The purpose of another useful ranking system is to show Emory scores higher than many U’s ranked ahead of it in the USNWR when quality and financial measures are used. Since Emory has more money than many of these U’s and the USNWR favor wealthy U’s there is no reason Emory can’t move into the to 8-15 in the USNWR. But it will not be easy.
8-15 is kind of not in forseeable future (15-20…maybe) even with incoming stat padding…and that kiplinger ranking is heavily influenced by financial aid given which Emory honestly is great at but not comparatively great vs. other schools such as Vandy in its tier. It kind of has to pay to play and so far is really only using merit aid (maybe instead of need-based (Emory Advantage was great when it just rolled out but now financial aid programs elsewhere is more competitive). I think Kiplinger also does things like ROI (return on investment) which accounts for start and mid-salary in which case there are many schools, even those below it where students make more and can more quickly pay off any dept even though it is higher. The same could be said for some of the schools between 1 and 5. I don’t consider Kiplinger much of a quality metric thing, but cheap back patting is nice sometimes I guess.
Vault has the ranking system I like.
Emory will not be a top 15 school until it gets, at the very least, an engineering school. It’s that simple. No need to overthink this.
@aluminum_boat @bernie12 I always wondered why Emory does not have an engineering department at all. Is it some political reason with GA tech or whatsup with that?
@thecoolboy1234 : Not political as even UGA got one despite it being opposed by many. However, with Wagner and the close ties he’s established to Tech and its president, it would be awkward to become a competitor that currently shares graduate programs (particularly BME).
And yes, partly it’s because of this current mantra (which always existed) of “don’t do or improve things that we aren’t good at yet, especially if there are those in close proximity who do indeed do such things well”. However, even Chicago has let that go to some extent. Emory should look into what Chicago has done and choose an area of engineering that it can do well and introduce a program for it. I think an undergrad. BME or bioengineering wouldn’t be horrible, but I’m guessing we would have to strengthen math and physics, though other schools not particularly strong in those areas for UG education seem not to have a problem (if the non-engineering support departments don’t train students at the proper level, they just make sure that they do it).
If Emory had an engineering school, it would likely help begin to pick up the slack on SAT/ACT scores as well. Many other elite public and privates use (excuse me, I mean, it just so happens that…) their engineering school to cherrypick super high scorers (and it is somewhat justified as, even at schools that I don’t think have particularly good and/or underwhelming non-engineering STEM programs, the engineering courses are very rigorous and indeed match the caliber of the students. Part of that is because ABET sets a decently high bar for a baseline). Given the trend of higher scoring STEM students to aim for engineering or physical sciences, I’m honestly surprised it took Georgia Tech so long to pass Emory’s score range (happened maybe 3 years ago I think). However, I imagine if they went over to common app. sooner, that’s exactly what would have happened.
Also, besides the strategic advantage, I think it brings a different perspective of problem solving and types of problem solvers to campus that could fit well with this movement toward entrepreneurialism and reinvigoration of creativity and arts (while some think of engineering as a very technical, cut and dry thing, there are also lots of inventors and creative problem solvers, perhaps more so than say…most of the traditional pre-health STEM folks Emory has had). It need not be portrayed as this discipline that goes against liberal arts values(an argument commonly made against engineering by some faculty at large, not necessarily at Emory). Plus that makes no sense as it already has a business school.
I don’t know for sure.
Here’s my guess:
In order to convince the board, media, influential alumni, etc. that it’s worth it to dump tens of millions of dollars into an engineering department that will go head-to-head with GTech, the university needs to prove it will succeed and then convince everyone involved (potential students, alumni, etc) to agree with their vision. If it doesn’t, heads will roll. And very few people are brave enough to risk putting their heads under the guillotine when they can keep creating cop-out programs that are kinda-but-not-really engineering like the whatever-they-have-right-now. @bernie12, do you remember the name? I forgot.
It’s easy to follow the norm - build nicer college dorms, revamp the pre-existing buildings, get a new food court, get more professors.
It’s tough to do something revolutionary - open up a brand new core department to compete with GTech.
Having worked in corporate America for a while now, I realize that this general concept is applicable to pretty much anything.
Of course, that’s just pure speculation… Maybe Emory has an agreement with GT where the two schools share resources on that one condition.
shrug
Barring the university getting a major donation for the purpose of starting an engineering school, I doubt it will happen anytime soon. The school itself doing it would be risking breaking political ties with GT (in addition to everything else I’ve said earlier). I have no doubt there are a lot of favors earned and given going on among university leaders (nothing illegal, but still… favors).
Absolutely. Computers are the future. It’s well known on CC that I feel like anyone currently in college or younger needs to know as much about computers as they can simply because, regardless of what you do, computers will make your job more efficient and easier.
Most private schools don’t even do full out engineering (as in they don’t try every program under the sun). It is called choose some choice areas and get a building for it. In the midst of building, start recruiting faculty. Most private schools aren’t even particularly amazing at it in comparison to the best engineering schools. It just needs to be relatively good and merely an option for students.