programs and Duke Basketball
3.) better weather and close to lots of outdoor attractions like hiking trails, beaches, mountains, etc.
4.) DukeEngage
<a href=“http://dukeengage.duke.edu/;[/url]”>http://dukeengage.duke.edu/;</a> a specialized civic engagement which allows you to perform specially designed service projects domestically or abroad at the complete expense of the administration</p>
<p>I think both schools will offer you a ton of research opportunities so I hope you get a chance to visit both. Good luck with your decision!!</p>
<p>Also don’t mind rjkofnovi, he’s still bitter about his rejection from Duke.;)</p>
<p>Princeton and Duke are both excellent, but Princeton is the better of the two, both in Engineering and overall. Overall, Princeton’s peers are Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Yale. Duke’s peers are Brown, Cal, Cornell, Dartmouth, Northwestern and Penn (to name a few). </p>
<p>Unless Duke is a far better fit, Princeton is the obvious choice.</p>
<p>I would favor Princeton Engineering in this situation, unless it is for Bioengineering, then it would be close - Duke’s bioengineering is among the top in the country and Princeton’s is under its Chemical and Biological Engineering department, which is ranked 6th in the country at the moment. A little more on the bionegineering at Princeton within the ChE department can be seen here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/undergrad/Undergrad_Handbook.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/undergrad/Undergrad_Handbook.pdf</a></p>
<p>That said, both Princeton and Duke undergraduates and alumni absolutely love their schools and experiences. Duke has that great basketball team and Princeton is great in many of the sports, ranking higher than many of the sports powerhouses in the country (all, except Princeton, which give athletic scholarships) in the the Directors Cup annual competition.</p>
<p>2009-10 Final Directors Cup Standings
- Stanford
- Florida
- Virginia
- UCLA
.
**10. Duke
. - Princeton**
- Oklahoma State
- Iowa State
- Illinois
- BYU
- West Virginia
- Virginia Tech
- Michigan State
. - Charleston Southern
- Idaho State
- Lafayette</p>
<p>It is important to note that Duke has been making great strides in the area of engineering and gradually improving the department compared to many of the top engineering schools out there. Currently Duke ranks 22nd in the USNWR undergraduate engineering rankings (Princeton is #11). Look for Duke to approach the #12-#15 top engineering schools in the next 5 to 10 years.</p>
<p>In addition, everywhere you look, Duke has been making great placement in the better graduate schools and in the more sought after job opportunities. Here you will find Duke ranked #6 in the top undergraduate school feeders to the top Med, Business and Law schools (Princeton is #3):</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>Again, Princeton and Duke alumni are very grateful for their wonderful experiences at their respective schools, with Duke’s alumni giving rate among the highest of the major research universities (at the same level as Harvard, Stanford and Yale, but lower than Princeton’s):</p>
<p>Alumni Giving Rate
60% - Princeton</p>
<p>38% - Duke
38% - Yale
37% - Harvard
34% - Stanford</p>
<p>japanoko, instead of posting lists that are not the NRC rankings, why not just link them to the actual rankings and *they *can decide how to interpret them (and slice and dice at will)? It’s easier than posting rankings, too.</p>
<p>[NRC</a> Rankings Overview: Chemical Engineering - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124712/]NRC”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124712/)</p>
<p>phanta, because the NRC rankings that I presented are the combined rankings of the r and s rankings and are listed in order.</p>
<p>to do the same with the link that you posted, the reader would have to first click the “s” rank heading and see where each of the universities rank. Then they would have to click the “r” ranking to see where the universities rank. Then they would have to combine the rankings for EACH of the universities and then put them in the order of rank. I have already done that through this website</p>
<p>[Find</a> the Graduate School That’s Right for You — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide](<a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/]Find”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/)</p>
<p>which takes the data directly from the website that you posted, thereby saving the reader a couple of hours worth of time.</p>
<p>But it’s completely arbitrary to decide how to combine the S and R rankings (are you averaging the ranges and then average S and R?). And the S and R rankings are separate for a reason. Why not just let them decide whether they want to combine them?</p>
<p>It takes a few seconds to click on the link and a few more to click on the S-rank or the R-rank. Not a few hours (who would want to go through every ranking? the OP, and everyone else, are generally interested in their own disciplines, not every single one)</p>
<p>Either way, in the end, it’s disingenuous to call your personalized rankings the “NRC rankings.”</p>
<p>Hate to burst your bubble, but according to the ABET, Cornell University doesn’t offer an Aerospace Engineering degree. Are they wrong?</p>
<p>Duke is close to beaches and mountains?</p>
<p>Princeton is under an hour from the Jersey shore and Pocono mountains.</p>
<p>"Novi, can you try to be more helpful and not so snide. "</p>
<p>I’m just trying to emulate you UCB. 
In the meantime, I don’t think that there is any question that Princeton is the better choice for overall engineering.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, they are wrong.</p>
<p>[Sibley</a> School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell](<a href=“http://www.mae.cornell.edu/][b]Sibley”>http://www.mae.cornell.edu/)</p>
<p>[Aerospace</a> Degrees at Cornell](<a href=“http://www.gradschool.cornell.edu/fields.php?a=1&id=20][b]Aerospace”>http://www.gradschool.cornell.edu/fields.php?a=1&id=20)</p>
<p>“That’s too bad. There are better schools for engineering.”</p>
<p>Exactly. Too bad you didn’t study a little harder in high school so you could have gotten into a decent school that you aren’t embarrassed to tell your friends and family about.</p>
<p>I think there will be more people from New Jersey at Duke than at Princeton. So I’d pick Princeton.</p>