Engineering at Ivy League schools?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I heard with exception of Cornell and Princeton, all ivies have comparatively poor engineering schools (that is, compared to the quality and prestiege of their arts&science college). Specifically, I'm referring to Columbia and Penn;</p>

<p>Then is it solely the name value (and of course, the school environment, weather, and climate) that applicants choose to go to ivies over other engineering schools like UIUC or CMU?</p>

<p>How are ivies (Penn/Columbia to be specific) viewed or ranked as an engineering school? Thanks.</p>

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<p>I know Columbia and Cornell have good engineering schools. It's seperate and everything. I don't know about the others.</p>

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<p>Cornell and Princeton are really the only top 10 Ivy engineering schools. Most ivy students never actually become engineers, its my experience that a great majority get seduced by the better career options in business.</p>

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<p>
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Most ivy students never actually become engineers, its my experience that a great majority get seduced by the better career options in business.

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<p>And the same is true of many engineers coming out of bonafide excellent engineering programs such as MIT, Stanford and Berkeley.</p>

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Then is it solely the name value (and of course, the school environment, weather, and climate) that applicants choose to go to ivies over other engineering schools like UIUC or CMU?

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<p>It also has a lot to do with safety. The truth is, a lot of students don't really know what they want to major in, and therefore want to go to a school with an extremely wide set of choices. Keep in mind that well over half of all students who come in intending to major in engineering will not get an engineering degree, either because they switch out or because they flunk out. </p>

<p>It takes a big commitment to choose UIUC and turn down, say, Harvard, for the engineering. After all, what if you find out once you get there that you don't want to study engineering anymore? You're probably wishing that you could go back in time and matriculate at Harvard instead.</p>

5

<p>Penn Engineering has the sixth-ranked undergraduate bioengineering program in the country according to USNews, if that helps at all in answering your original question. </p>

<p>Penn Engineering definitely has an unfavorable reputation, but as more people realize this, they're looking past and disregarding public opinion (this year saw a record in the number of ED apps to Penn SEAS).
Be assured that it does just fine in terms of recruiting and employment opportunities (as any Ivy League school does), comparable to any other top engineering university.
I, for one, chose Penn Engineering because I want to study both business and engineering; I felt that Penn gave me the best options to pursue both fields simultaneously without losing much in either (Wharton, SEAS dual degrees; the M&T program). It's great for people who don't want a career in engineering, but want the solid technical background that an engineering degree provides.</p>

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<p>Yeah...Penn isn't too strong in the engineering department. It's great in just about everything else, though!</p>

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<p>Although both Columbia and Penn are ranked 27th among doctoral engineering programs, my impression is that Columbia's engineering program is a little stronger. If relative program size matters, the annual proportion of engineering bachelors graduates at Cornell, Columbia, and Princeton is about 16-18% while at Penn the proportion is about 9%. In raw numbers, Cornell=614 grads, Penn=267 grads, Columbia=276 grads, Princeton=190 grads. The numbers at Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth are about 50, roughly.</p>

<p>Columbia and Penn are ranked higher than some excellent engineering schools such as USC, Case Western, Lehigh. Don't underestimate the quality of Penn's and Columbia's engineering. Several Ivies are rated quite highly at the graduate (PhD) level in terms of educational effectiveness and faculty quality by the NRC data. Columbia is stronger than Penn in EE and Penn is a bit stronger in ME. Both Columbia and Penn have excellent programs for studying the economic/business aspects of engineering.</p>

<p>Yes, there is overlap between engineering and business but most engineering students love math and science and the nature of engineering. The business world has little or no appeal to scientists. Science and business are very different cultures and require different personalities. </p>

<p>sakky-
About your statement that 50% of engineering students transfer out or flunk out...that is probably true overall but not at top-tier schools. The percent of students who start out in engineering and graduate from engineering might be even lower than 50% at second-tier schools like WPI, Northeastern, RIT, and Drexel. But, at Cornell, for example, about 87-88% of the freshmen who start in engineering, graduate from engineering. It is probably similar at other top-tier engineering schools. At Caltech, where engineering and science are virtually the only options, the graduation rate is in the 88% range I think.</p>

<p>Why choose an Ivy for engineering over places like Berkeley, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia Tech, and Carnegie Mellon? I don't think there is a lot of difference in terms of faculty quality. The Ivies might have the edge in student quality. The public ivies might have an edge in resources. I think the most important Ivy advantages are academic culture, campus climate, prestige, overall student satisfaction and pride, attention from faculty, student support, research opportunities...things like that. </p>

<p>slipper- Overall, engineering offers better career options than business. The starting salaries for engineers are roughly 50% higher than for accounting and advertising, overall. True, some very bright, top engineering students are lured away from engineering by high salaries but not many percentage-wise. Cornell sends its share of engineering grads to med schools, law schools, and MBA programs but the large majority go into the workforce as engineers or go the grad school for engineering.</p>

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<p>Another reason some students may choose an engineering program in the Ivy league:Quality and breadth of course offerings available besides engineering.</p>

<p>Do you want your. e.g, history elective course to be a "gut", relatively speaking, so you can concentrate on engineering? Or do you want to be truly challenged in that course, in a room full of very smart potential pre-law or pre-phd students who really care about learning and/or doing well in history. </p>

<p>Those students who truly value the liberal arts might choose a school with strong liberal arts over a pure tech school. And the schools in the Ivy League have strong liberal arts programs. I should point out that other colleges that do not play sports in the Ivy league also meet this criteria though.</p>

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<p>Collegehelp, no engineers go into advertising or accounting. In fact very few Ivy students do, thats not a fair comparison. They can choose between engineering and banking/ consulting and a large majority from most Ivies fo the second route. Most engineering salaries cap out at about $150-200K unless the engineer goes into management, whereas in banking capping out at $1 M annually is common and many partner consultants make about $500-700K a year, some make more.</p>

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<p>slipper-
according to an article last month in the Financial Times about MBA grads:</p>

<p>"And at the top three schools, Wharton, Harvard and Stanford, alumni today in their early thirties earn on average in excess of $150,000."</p>

<p>So how common are the million-dollar salaries in banking and consulting?</p>

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<p>"And at the top three schools, Wharton, Harvard and Stanford, alumni today in their early thirties earn on average in excess of $150,000."</p>

<p>About the same as a high school dropout multilevel marketer. ;) (Figure the cost of four years undergrad at $45k/year, and 3 years of graduate school at $50k/year; compound for 17 years from ages 18-24 to age 35, add in income earned during that period, and all of a sudden "education" does not look like such a sound investmest.</p>

12

<p>Pretty common, the mean income 10 years out from Columbia MBA is $586,740. The mean 20 years out is "well over a million" according to the Dean of the school, Glenn Hubbard.</p>

<p>The average out of Harvard this year was $174,000. Most of my banking friends after bonus will make about 225-250K. I had two consulting offers in excess of $135K. I am 25. And its not about the first year out, these jobs have annual salary increases over 30%. </p>

<p>Most first year Ivy banking and consulting analysts are making between 60-85K, more than their engineering comrades. And the gap only increases exponentially. I have a friend who graduated in my class from Dartmouth (2002) in sales and trading who walked home with a 350K bonus on top of his 95K base salary. Try that in engineering.</p>

<p>Now the caveat: I didn;t take those consulting offers, I have signed up for a media job making $100K a year because I don't want to work more than 40-50 hours a week and I like the lifestyle and the industry. I think banking and consulting is soul-less and its a hard life. But arguing it doesn't pay is ridiculous.</p>

<p>I live in this world. I know what it pays.</p>

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<p>thanks for the replies. It is greatly helpful.</p>

<p>pennorbust: can students in Penn engineering take courses at Wharton? or does this strictly apply to those accepted for Jerome Fisher program. btw, congrats on your acceptance; its by far one of the most selective programs to get into.</p>

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<p>Penn engineering (or Penn CAS) students can take an unlimited number of courses from Wharton, but only a few of them will count towards graduation and you cannot get a degree from Wharton unless you're accepted there as your second degree (ie. the dual degree process, which is very competitive). </p>

<p>Penn Engineering is actually very good if you're looking into business with an engineering background. Other than Microsoft, IBM and Lockheed, the recruiters offering the most jobs to Penn Engineering graduates are almost all Ibanks and consulting firms.</p>

15

<p>An older topic. Perhaps better in another area, but I may as well post my question here:</p>

<p>If I intend (for now) to go into IP law, it's not as crucial to get an engineering degree from Cal, MIT, etc., right? I was always under the impression that for purposes such as those, even the lower engineering-ranked Ivies were fine.</p>

16

<p>
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About your statement that 50% of engineering students transfer out or flunk out...that is probably true overall but not at top-tier schools. The percent of students who start out in engineering and graduate from engineering might be even lower than 50% at second-tier schools like WPI, Northeastern, RIT, and Drexel. But, at Cornell, for example, about 87-88% of the freshmen who start in engineering, graduate from engineering. It is probably similar at other top-tier engineering schools. At Caltech, where engineering and science are virtually the only options, the graduation rate is in the 88% range I think.

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<p>But the point still stands - that even at the top schools, plenty of students who think they want to do engineering will end up majoring in something else anyway. That's why it's beneficial to be at a school that offers you a wide range of options. What you are saying is true - that the students at the higher-ranked engineering schools tend to complete engineering degrees at a higher probability than those a lower-ranked schools, but it is still true that even at the top schools, plenty of people who think they will be engineers end up in something else. Hence, even the top schools exhibit some level of engineering attrition. </p>

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[quote]
slipper- Overall, engineering offers better career options than business. The starting salaries for engineers are roughly 50% higher than for accounting and advertising, overall. True, some very bright, top engineering students are lured away from engineering by high salaries but not many percentage-wise. Cornell sends its share of engineering grads to med schools, law schools, and MBA programs but the large majority go into the workforce as engineers or go the grad school for engineering

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<p>But that's not a fair comparison, as slipper said. In his case, he was not talking about ALL engineering grads. I completely agree that if you get an engineering degree from New Mexico Tech with a 2.0 GPA, you're not going to get any lucrative banking or consulting offers, and so getting an engineering job is clearly the best you can do - far better than the middling business-type jobs you might get.</p>

<p>But we're talking about Ivy/Ivy-caliber students here. And the truth of the matter is, these students really do have extensive opportunities to get into consulting and banking. </p>

<p>As a case in point, I think there is little disagree that MIT is the best engineering school in the country. But even at MIT, notice how many engineering students go to banking/consulting, as can be seen on p. 11-12 of the following pdf. I'm not talking about MIT Sloan undergrads, I'm not talking about econ undergrads, I'm talking about * engineers *. </p>

<p>For example, let just look at the course 6 undergrads (the EECS students). I see employers like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan, Boston Consulting Group, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and others. If I look at the chemical engineers (course 10), I see JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, BNP Paribas, PA Consulting, and the Hudson River Group. If I look at Aeronautics (course 16), I see Monitor, McKinsey, Credit Suisse, Booz Allen Hamilton, and others. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Furthermore, that pdf doesn't even capture the full dynamic of who actually WANTS to get a banking/consulting job (as opposed to who actually gets one). Anecdotally speaking, I would estimate that for every one person who gets a banking/consulting offer, another person wanted to get an offer, but was unsuccessful. Hence, you have to effectively DOUBLE the number of people who are going to banking/consulting to factor in how many people WANTED to get into banking/consulting. </p>

<p>In fact, I know a fairly substantial number of MIT engineering students who are taking engineering jobs who freely admit that that's not really their first choice - that they'd rather be going to consulting/banking, but didn't get an offer, so they have no choice but to work as an engineer as a backup. But I have never heard of the reverse - that an MIT engineering student couldn't get an engineering offer, so he has 'no choice' but to take a banking/consulting job as a backup. In fact, in general, if somebody has a banking/consulting offer and an engineering offer, he will usually take the banking/consulting offer. The only notable exceptions that I have witnessed are the engineering jobs at Google - I have seen people turn down top banking/consulting jobs to work at Google. But that's the only one I know of where an engineering company can consistently win over banking/consulting. </p>

<p>But the point is, it all gets down to available options. The truth is, the vast majority of engineering students out there are graduating from no-name, low- tier schools, so they don't even have the choice of getting into consulting/banking. And clearly most regular business jobs out there, which these guys could get, are low-paying and dead-end. So, sure, under those circumstances, I agree with you that engineering clearly wins. Given the choice of working as an engineer or taking a regular business job, engineering wins out because it's the best of your available options. That's not in dispute. But when we're talking about Ivy-caliber students, things change dramatically, and consulting/banking are now viable options.</p>

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<p>
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If I intend (for now) to go into IP law, it's not as crucial to get an engineering degree from Cal, MIT, etc., right? I was always under the impression that for purposes such as those, even the lower engineering-ranked Ivies were fine.

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<p>It might help for branding/marketing purposes. For example, if you start your own IP law firm one day, you can market yourself as a former Cal/MIT/whatever engineer who is now a lawyer. And it might also marginally help you get your first job as an IP lawyer right out of law school.</p>

<p>But other than that, it matters little. Your job prospects would be determined mostly by the strength of your law school and your performance in that law school. Even if you graduate from a no-name 4th tier engineering school, if you get into and do well at a strong law school, your prospects for an IP career are good.</p>

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<p>a good quarter of engineering majors at Michigan will work in finance or consulting. another quarter will take engineering leadership development type of positions. </p>

<p>Just a regular engineering job is seriously not very enticing unless u have no other option. they are mostly in remote areas, pay increase opportunities are low, and hours ain't that great either.</p>

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<p>"Just a regular engineering job is seriously not very enticing unless u have no other option. they are mostly in remote areas, pay increase opportunities are low, and hours ain't that great either."</p>

<p>As an MIT grad with 25 years in a purely technical engineering position, I find this statement....well, at best misinformed and at worst offensive.</p>

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<p>Purdue beats all the other Ivies in Engineering except Cornell....and Purdue is relatively MUCH easier to get into.</p>