<p>I was doing some research and this interesting question came up. Is engineering at large, traditional, state schools (Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin) or prestigious private nontraditional engineering programs (Cornell, UPenn, Duke) stronger?</p>
<p>Each side has specific pros and cons, but which side would be a better option overall. Key factors include education, research, opportunities?</p>
<p>It’s just different. The big publics will place equally well in traditional engineering jobs (think NASA, Raytheon, etc.). UPenn and Duke on the other hand send a large portion of their class into consulting and finance every year. They also have better law school and medical school placement.</p>
<p>^ excellent answer … I’d also add while the courses covered will be very similar across engineering programs I’d think the educational experience at MIT versus UMass-Amherst (my kid’s state flagship) in the “same course” might be quite different. The other thing I’d add is if you believe you’d like to stay local after you graduate recruiting for local firms might be stronger/easier at the local state U for local jobs. I once worked at a Fortune 100 company that only posted/searched (no ads beyound Boston; no travel budget) for local candiates for about 99% of open entry level positions … they would consider people out of town but the folks from out of town would have to find the job themselves and pay their own way to interviews.</p>
<p>I think large engineering schools provide a different social experience than prestigious private engineering universities. They are less cutthroat in my opinion. There are also a broader range of classes that engineering students can take outside of engineering for electives that might not be offered at smaller private engineering schools such as MIT or Caltech. At Michigan there is the undergraduate research opportunity program that many freshman and sophomores participate in. Michigan spends about $1.14 Billion in research so you can’t go wrong in terms of research opportunities at Michigan. Wisconsin and Berkeley also have large research expenditures and options that are available for undergraduates. As far as opportunities, many Marketing and consulting companies place Michigan as one of the elite universities for recruitment. Microsoft, Google, and other companies also recruit heavily at Michigan.</p>
<p>You can’t go wrong with top public engineering universities such as Michigan, Berkeley, UIUC and Georgia Tech. Private Universities such as Duke, Cornell and UPenn are also great options if you can get in.</p>
<p>Cornell is considerably better than Duke or UPenn in engineering.</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that among the “prestigious private” schools, there are research universities (MIT, Cornell, Case Western) and there are a few schools more like the size of liberal arts colleges (Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech, Swarthmore, Rose Hulman). The educational experience at the latter group can be more teaching-focused than at a research university.</p>
<p>So basically, going to a large state university is just as good as a prestigious private university for engineering. State schools have their fair share of job opportunities and research programs that private schools have. But at the end of the day, would you really pick a school like Michigan or Wisconsin over Cornell or Duke? Even though those state schools are ranked higher, how can you turn down those prestigious schools?</p>
<p>^^^You are just assuming that Duke is as good as Cornell in overall engineering. Cornell is an elite engineering program while Duke is not.</p>
<p>Ok, sorry. Cornell is a much stronger engineering program than Duke.</p>
<p>Are there any other elite engineering programs at private universities other than Cornell, CalTech, and MIT? (not including non-doctorate schools)
Would you say these 3 universities are better than engineering programs at large, public schools?</p>
<p>Stanford, CMU, and perhaps Princeton have programs that are regarded very highly.</p>
<p>Again, better is difficult to quantify. They are vastly different programs with different goals, so it’s about fit. At the end of the day, successful students of any of the programs are going to have very similar opportunities upon graduation.</p>
<p>Prestigious in terms of what? Duke Engineering is not more prestigious than let’s say Michigan. Also the problem is getting into those more “prestigious” schools. Public schools are easier to get into and in some ways provide the same or better engineering education and resources than some private universities.</p>
<p>Would you say engineering education at Cornell would exceed the engineering education at Georgia Tech? Where does a school like Northwestern fit into all of this?</p>
<p>^Northwestern has great programs in engineering sciences/applied math, biomedical (top-15), civil (top-15, top in transportation), mechanical (top-15), industrial/management sciences (top-5), and material sciences (top-3). </p>
<p>It has one of the most established co-op programs in the country. 30% of the undergrads participate in co-op. That percnetage doesn’t include those that pursue internships (they are two different things).
[Programs</a> Overview: McCormick Office of Career Development: McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University](<a href=“Programs Overview | Engineering Career Development | Northwestern Engineering”>Programs Overview | Engineering Career Development | Northwestern Engineering)</p>
<p>The program is more hands-on than most others with a unique first-year curriculum.
[Engineering</a> First ® Program: McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern](<a href=“Undergraduate Study | Academics | Northwestern Engineering”>Undergraduate Study | Academics | Northwestern Engineering)</p>
<p>How would you compare Northwestern and Cornell for chemical engineering?</p>
<p>^I forgot to put chemical engineering. NU is strong in that too. They are ranked about the same. So without knowing more specifics, I’d assume they are comparable.</p>
<p>Princeton and Cornell have the best engineering program among the Ivies. Again neal, don’t listen to rjkofnovi and get this notion of a “prestigious engineering program” out of your head. Outside of Stanford and MIT and possibly Caltech, most engineering firms recruit out of a wide range of schools including Northwestern, Duke, Columbia as well as Michigan, IUIC and Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>rjkofnovi likes to rip on Duke for some reason but that school has many successful engineering alumni. Peter Nicholas (Boston Scientific), William Hawkins (Medtronic), Pfizer (Edmund Pratt), John Chambers (Cisco Systems) and Microsoft (Scott Guthrie) are all alumni who are in senior leadership positions or CEOs in their respective companies. The acting CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, also got his MBA from Duke. Clearly Duke is respected in the corporate engineering world.</p>
<p>Michigan, Cal, UIUC and Georgia Tech are superior to Duke and Columbia in terms of Engineering. Please stop trying to put them on the same level. More companies recruit at Michigan, Cal and other prestigious engineering schools than Columbia or Duke. Northwestern, Princeton, MIT, Caltech and Cornell are excellent private engineering universities.</p>
<p>Duke is certainly respected in corporate America.</p>
<p>We can start talking about Michigan alumni, but I will not get into that.</p>
<p>Where do non-doctorate engineering colleges like Rose-Hulman and Harvey Mudd place in comparison to the public and private colleges?</p>
<p>
You do realize Michigan and Cal have much, much larger engineering programs than those two private schools right? Also, Columbia and Duke engineers can get lucrative banking jobs that engineers of those two public schools simply can’t get a crack at. So, I would hope that more companies come to Michigan and Cal for their students’ sake.</p>
<p>
Harvey Mudd grads make more than graduates of any other school in the country according to Payscale so no you can’t really go wrong with a Harvey Mudd degree.</p>
<p>So would you personally take an engineering degree from Cornell or Georgia Tech?</p>